1848 novel by Anne Brontë
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the second and final novel written by English author Anne Brontë. It was first published in 1848 under the pseudonym Acton Bell. Probably the most shocking of the Brontës' novels, it had an instant and phenomenal success, but after Anne's death her sister Charlotte prevented its re-publication in England until 1854.
The novel is framed as a series of letters from Gilbert Markham to his friend about the events connected with his meeting a mysterious young widow, calling herself Helen Graham, who arrives with her young son and a servant to Wildfell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion which has been empty for many years. Contrary to the early 19th-century norms, she pursues an artist's career and makes an income by selling her pictures. Her strict seclusion soon gives rise to gossip in the neighbouring village and she becomes a social outcast. Ultimately she flees with her son, whom she desperately wishes to save from his father's influence. The depiction of marital strife and women's professional work is mitigated by the strong moral message of Anne Brontë's belief in universal salvation.
Most critics now consider "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" to be one of the first feminist novels. May Sinclair, in 1913, said that "the slamming of [Helen's] bedroom door against her husband reverberated throughout Victorian England". In leaving her husband and taking away their child, Helen violates not only social conventions but also early 19th-century English law.
Background and locations.
Some aspects of the life and character of the author's brother Branwell Brontë correspond to those of Arthur Huntingdon in "The Tenant". He resembles Branwell Brontë in three ways: physical good-looks; sexual adventures (before his affair with his employer's wife, Mrs Robinson, Branwell is thought to have fathered an illegitimate child who died at birth); and especially in his alcoholism. Another character in the novel, Lord Lowborough, has an association with opium that may also reflect Branwell's behaviour.
Another possible source for "The Tenant" is the story of Mrs Collins, the wife of a local curate, who in November 1840 came to Anne's father Patrick Brontë seeking advice regarding her alcoholic husband's abusive conduct. Mr Brontë's counsel was that she should leave her husband. Mrs Collins returned to Haworth in the spring of 1847, while Anne was writing "The Tenant", and told how she had managed to build a new life for herself and her two children.
The Brontë biographer Winifred Gérin believed that the original of Wildfell Hall was Ponden Hall, a farmhouse near Stanbury in West Yorkshire. Ponden shares certain architectural details with Wildfell, including latticed windows and a central portico with a date plaque above.
Blake Hall at Mirfield, where Anne had been employed as a governess, was suggested as the model for Grassdale Manor, Arthur Huntingdon's country seat, by Ellen Nussey, a friend of Charlotte Brontë, to Edward Morison Wimperis, an artist commissioned to illustrate the Brontë sisters' novels in 1872. However, neither Blake Hall nor Thorpe Green, another house where Anne was employed as a governess, corresponds exactly with Grassdale.
Linden-Car, the village that Wildfell Hall stands close to, is in Yorkshire. "Car" in northern dialect means pool, pond or low-lying and boggy ground. Lindenhope "hope" in Northeastern English means a small enclosed valley.
Plot summary.
The novel is divided into three volumes.
Part One (Chapters 1 to 15) is narrated by Gilbert Markham, beginning with an account of how a mysterious widow, Mrs Helen Graham, arrives at Wildfell Hall, a nearby mansion. A source of curiosity for the small community, the reticent Mrs Graham and her young son, Arthur, are slowly drawn into the social circles of the village. Initially, Gilbert Markham casually courts Eliza Millward, despite his mother's belief that he can do better. His interest in Eliza wanes as he comes to know Mrs Graham. In retribution, Eliza spreads (and perhaps creates) scandalous rumours about Helen. With gossip flying, Gilbert is led to believe that his friend Mr Lawrence is courting Mrs Graham. At a chance meeting on a road, Gilbert strikes the mounted Lawrence with a whip handle, causing him to fall from his horse. Though she is unaware of this confrontation, Helen Graham still refuses to marry Gilbert, but when he accuses her of loving Lawrence, she gives him her diaries.
Part two (Chapters 16 to 44) is taken from Helen's diaries, in which she describes her marriage to Arthur Huntingdon. The handsome, witty Huntingdon is also spoilt, selfish and self-indulgent. Before marrying Helen, he flirts with Annabella, and uses this to manipulate Helen and convince her to marry him. Helen, blinded by love, marries him, and resolves to reform him with gentle persuasion and good example. After the birth of their only child, however, Huntingdon becomes increasingly jealous of their son, who is also called Arthur, and his claims on Helen's attentions and affections.
Huntingdon's pack of dissolute friends frequently engage in drunken revels at the family's home, Grassdale, oppressing those of finer character. Both men and women are portrayed as degraded. In particular, Annabella, now Lady Lowborough, is shown to be unfaithful to her melancholic but devoted husband.
Walter Hargrave, the brother of Helen's friend Milicent Hargrave, vies for Helen's affections. While he is not as wild as his peers, he is an unwelcome admirer: Helen senses his predatory nature when they play chess. Walter informs Helen of Arthur's affair with Lady Lowborough. When his friends depart, Arthur pines openly for his paramour and derides his wife, but he will not grant her a divorce.
Arthur's corruption of their son – encouraging him to drink and swear at his tender age, and to torture animals – is the last straw for Helen. She plans to flee to save her son, but her husband learns of her plans from her diary and burns the artist's tools with which she had hoped to support herself. Eventually, with help from her brother, Mr Lawrence, and her servant, Rachel, Helen escapes and finds a secret refuge at Wildfell Hall.
