Connotations 18.1-3 (2008/2009)

74
PHILIPP ERCHINGER
syntactical arrangement, assuming it as “a constitutive factor” of their
successive self-constitution (83) that proportionally enhances the
scope and intensifies the effect of their possible meanings as long as
they continue to be read, interpreted and discussed. Of course, this is
a general theorem that may be applied to all works of literary fiction.
But in The Woman in White, such perpetual propensity towards structural
instability complicating the regular or ‘lawful’ communication of
a single message is even represented on the level of the story. This is
evident in the lake episode that I have dealt with. But it also becomes
apparent in the delicate condition of Mr. Fairlie’s notorious “nerves”
whose “wretched state” makes them exceptionally sensitive to the
intrusion of noise or “loud sound of any kind” (33), threatening to
disturb the “deep silence” (32) of his thickly carpeted room in the
recess of Limmeridge House. It is significant that the seclusion and
stillness of Mr. Fairlie’s residence—a “large, lofty room with a magnificent
carved ceiling”—is highly reminiscent of a museum of art and
antiquities, a showroom of valuables, densely “occupied” with old
and luxurious objects, such as “a long book-case of some rare inlaid
wood,” “statuettes in marble,” “two antique cabinets” (31), “a picture
of the Virgin and Child” and several costly and ornate stands, “loaded
with figures in Dresden china, with rare vases, ivory ornaments, and
toys and curiosities that sparkled at all points with gold, silver, and
precious stones” (31-32). It is significant that the room is thus
“adorned” (31) because in this way it suggests itself to be read as a
metaphor of art and fiction, displaying a remarkable “structure of
double meaning” (Iser, “Fictionalizing” 965) that exists in two worlds
at the same time (cf. Lotman 96). 13 On the one hand, the ‘room’ of
fiction represents a constructed space of “profound seclusion” (32), a
non-natural reality that is just as separate from the real world as the
softly lit chamber of Mr. Fairlie—an effeminate ‘fairy’ man by name
and appearance—where “the windows were concealed and the
sunlight was tempered by large blinds” (32). On the other hand, the
exposed peculiarity and distinction of fictional literature, its obvious
lack of necessity as well as the ‘nervous’ shakiness of its truth claims,