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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
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137. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: Week 6: Feb 20-26: Ch 45-end.
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On this reading I liked the book better than I did the last time around—but for maybe the wrong reasons. I was impressed by how starkly Brontë describes the men’s misbehavior and the way they control and manipulate their wives; that aspect of the book felt very modern to me.What I still don’t like is the way the book is structured, any more than I like the similar structure in Wuthering Heights. The tale-within-a-tale is a little less creaky there than here, but in both cases it makes the books feel artificial, and it draws attention to the improbabilities—the endless, detailed diary, the trading off of letters, the abrupt summarizing of the outcomes for secondary characters, etc. I also feel that Anne Brontë is not particularly good at characterization: Helen’s brother seems especially inexplicable as a character, and most of the others don’t really come to life for me. Their actions seem more driven by the story’s needs than by a person’s inherent nature. Gilbert too is a fairly weak narrator; his actions and his attitudes prevented my sympathizing with him much, which kept me from caring a lot about the outcome. I might have taken more interest in the couple if we’d seen more of their conversations as they were growing to care for each other.
I am not in general a fan of the Brontës, though I loved all their books as a teen, presumably for their emotiveness. (Villette was my favorite in those days.) This might be my favorite now because of what Helen goes through, but that’s not saying much!
My two favourite Brontë novels are this one and Jane Eyre. It is probably because I wallow in both books’ emotive forces that I like them best. For example, I felt the emotion in the description of the ‘violence’ required before Gilbert and Helen could tear themselves away when they were seemingly parting forever during their earthly lives.
’One moment I stood and looked into her face, the next I held her to my heart, and we seemed to grow together in a close embrace from which no physical or mental force could rend us. A whispered ‘God bless you!’ and ‘Go—go!’ was all she said; but while she spoke she held me so fast that, without violence, I could not have obeyed her. At length, however, by some heroic effort, we tore ourselves apart, and I rushed from the house.’
This seemed to be the culmination of that thread of violence that ran the through novel. But then I had forgotten about ‘violence of the tongue’ - gossip, another pervading thread. Ironically, it was Eliza’s gossip that finally roused Gilbert to go and find Helen and make them both happy.
The last two chapters are probably my favourites although so much of the book is memorable for me. Gilbert’s unselfishness in his decision to return home without seeing Helen because of her changed circumstances, contrasted strongly with Arthur Huntingdon who was, apart from one apology, self-centred to the extreme until his dying breath.
I also enjoyed Gilbert’s reunion with little Arthur. As for the conclusion, the two things that stay with me most are Helen’s winter rose proposal of marriage to Gilbert (something not often, if ever, seen in a novel of this period) and the wisdom of her experience expressed like this.
’ If ……you loved as I do,’ she earnestly replied, ‘you would not have so nearly lost me—these scruples of false delicacy and pride would never thus have troubled you—you would have seen that the greatest worldly distinctions and discrepancies of rank, birth, and fortune are as dust in the balance compared with the unity of accordant thoughts and feelings, and truly loving, sympathising hearts and souls.’
The endings for the other characters were rather predictable, and dare I say a little unrealistic. Annabella, Grimsby and Hargrave were condemned to misery and/or death, whilst Lowborough and Hattersley rose up from the ashes having taken their second chance and reformed.
I like the quote from Helen that you cite, Trev. I do wish Brontë had shown us more of their process of their developing those “accordant thoughts and feelings.” One of the strengths of Jane Eyre for me is the large number of conversations/debates between Jane and Rochester, which really convey the flavor of their relationship. Here we got very little of that.
Mod
Great point, Trev, and thanks for reminding me of that-you're right, that would be very unusual in Victorian Lit, but I suppose that now that Helen has been elevated above Gilbert socially, it might be almost required to come from her.
While this novel is certainly full of moral instruction, I do like that she allows characters (at least male ones) to reform and to change, and therefore to be given second chances at happiness. I also like the idea that Lowborough takes a plain woman for his second wife-something that the Brontës often seem to promote!
