Daily WiB

How does Hill present Daily in The Woman in Black?
Samuel Daily becomes an important character throughout The Woman in Black and turns out to be a light in the darkness for Kipps. Hill hints at this throughout the novel beginning firstly by the connotations of his name before continuing this further through the actions of the character and the settings which he appears in.
We first meet Samuel Daily in chapter 3, The Journey North. It is at this moment when Hill introduces us to the idea that Daily comes to be of an importance later in the novel. She does this by presenting Daily as a source of comfort for Kipps when he is alone on the train during his journey to Crythin Gifford. Daily is a “companion” to Kipps when the rain has “an unpleasant rain upon its breath”. The connotations of companion, such as someone brave that you can trust, start to build an idea of the character of Daily in the readers mind. This starts them speculating on the importance of this characteristic and foreshadows possible events that will test his steel. These connotations juxtapose with the negative, gloomy image that Hill gives us of Kipps’ train journey. By describing the wind as a breath it connotes the idea of a dragon enveloping Kipps. This gives the idea that Daily is physically protecting Kipps, which emphasises the connotations of “companion”, foreshadowing that Kipps will come to rely on Daily even more.
Hill builds the readers idea of Daily further solely by the use of his name, “Daily”. It gives the idea to the reader that Daily will come to be a character that Kipps will be able to rely upon, such as the connotations of the word are. This continues the foreshadowing from The Journey North that Kipps will come to rely on the strong character of Daily, and this is continued further still during The Funeral of Mrs Drablow, when Daily is referred to as “him” by a local land owner, which implies that he is well known by the people of Crythin Gifford as someone of power, as is often the case in other novels. By using this, Hill shows the reader that the foreshadowing of power from The Journey North is beginning to come true, which leads the reader to ponder what else could come to be true.
The courage Hill foreshadows comes true later in the novel when Daily rescues Kipps from Eel Marsh House. His use of “God-forsaken” to describe the place he has come, at a time period when people were typically strongly religious, emphasises how much of the companionship he showed to rescue Kipps. The fact that God himself would not dare go near the placed it is so haunted shows the courage that Daily had to show himself to come back and save Kipps, showing his character.
To conclude, Hill presents the character of Samuel Daily through a variety of different techniques. She first does this simply by his name, but later by how he relieves Kipps from the darkness of his train journey. Following this, he finally shows his character by rescuing Kipps from the “God-forsaken” Eel Marsh House after his haunting by the ghost of Jennet Humfrye.