The Woodlanders

Throughout The Woodlanders, characters describe illness in terms that suggest psychosomatic disorder. This disorder heavily links mind and body, to the extent that physical illness arises from mental factors. The anticipated return of Dr. Fitzpiers, for instance, causes Grace to experience “a feverish, nervous attack, the result of recent events” (226). This is exacerbated when she sees a hat of Dr. Fitzpiers’s that had been found in the woods. Likewise, Grammer Oliver’s illness becomes morbidly aggravated by awareness of her deal with Dr. Fitzpiers. The doctor gave her 10 pounds to dissect Grammer’s brain when she dies. Grammer’s fear also highlights a phenomenon which recurs throughout the novel; namely, it’s not only events and their impact on the characters’ psyches that cause illness but a related fear of illness and death itself. Mrs Charmond underscores this concept when she says, “Then, when my emotions have exhausted themselves, I become full of fears, till I think I shall die for very fear” (165).

However, in most of these cases the characters recover. Grace’s fleeing from her house to Giles’s cottage resolves her nervous illness. Grammer returns to health once the contract with Dr. Fitzpiers for her brain is torn up. And Mrs.