Mod
Good point, I forgot that we see so much of that. I do agree with Trev that I think Jane Eyre and Tenant are my favourite Brontë novels.
Mod
I was pleasantly surprised that Helen and Gilbert got a happy ending. I wasn't expecting one for some reason.
There was a video about the Brontes on Perspective's YouTube channel, and they were describing this book as a very "feminist" novel because it was highlighting how contemporary laws and cultural norms surrounding marriage and divorce were unfair to women.
Abigail wrote: "I like the quote from Helen that you cite, Trev. I do wish Brontë had shown us more of their process of their developing those “accordant thoughts and feelings.” One of the strengths of Jane Eyre f..."I agree with you Abigail. The letter/diary format probably prevented, to a certain extent, the inclusion of those conversations which must have taken place between Helen and Gilbert in order for Helen in particular to form a strong bond of trust with him. I would have enjoyed reading those conversations that brought them close together. Helen tore out the diary pages written about Gilbert so, like Gilbert, we can only speculate about what was written about him.
The third Brontë sister had been on my should-read list for many years and I was delighted when we chose The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for our group read. Compared to Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, it earns the bronze medal. Yet as a work of realistic fiction, it surpasses both. A good many romantic young women expecting to find a Heathcliff or Rochester may well find herself with an Arthur Huntingdon, an ideal portrait of a Narcissist personality and an adulterer and alcoholic to boot. That an unmarried woman should create such a compelling image of a disastrous marriage surprised me. I expect Anne Brontë’s experience as a governess may have given her a chance to observe what really occurred in an upper-class household. But I’d regard it as a Victorian classic: Helen’s moral seriousness and religious faith are simply incomprehensible to most readers today. When her husband’s sleezy friend Hattersley tries to seduce Helen after she discovers Arthur’s affair with Lady Lowborough, Helen replies: "There is another life both for you and for me," said I. "If it be the will of God that we should sow in tears, now, it is only that we may reap in joy, hereafter. It is his will that we should not injure others by the gratification of our own earthly passions; and you have a mother, and sisters, and friends, who would be seriously injured by your disgrace; and I too have friends, whose peace of mind shall never be sacrificed to my enjoyment—or yours either, with my consent—and if I were alone in the world, I have still my God and my religion, and I would sooner die than disgrace my calling and break my faith with Heaven to obtain a few brief years of false and fleeting happiness—happiness sure to end in misery, even here—for myself or any other!" It reminded me of period in my own life that seemed bleak when I found solace in reading Jane Eyre and to appreciating the power of renouncing the allure of specious but false pleasure. I also quite liked Markham, who seemed an excellent portrait of a young member of the minor gentry, not romantic but faithful and persevering.
Mod
Bill, I agree with what you've said, and was also surprised at how she could be so knowledgeable of what might happen in a dysfunctional marriage. This also felt so much like a warning to impressionable young women to be careful of whom they might choose to marry, and showed very well the warning signs that Helen missed in her early meetings with Huntingdon-his casual cruelty both in forcing her to show her feelings, in looking at her private paintings, in flirting with Anabella to make her jealous-and showed by contrast how Gilbert behaved differently. I agreed that the overt Christian moralizing makes this a little hard to take in places (and I say that as a practicing Christian!) and I think most modern Christians and others would acknowledge that marriages which have failed badly or where there is cruelty or abuse should be dissolved and people given another chance for happiness in love.
AB's ability to paint an accurate psychological portrait of various types of people is remarkable in this, particularly given her likely somewhat limited exposure to society.
Mod
Lastly I keep thinking of Ann watching Branwell’s alcoholism and how this must have played a part in her depictions. Plus wasn’t Branwell also a depressive as was Arthur senior?
Mod
Probably just couldn't imagine a woman would be so forward as to propose to him!