Part Three (Chapters 45 to 53) begins after Gilbert's reading of the diaries. Helen bids Gilbert to leave her because she is not free to marry. He complies and soon learns that she has returned to Grassdale because her husband is gravely ill. Helen's ministrations are in vain, and Huntingdon's death is painful since he is fraught with terror at what awaits him. Helen cannot comfort him, for he rejects responsibility for his actions and wishes instead for her to come with him to plead for his salvation.
A year passes. Gilbert pursues a rumour of Helen's impending wedding, only to find that Mr Lawrence, with whom he has reconciled, is marrying Helen's friend Esther Hargrave. Gilbert goes to Grassdale, and discovers that Helen is now wealthy and lives at her estate in Staningley. He travels there, but is plagued by anxiety that she is now far above his station. By chance he encounters Helen, her aunt and young Arthur. The two lovers reconcile and marry.
Timeline.
The novel begins in 1847, but flashes back to the period from 1821 to 1830 before returning.
Literary analysis.
Themes.
Alcoholism.
Arthur Huntingdon and most of his male friends are heavy drinkers. Lord Lowborough is "the drunkard by necessity" – he tries to use alcohol as a way to cope with his personal problems. Arthur, like his friend Ralph Hattersley, is the "drunkard from an excess of indulgence in youth". Ultimately, only Ralph Hattersley and Lord Lowborough manage to reform their lives.
Arthur and Lord Lowborough particularly seem affected by the traditional signs of alcoholism. They frequently drink themselves into incoherence and on awakening, they drink again to feel better. Lord Lowborough understands that he has a problem and, with willpower and strenuous effort, overcomes his addiction. Arthur continues drinking even after he injures himself falling from a horse, which eventually leads to his death. Ralph, although he drinks heavily with his friends, does not seem to be as much afflicted by alcoholism as by his way of life. Mr Grimsby continues his degradation, going from bad to worse and eventually dying in a brawl. Huntingdon's son Arthur becomes addicted to alcohol through his father's efforts, but Helen begins to add to his wine a small quantity of tartar emetic, "just enough to produce inevitable nausea and depression without positive sickness". Very soon the boy begins to be made to feel ill by the very smell of alcohol.
Domestic violence.
Marianne Thormählen calls Milicent's remark to her drunk and abusive husband Ralph, reminding him that they are not at home, "one of the most harrowing sentences in the entire novel". Thormählen argues that in "The Tenant" the traditional submissive behavior of wives is shown as a factor that encourages male oppression. Later, when Ralph decides to reform his life, he blames his wife's meekness and says that resistance from her would have prevented his violence and debauchery.
Gender relations.
In discussing Brontë's narrative strategy, Carol N. Senf compares "The Tenant" with Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale": in both novels female narrative is retold by a man. Brontë, like Atwood, "makes the reader wonder whether any two individuals could achieve the kind of equal relationship Gilbert seems to desire in a society that encourages inequality. Certainly, Helen's silence is in some ways as troubling to twentieth-century readers as Offred's, though Gilbert is much kinder and more thoughtful about his superior position than [Professor] Pieixoto."
According to Priti Joshi, in "The Tenant" Anne challenges the central tenet of 19th-century domestic ideology – women's influence on men – famously postulated by Hannah More. This doctrine found its way into even "protofeminist" novels such as "Jane Eyre", where the main heroine fulfills (or reduces) her ambitions for a wider life by taming and managing her husband. In "The Tenant", however, masculinity is impervious to the softening or "superior" influence of women. Marrying Arthur, Helen is convinced that she can reform him, but six years later she escapes from him to protect herself and her young son. Helen's second husband, Gilbert Markham, who despite many faults is "more pliable", never shows any noticeable reform throughout the novel. Joshi concludes that Gilbert is "tottering toward a new form of masculinity" together with Jack Halford, his close friend, by exchanging confidences and, by learning to communicate and reveal emotions, doing what is considered to be feminine, he can redeem himself, become a new man and a worthy husband of Helen.
Of all Arthur's friends, only Walter Hargrave has never been a heavy drinker. He uses this as manipulation in an attempt to win Helen's favour. When it doesn't work, he starts speculating that she cannot manage her life after leaving Arthur without a man's protection and supervision.
Gilbert's mother, Mrs Markham, holds the doctrine prevailing at the time that it is "the husband's business to please himself, and hers [i.e. the wife's] to please him". The portrayal of Helen, courageous and independent, emphasizes her capacity for seeking autonomy rather than submitting to male authority, and the corrective role of women in relation to men. "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" is thus considered a feminist novel by many critics.
Displacement.
Josephine McDonagh believes that the theme of displacement is underlined by the title of the novel: Helen is the tenant, not an owner-occupier, of Wildfell Hall, the place of her birth, which was bequeathed to a male descendant, her brother. "The Tenant" features numerous allusions to a wide range of other texts, from the Bible to contemporary novels. Apart from being used as a quotation, allusions are often applied by peculiar characters to reflect their personalities. Sometimes the individual voices of characters are shown as a patchwork of quotations. Such "borrowed voices" may denote the displacement of the main heroes – Gilbert, being a well-educated man with high ambitions for some "great achievements", is forced to take over his father's farm, and Helen, being a runaway wife, can call neither her home nor her name her own. The emphasis on allusions in the novel, on using the "language of others", according to McDonagh, may be a reflection on the position of being a tenant, which in its subjugation is similar to that of being a wife.
Marriage.
Until the passing of the Married Women's Property Act in 1870 a wife had no independent existence under English law, and therefore no right to own property or to enter into contracts separately from her husband, or to sue for divorce, or