AQA (A): NEA recommended text (The Woman in White)
The production and reception of crime stories — real and imagined — says much about how we view the darker side of life. With millions devouring true-crime podcasts, documentaries and films every day, the ethics of this cultural obsession are under scrutiny. Of course, writers of fiction have always appropriated, commodified and commercialised such stories, and this article compares some of the narrative tropes and strategies used in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White (1859–60) with contemporary and modern media representations of true crime. Then as now, the public appetite for personal tragedy was vast. Sensation novels, penny dreadfuls, historical treatises, podcasts and television series are valuable zeitgeist texts that shed light on the times in which they were produced.
Your organisation does not have access to this article.
Sign up today to give your students the edge they need to achieve their best grades with subject expertise
Subscribe