Abigail wrote: "Gilbert too is a fairly weak narrator; his actions and his attitudes prevented my sympathizing with him much, which kept me from caring a lot about the outcome. I might have taken more interest in the couple if we’d seen more of their conversations as they were growing to care for each other...."Honestly, the beginning of the book was my favorite part in large part because of Gilbert and his narration. I found it entertaining to see other characters and the story from his entitled perspective, even if that meant I could hardly sympathize with him. He's also the Brontë narrator with the most social freedom I've read so far, which made him more active and interesting to follow (especially when compared to Helen's virtual imprisonment at Grassdale). But I do agree that I would have liked more time in the present to see Gilbert and Helen's relationship develop. That element of the story along with the village gossip, hikes through the wilderness, and the scattered hints to Helen's past made the beginning the most absorbing section to me.
I wish I'd liked the middle of the book more, but I never really got over being uprooted from Linden-Car into Helen's diary. Somehow I'd already become far more invested in that community than I could for Staningley and Grassdale, and as soon as Huntingdon was introduced, I knew where the story would go, and it became more and more depressing to read, which is the point.I'm also unsatisfied with the end of Hattersley's arc. After years of alcohol and domestic abuse, Helen shows him letters of distress written to her by Milicent, and he wakes from his addiction like Ebenezer Scrooge? When he runs outside and hugs his wife, he might as well shout "God bless us, everyone!" Considering Anne Brontë's mission with this book and the commitment to realistic addiction and domestic abuse, I found Hattersley's instant reform pretty jarring.
Mod
As for Hattersley, I rather saw him as one of those people who run with the crowd-his male friends all behaved badly and were rude to their wives so he just went along with that, although even he acknowledged that Huntingdon was foolishly alienating a good wife for a bad mistress. Once he sees that he is on the path to doing the same, and considers that he might be about to ruin his own domestic bliss, and he can also see, when sober, that life with Huntingdon is not as much fun as it once was, he chooses domestic harmony over ongoing dissipation. I think it is not unusual for hard-partying teens and twenty-somethings to give it up as they get older and start families, and that is what I saw with him.
I enjoyed parts of the book very much, but unevenly. I enjoyed the Gilbert sections the most, in part because of the mystery, in part because Helen is strong and admirable in those sections and rather runs against conventional wisdom (her technique of turning her son off wine) than along with it (as her moralizing does in the middle section). I was pleasantly surprised by the happy ending, it gave the end a real lift, when I was expecting everyone to end up alone!
I thought AB was excellent at certain types of characters, and not so excellent at others. Favourites were Hargrave and Lawrence, who I read as just incredibly socially awkward, unable to connect the dots between his sister and Gilbert, or perhaps not wanting to but not able to come out and say that he didn't want to. Low points for me were Hattersley and sometimes Huntingdon -- I thought the early depictions of his character were excellent, but he became a bit stock-villain as time wore on.
I agree with everyone that the whole thing would have worked better if we could have been present at more of Helen and Gilbert's conversations, as we are at Rochester and Jane's.
All in all I'm very glad to have finally read Anne Brontë but I wish it had been 200 pages shorter!
Mod
I felt that there was a bit of a conflict within AB's approach to the novel, as if her wish to tell an engaging story was up against her wish to warn readers about husbands/companions to avoid in life and her desire to preach a bit. I think the balance comes out for the engaging story, but agree that toning down the instructive part of the novel could have helped.
I don't know if anyone saw the Brontë docudrama from 2016 To Walk Invisible. I really enjoyed it. It's mostly about the decline of Bramwell and the sisters' determination to make a career of writing to save the family. Undoubtedly not everything is accurate but the acting and relationships (and prickliness of some of the characters) were top notch. Anyway, I remember a scene in which Anne asks Charlotte what she thinks of her writing a domestic drama about an alcoholic and the damage he causes to his relationships and Charlotte thinks it's a challenging but important idea.Possibly this is invented since I know it was Charlotte who later tried to suppress this book but I can't help but think that Anne almost achieves something incredible here, but there's an undercurrent of stock-suffering-famale in Helen that spoils it a bit.
Mod
Yes! There is certainly something I have always struggled with in the angelic heroine who goes back to nurse a father/husband/other related male (or sometimes mother-figure) who was abusive to her in the past, which is quite a common Victorian situation. Why do these men get a free pass? I can't imagine Lord Lowborough would go take care of Annabella if/when she came to grief, or would be admired if he did. I suppose this does speak to their extreme Christian charity and is seen to paint them as the better/stronger person, but the lesson to abusers bothers me.
