The Psychology Of Susan Hill's The Woman In Black

The Psychology of The Woman in Black
Exploring within the depths of the afterlife, some might disagree with the existence of a life after death; until they have experienced it first-hand. The Woman in Black is a chilling ghost story written by author Susan Hill, to which the main character, Arthur Kipps expresses his horrors within the Eel Marsh House. The novel begins on Christmas Eve with Arthur and his family gathered around telling ghost stories when Arthur is suddenly too disturbed and bothered to tell his story out loud; so he decides to write it down. Thus, Arthur begins his story of his past young self, a solicitor, on his journey of settling the affairs of deceased, Alice Drablow. At her funeral, he catches sight of a peculiar woman dressed in all black; and to his curiosity, no one else seems to notice her. When he asks about her, Mr. Jerome, Keckwick, and Mr. Bentley, all fall silent as if they are trying to repress and hide something deep down. Arthur is

As Arthur described, “There was something in the air that night… That my peace of mind was about to be disturbed, and memories awakened that I had thought forever dead, I had, naturally no idea” (Hill 9-10). Thus, producing the first clue of memory repression from Freud’s theory of repressed memory. As he shows his anguish of not wanting to and almost refusal of telling his story, begins the denial aspect; he is in denial that this ever happened. He is showing memory repression by having to “awaken” and dig up his godforsaken and horrid memories of what occurred to him in the Eel Marsh House and Jennet Drablow’s doings. Arthur does not at first remember all that happened, and he does not want to remember the traumatizing experience. However, with time he digs it up deep from the bowels of his unconscious to which has been repressed and hidden for such a long