Classic in style, it is a study of fear, atmosphere and the lasting damage of grief.
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill is a novel set for IGCSE and International GCSE Literature (OxfordAQA 9275). The board decides the set texts and the years they are examined, and your school confirms them. Our teachers teach whichever text your child sits.
What it is
On Christmas Eve, the older Arthur Kipps is asked to tell a ghost story and, haunted by his own, declines. He then writes down what happened in his youth. As a young solicitor, he travels to the remote town of Crythin Gifford to attend a funeral and sort the papers of Mrs Drablow, who lived in Eel Marsh House, cut off by a tidal causeway.
There he sees a woman in black whose appearance the locals dread. Mysterious sounds and a locked nursery draw him deeper into the house's history, and the revelation of its secret leads to tragedy. The frame returns at the end to show that the horror was never over.
Themes and ideas to track
Fear and the supernatural
Hill builds dread slowly through sound, setting and suggestion rather than shock. The fear is of what is half-seen and the grief that gives it power.
Grief, revenge and the past
The ghost's rage is born of loss and injustice. The story shows how unresolved sorrow can poison a place and those near it.
Isolation and nature
The marsh, fog and tide make the house a trap. Nature is a character in its own right, isolating Kipps and adding to his fear.
Rationality versus the unknown
Kipps begins as a sceptical young professional and is gradually forced to accept what he cannot explain. The novel questions the limits of reason.
How the writer builds it
Hill adopts the form of a Victorian-style ghost story, using a frame narrative in which the older Kipps reflects on his past. The first-person voice gives an air of testimony, while formal, rhythmic language evokes the period. She controls pace with careful use of sound and silence, and the setting is described in atmospheric detail.
Building tension through repeated glimpses, delayed explanation and a shocking ending, she shows how restraint can be more frightening than spectacle. Look at how weather, light and sound set mood.
Studying The Woman in Black? The paid trial lesson can start with a key moment from the text.
How to write about it in the exam
Choose scenes where suspense is built and explain exactly how: pace, sentence length, sound and sight, and what is withheld. Show how setting is shaped by language, with attention to weather, marsh and silence.
Discuss how the older narrator's retrospective view changes the story. Use brief quotations or references and analyse word choices closely, linking each to its effect on the reader.
An exam-style question to practise
How does Hill create tension and fear in the novel?
Plan three points before you write, with a short quotation for each. Then check your plan against the mark scheme section below.
More question angles
- Explore the ways Hill presents the setting of Eel Marsh House.
- How does Hill use the frame narrative to shape the reader's response?
- Discuss how Hill presents the theme of loss.
How this maps to the mark scheme
Examiners mark Literature answers against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards. For OxfordAQA 9275, the objectives are summarised on our qualification page.
- AO1: Understanding of, and engagement with, themes, ideas and contexts
- AO2: Analysis of how writers create meanings and effects
For The Woman in Black, build your argument around “Fear and the supernatural” and “Grief, revenge and the past”. Support each point with a short quotation. Then analyse the writer's method, using the section above.
Keep context about Susan Hill brief and tied to the words on the page.
Read the text alongside these notes. This page is our own analysis and original teaching material. We quote at most a short attributed phrase where a point needs it, so keep your copy of the novel open as you read.
Where to go next
Plan your essay with our guide to planning a literature essay, then see a worked answer in our literature essay structure model response. Browse more set-text notes or read about Literature in English tuition.
When you have written an answer on The Woman in Black, a paid one-hour trial lesson lets the teacher who would continue mark it with you.