[Mother of Fears] A Mother Never Forgives in The Woman in Black (2012)

Welcome to Mother of Fears – a monthly column that will explore the various roles that mothers play within the horror genre. Mothers are a staple feature in horror movies, and yet, their stories, motivations, representations, and relationships with their children are so varied and complex that we never feel like we’re watching the same story twice. Every month I will take a look at a different mother from the world of horror, explore their story, and look at how they fit into the broader representation of women in horror.

In the remote village of Crythin Gifford, not everything is as it seems. The quaint location seems like it would be the perfect place to relax and enjoy the peace, but the residents of Crythin Gifford have reason to hold their children extra tightly and shield them from the horrors lurking in this slice of the English countryside. 

Nearby is Eel Marsh House, home of the recently deceased Alice Drablow. The villagers avoid the house where possible because local legend implies that visiting the house and laying eyes upon the Woman in Black causes her to creep into the village and claim the life of one of the local children. 

When widower lawyer Arthur Kipps shows up in Crythin Gifford to deal with Alice Drablow’s estate, he is met with hostility. They do not want an outsider getting involved in village business. They do not want anyone who doesn’t respect the legend of Eel Marsh House venturing out there and causing trouble. And most importantly, they don’t want anyone encountering the Woman in Black. 

Arthur, still suffering terribly from the loss of his wife Stella, and on the verge of losing his job, intends to throw himself into the task of sorting through Alice’s papers as quickly as possible so he can get back to his young son, Joseph. Met with hostility and unhelpfulness as soon as he sets foot in Crythin Gifford, Arthur is pretty happy to work in solitude in the cursed house that everyone else is so keen to avoid. However, once at Eel Marsh House, he soon finds out that local legend might be a little more real than he first suspected. 

As well as hearing the sounds of a screaming child and a ghostly carriage in the foggy surroundings of Eel Marsh House, Arthur thinks he spies someone else on the island. Upon returning to the village, he encounters Victoria, a young girl who has consumed lye, and dies as he desperately tries to help her. This is the breaking point for local residents, who believe that Arthur seeing the Woman in Black has caused her to return to the village and claim the life of another child. 

While Arthur doesn’t believe the connection between the two, he soon finds out that Crythin Gifford has serious bad luck when it comes to children dying. The pub’s owners lost all three of their young daughters when they jumped out the windows of their bedroom. And Samuel Daily, Arthur’s only friend in the village, lost his son to drowning. The village is full of parents either grieving their lost children or terrified of what will happen when the Woman in Black finally comes for them. Residents such as Mr Jerome have even turned to the extreme measure of locking their daughter away in the basement, hoping it will save her from the curse which plagues the village.

While digging through the papers of Eel Marsh House, Arthur discovers that Alice Drablow had a sister called Jennet. Alice and her husband had formally adopted Jennet’s son, Nathaniel, in order to provide what they believe is a better life for him, and have refused Jennet any access to her child due to her being accused of being mentally unfit to care for him. Faced with little choice, Jennet allowed her sister to take her son, believing that keeping him in the family would be easier, but Alice’s behaviour causes hate and resentment to build within Jennet. Jennet eventually convinces her sister to allow her to stay at Eel Marsh House with the rest of the family, but she is never allowed to reveal her true identity to her son.

The final straw comes when Alice and Nathaniel are involved in a carriage accident on the marsh, and Nathaniel drowns when the carriage is sucked into the mud as Jennet watches from the house’s window. Jennet accuses Alice of saving herself, and not caring about what happened to Nathaniel because she never really cared for him as though he were her real child. Alice doesn’t even bother to get Nathaniel’s body recovered from the marsh so he can be buried properly.

In her grief, Jennet decides to take her life in Eel Marsh House’s nursery, proclaiming that she will never forgive Alice for what she did to her and her child. Her vengeful spirit lingers in Eel Marsh House, wishing to be reunited with Nathaniel, and radiating hate for everything her sister put her through. And so, she decides that if she cannot have the life she desired with her son, then no one in Crythin Gifford deserves the kind of happiness she missed out on.

Having lost his wife, Arthur thinks he understands what Jennet is going through, and decides that if he can reunite mother and son together in death then maybe he can break the curse. He also worries that his own son has been marked as Jennet’s next victim, and wants to save him from this fate. Arthur risks his own life diving into the muddy marsh to retrieve Nathaniel’s body so he can bury mother and son together, hoping this will provide Jennet with the closure that she needs to forgive and forget. 

However, while it seems that Jennet has been pacified, Arthur has clearly underestimated how much rage and hate has built within her in the years before and after her death. She cannot forgive her sister for lying to her and stealing her son away from her. She cannot forget all those years she longed for contact, every birthday card she sent that was hidden away from Nathaniel, and every moment she missed. She despises her sister for allowing her son to die, and for choosing to save herself, something which Jennet knows she would have never done had she been in Alice’s position. And most of all, Jennet has been stuck, wandering Eel Marsh House alone, still hated by everyone around her, and still unable to reunite with Nathaniel.

So while Arthur may have done her the small favour of giving her back her son in death, nothing will wipe away all the betrayal that came before. No one helped Jennet when she was alive, even though everyone in the village seems to have been aware of what was going on at Eel Marsh House. Everyone involved allowed Jennet’s child to be forcibly taken away from her, and then they shunned Eel Marsh House as cursed, not recognising the part they themselves played in Jennet’s torment. 

Arthur heads to the train station, believing he has done what Jennet wanted and that the children of Crythin Gifford will be safe. However, Arthur assumes he knows Jennet and believes that he can grasp the extent of her grief after knowing about her and Nathanial for only a few short days. Rather than trying to communicate with Jennet, or fully understand the extent of her pain, he decides what would be a good course of action and sticks to it. 

It’s only when he is reunited with Joseph that Arthur realises how presumptuous and foolish he has been to think that one act of kindness would be enough to wipe away the many years of pain Jennet has suffered. When he realises that Joseph’s hand has slipped from his own, Arthur spots Jennet’s ghost on the other side of the train tracks. Realising there is nothing he could have done to break Jennet’s curse, Arthur tries to save his son from the oncoming train, but both father and son are hit and killed. 

In death, Arthur and Joseph are finally reunited with Stella, giving all three family members the peace they were so desperately looking for. And Jennet watches on as Arthur gets some version of a happy ending, while Jennet is left still suffering in the afterlife as she longs for everything she has lost. Even with her own son and the souls of all the children she has killed with her, Jennet will never be happy and never feel at peace. 

Even though Arthur and Joseph die, they seem to get a better ending than poor Jennet. She is unable to help herself in the afterlife and instead uses all her energy to make those around her suffer as she did. Jennet felt powerless in life, going along with what others forced upon her. Now it seems she won’t be satisfied until she makes everyone feel the pain she felt, taking away their power to keep their children safe and leaving the whole village of Crythin Gifford wallowing in despair along with her.

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---