Clasping Onto The Superior

     The Harper’s Weekly version of Chapter VI opens with a broad picture spanning the bottom right half of the page, portraying Miss Clack in a needy light, clinging onto Godfrey in a childlike fashion. In stark contradiction to her narrative, one views in plain fashion the caption at the bottom of the image “I don’t think he put his arm round my waist to support me” (Harper’s Weekly 277) pushing forth a promiscuous narrative of Miss Clack. When brought into the context of religion, it manipulates Wilkie Collins narrative voice given to Miss Clack in a degrading fashion, serving to reinforce the inferiority of her religious ideals to what the reader views as a superior character Godfrey. The superiority of the non-religious Godfrey reinforced by the image of her clasping onto him longingly, influencing the readers interpretation of the text, as Harper’s Weekly serves to degrade the religious affiliations of Miss Clack.  

     When coupling this image of Miss Clack directly to the text, the undermining of her religious views only serves to be exponentiated, manipulating the narrative into a mocking fashion of Miss Clack's perspective. This humoring of Miss Clack's viewpoint occurs when she questions the dress of "being worthy a Christian Woman?" (Collins 241), when brought into the degrading nature of Harper's Weekly, embodies a humorous perspective instead of an honest question spoken by Miss Clack. The publications manipulation of the text through external means compromises Miss Clack's religious afifliations into a comedic standpoint, in oppositon to the legitimate nature interpreted across the Atlantic in All The Year Round.