The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, published in 1848 was the second and last novel of Anne Bronte, the youngest of six Bronte children, and a unique text amongst the many splendid creations of that family. Anne's voice contrasts strongly with those of her more famous sisters - where they are romantic and gothic, Anne is ironic, realistic and radically Protestant.




It is undoubtedly a feminist novel - Anne's primary concerns are with the inequalities of marriage laws which rendered wives chattels of their husbands, and the problems she saw in the education of children at the time; here boys were trained in machismo and excess and girls in financial dependency and social helplessness. None of the men are particularly likable – in fact any of them named with ‘H’s are at the very least insensitive, selfish bores without any of them being so charmingly evil and engaging as Emily’s Heathcliff. Even the hero at endgame is a bit of a knob and his transformation into marriageable material seems only to be that he now internalises his whining insecurities instead of beating random men up and insulting plain women.

There are no haunted houses in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, only the depressing strains of dissolution and decay. Anne's novel echoes her beloved sister Emily's Wuthering Heights in it's repetition of 'H' names and unflinching examination of male depravity. Anne's heroine Helen also shares traits with Charlotte's titular character from Jane Eyre in her self-sufficiency, unshakeable moral compass and rebelliousness. Yet Helen doesn't receive Jane's reward of a happy, equal marriage with a brooding spunk-rat - to my mind Helen settles for a man who is merely the best of a quite a despicable bunch. Helen is more complicated than Jane but never more likeable. She lacks Jane's humour and intriguing mind. Anne's heroine makes mistakes, big ones, and pays for them - but does so with a air of sanctimony that gets on my nerves a whole little bit.

Though a criticism on the heightened gothic passions and sentiments - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall still appropriates many of the flavours of writing around at the time. Though unpopulated by ghosts, the landscape becomes a character in Anne's book too. Houses act like prisons, 'town' is a place of vice and depravity, people who work with the earth and animals are rooted in decency, and travelling through the countryside externalises the inner journey towards greater senses of goodness and selflessness. Like her sisters' most famous texts, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall comes to an imagined reader via readers and listeners in the narrative. Anne's novel is constructed through a framing narrative of the farmer Gilbert Markham's letters to a friend where he reveals his impressions of Helen and eventually encompasses the primary narrative which is told through Helen's journal. I think the form of the novel is the most auto-biographical marker because Anne, like so many good writers is preoccupied with the nature of truth in language and literary expression. Maybe this particular thought is a blog for another day though.

It's a good book. Anne Bronte was a very accomplished writer and her message and observations were keen and I'm sure, very pertinent at the time. My problem was that the biting social commentary could sound too much like preaching to my ears and that there was no redeeming feeling in the romantic storyline to engage me enough to muster sympathetic feelings about any of the main characters. You can't even love/hate them like in Wuthering Heights, so while appreciating the cool skill of the youngest Bronte's writing, I received it coldly too.

***/***** (3 of 5 stars)