Wilkie Collins's Blue Period
Color, Aesthetics, and Race in Poor Miss Finch
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12411688 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jessica Durgan (Bemidji State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 765-783 |
| Publication date | 2015-08-05 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Victorian Literature and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1060-1503 • E-ISSN: 1470-1553 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s106015031500025x |
| OpenAlex | W2343207572 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 13 |
Although subtitled “A Domestic Story,” Wilkie Collins's Poor Miss Finch (1872) offers a sensational plot bursting with secrets and mistaken identities. Many of the novel's plot twists and turns center on the transformation of the hero, Oscar Dubourg, from a wealthy white Englishman into a dark blue “Other” when he is treated with nitrate of silver after a serious head injury. While Oscar's medication cures him of his seizures, it also causes agryria, a skin discoloration, which turns him permanently dark blue. The hero's experience of this traumatic side effect is exacerbated by the reaction of his blind fiancée Lucilla, the title's “Poor Miss Finch.” In the novel, Lucilla's blindness leads her to distort visual concepts such as light and color in her imagination, resulting in her desperate fear of dark colors. The novel's central conflict arises when Oscar engages the help of Lucilla's companion Madame Pratolungo in hiding his new dark skin color from the blind heroine. Complicating this situation further is the arrival of Oscar's identical (but still white) twin Nugent, who deviously schemes to elope with the beautiful Lucilla by impersonating his brother
Art · Art history · Blindness · Colored · Finch · HERO · Literature · Plot (graphics · Sociology · White (mutation · Australian History and Society · Chemistry · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Medicine · Travel Writing and Literature · Optometry
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |