THE WOMAN IN BLACK THEMES
Little Words, Big Ideas

Betrayal
Sure, we'll buy that Jennet was betrayed. Her sister forcibly took away her only child and then allowed—at least from Jennet's perspective—him to die in a horrible accident. Way to take care of...

Isolation
Since The Woman in Black is more or less set in the middle of nowhere among bogs and fogs, it makes sense that a lot of the book is basically a how-to guide on being scared and alone. In the book,...

Revenge
To Jennet, revenge is a dish best served cold... or hot, or on the side, or fried up in a tasty hash, or pretty much any way she can get it. What we're saying is that this chick likes revenge. Even...

Fear
Talk about Fright Nights. This is one haunted house that even thrill-seekers are going to want to avoid. The Woman in Black is interested in a lot of things—nature, the Sublime, revenge—but it'...

Appearances
This isn't one of those horror stories where things aren't always what they seem, and Jennet is no disembodied ghost going bump in the night. She's fully embodied, with eyes, clothes, and skin—ev...

Memory and the Past
The Woman in Black is one long trip down memory lane, but it's not the memory lane that happens to be lined with rose bushes and chirping birds and lazy afternoons at the beach. It's more a memory...

The Supernatural
What's more supernatural than ghosts and phantom noises and self-rocking chairs? The Woman in Black is chock-full of creepy, inexplicable details that point to one thing: the existence of ghosts. A...

Madness
We can come up with a word or two for Jennet Humfrye, but "sane" isn't one of them. In The Woman In Black, her anger and despair actually make her go crazy—so crazy that she wants to destroy ever...

Man and the Natural World
Good old Mother Nature plays a huge role in The Woman in Black. The crazy, murderous kind of mother, like Jennet. He may come from London, where everything is man-made and contained, but out in the...

Exploration
Even though Arthur is shaking in his boots throughout his whole miserable trip to Crythin Gifford and Eel Marsh House, he's still on a quest to find the truth. The Woman in Black gives us plenty of...

Themes
Quick revise
Fear
The most powerful theme in the novel is the individual fear of the unknown shown by Kipps and the collective fear of what is known (but not discussed) by the residents of Crythin Gifford and the surrounding area.
When Kipps first mentions his sighting of the ‘young woman with the wasted face’ to Mr Jerome at the funeral of Mrs Drablow, there is a ‘silence so deep’ that he can hear his own pulse and see Mr Jerome’s inability to speak, later described as having a ‘sickly greyish pallor’ when discussing the sighting of the woman.
The fear that clearly grips and silences Mr Jerome also keeps Mr Keckwick silent about his role in the affairs that led to the death of the child on the causeway. Kipps himself is exposed to the terror caused by the unknown during the episode involving the rocking chair in the nursery. He is possessed by fear at the thought of what he will meet inside the room whose door has mysteriously opened and later is chilled by the cry of the child on the wind.
The ghost of Jennet Humfrye is the source of all the fear and repulsion in the novel, not only for her spectral presence but for her deliberate act leading to the death of Kipps’ wife and child – foreshadowed by the warning from Mr Daily that a child died whenever she appeared. Susan Hill has created a novel here that almost reeks of fear and is introduced by the narrator himself as a means for the ghost to be ‘driven’ from his memory, to lay to rest the past through a frank exposure of what had remained hidden for years – an attempt to live the rest of his life without the weight of fear.
Supernatural
Supernatural literally means beyond natural, so supernatural events cannot be explained by reason or scientific theory. Although, Kipps frequently tries to reassure himself that he, “Did not believe in ghosts What other rational explanation was there?” (pg. 79)
It is clear that Kipps transforms throughout the novel from someone who is sceptical of the supernatural to someone who clearly believes in ghosts. This is apparent when he sees the Woman in Black for the second time and hears the tragic sounds of the Pony and the trap, “That the woman by the graves had been ghostly I now – not believed, no – knew, for certainty lay deep within me.” (pg. 97)
Revenge
When Kipps sees the Woman in Black for the second time at Eel Marsh House he recognises in her expression that she is vengeful and wants to inflict harm on others, “What I saw – as a desperate, yearning malevolence.”
He later goes on to describe her as, “A poor, crazed, troubled woman, dead of grief and distress, filled with hatred and desire for revenge.” (pg. 75)
Kipps is sympathetic to the ghost of Jennet Humfrye when he learns that her actions are the result of losing her child Nathaniel, first as he was adopted by her sister and secondly when he died in the accident involving the Pony and the trap. This is ironic has we learn at the end of the novel that the Woman in Black’s appearance foreshadowed the death of his wife Stella and their baby son.
Isolation and the Conspiracy of Silence
Kipps’ isolation and vulnerability at Eel Marsh House is emphasised by the descriptions of the surrounding nature, “when the tide came in, it would quickly be quite submerged and untraceable.” (pg. 68)
Moreover, many of the characters in The Woman in Black are part of a conspiracy of silence which further isolates Kipps as it is clear that they deliberately withhold information about the Woman in Black.
Mr Bentley, Keckwick, Jerome, The Landlord and Samuel Daily are all part of this conspiracy of silence.

What is the major theme of The Woman in Black by Susan Hill?
The 2012 film The Woman in Black is actually based on a novel with the same title, written by Susan Hill in 1982. The novel is a straightforward ghost story, concerning a lawyer who attends to the affairs of a recently-deceased woman and is haunted by a mysterious ghost.
Throughout the book, the overriding theme is vengeance. The ghost is that of the dead woman's sister, who had her son taken from her because she was not married at the time of birth. While becoming close to her son, who never knew that she was the real mother, she witnessed his death in a carriage that fell into a marsh. Her trauma at his death led to her own, and then she returned to haunt the village. According to legend, her appearance heralded the coming death of another child; at the end of the book, when the lawyer is riding in a carriage with his wife and son, she causes the horse to panic and the lawyer's wife and son are killed.
Her need for revenge is past the point of specification; the lawyer was never involved with her affairs, or with her family except to close her sister's files. Instead, she is a creature of mindless revenge, with only one goal, and no care as to who suffers. It is suggested that she has killed many children over the years, and that the follow her in the afterlife.