How does Susan Hill present the change in Arthur Kipps and what is the significance of this change?

The novel The Woman in Black written by Susan Hill is narrated by Arthur Kipps, the main protagonist, who throughout the story changes profoundly through his experiences of the woman in black. Structurally, starting with the older Kipps who looks back on his past and is able to comment on the events with the added benefit of hindsight, during which Susan Hill cleverly adds suspense by withholding information.

At the start of the novel in chapter 1 (Christmas Eve), the older Kipps is narrating and is a thoughtful and peaceful man who is content with his family. But reveals he has ‘escaped a long shadow’ cast over him by events of the past including his experiences of the woman in black re-awakening which gives an ominous atmosphere. When the children are telling their ghost stories, Kipps starts off ‘amused and indulgent’ but as he ‘sat on, he felt apart from them all, like an outsider to their circle’ and the ghost stories bring back ‘ a rising flood of memory’.
“You must know at least one ghost story, stepfather, everyone knows one…” (PG 16)
“I am sorry to disappoint you,”… “But I have no story to tell”
(PG 17)
This shows that through the first chapter Susan Hill has presented Arthur changing from a thoughtful and peaceful man to an odd/strange behavioral man who storms out when his stepchildren are trying to have some fun and tell made up ghost stories. This is because actually Arthur has a story to tell which is filled with haunting and evil.
From this point in the novel Kipps decides ‘to tell his story’ but rather than speak his story he would prefer to ‘set it down on paper’ because it was Arthur ‘alone that the ghost must be driven’. This structure of an older Kipps narrating gives the reader a way to see how much Arthur has been affected which is a retrospective 1st person narrative, there is also hints of terror but the reader is not told.

In chapter 2 (A London Particular) the older Kipps is still narrating, commenting on his younger self. The young Arthur Kipps was 23 years old who was adventurous, ambitious and passionate about work and life.
“But I was, in those days of my youth, a sturdy, commonsensical fellow, and I felt no uneasiness or apprehension whatsoever” (PG 23)
This description of young Arthur Kipps makes the older Kipps so much more aware of how hindsight and time can alter our perception of the past.
Kipps’ attitude to the task and Mr. Bentley’s description “The business was beginning to sound like something from a Victorian novel”
(PG 23)
This shows them both being as cynical as each other towards the company.