‘To Walk Invisible’ was written by Sally Wainwright (who also wrote the screenplay for ‘Gentleman Jack.’) I agree that it was an excellent docudrama depicting the three sisters. Here are three interesting interviews with the writer, cast and crew.https://connect.open.ac.uk/history-an...
As well as Bramwell, all the sisters knew about Mrs. Collins, a curate’s wife whose husband drank excessively and was both verbally and physically abusive towards her.
She came for advice to Anne’s father Patrick. He advised her to leave her husband and use her own skills to make a living for herself and her children. Mrs. Collins took Patrick’s advice and years later came back to thank him for encouraging her to take such a momentous decision.
Mod
Wow-what a surprising piece of advice for the time-could explain the independent streak shown in the sisters.
I think the business of the woman going back and nursing the abusive husband has to be seen in the context of the way the Christian faith was understood at the time (and in some pockets still today). One performed acts of charity for the sake of one’s own soul, not so much for the sake of the other person. And by the time she returned, Huntingdon was no longer in a position to hurt her physically.I speak feelingly on the subject because I wound up as caregiver for family members who did not care for me as a child, including my parents who gave me up by the time I was 3 and my grandmother who was sometimes psychologically and occasionally physically abusive. I didn’t do it for religious reasons but for similar ones—I wanted not to have any pangs of conscience after they had gone, I wanted to be able to forget them; and I wanted to rest secure in the idea that I was the better person. If violence had been at issue at the time of my return, however, I don’t think I would have done it.
My point is that people who have been in these kinds of situations develop a tendency to trust only themselves and to value their inner territorial integrity more highly than they do others. So actions they take are more self-referential, less a kindness to others. I read that into Helen’s motivation, more than the Victorian wifely-duty aspect.
Mod
Thank you Abigail for that explanation-having had the good fortune in life not to have been in a similar situation it is hard for me to understand that perspective, and I appreciate your candour in sharing your reasons for your very generous actions.
That is good fortune indeed! I wound up having 32 years of it.
Abigail wrote: "I think the business of the woman going back and nursing the abusive husband has to be seen in the context of the way the Christian faith was understood at the time (and in some pockets still today..."That's a very interesting and valuable perspective, Abigail. I could potentially see how that could happen. I still found it very surprising in Helen's case as he had the ability to prevent her leaving again, theoretically. She did at least keep the son at a distance.
I think I was secretly hoping for a dramatic third act where Huntingdon tracks her down and eventually falls or is helped over a Scarborough cliff by Gilbert though!
LOL, it’s true, folks like Huntingdon do challenge ideas about the sanctity of life, don’t they? What a waste of space he was!
Mod
Yes, seeing Gilbert thrash Huntingdon would have been a secret thrill, but I think Brontë leaving it for Helen to show her own strength and to set up a more equal (we assume) relationship with Gilbert better projects her presumed philosophy/beliefs.
Mod
Very well said. I ended up as a caretaker for my mother who was passive aggressive for all the reasons you cited. Thank you for sharing such a personal experience
Mod
It's not the same, but I also notice many readers complain when a character is "passive" or doesn't fight against their fate (i.e. Tess of the D'Urbervilles) and I always find it strange as that is so typical of real life for so many.
In this final section, Huntingdon dies of (I assumed) liver failure, directly attributed to his drinking and to his defying Helen's selfless care. Through all of this, Gilbert refrains from making any attempt to contact her or even send her a message via Lawrence. Gilbert only races off to see Helen when he believes she is about to marry another man, and then almost misses his reunion with Helen after learning that she is newly wealthy, so he feels unable to reconnect with her without seeming a fortune hunter. What did you think of all the developments in this section, and any favourite bits or parts that you particularly disliked?
I rather enjoyed the reunion between little Arthur and Gilbert, and how much the boy seemed to have missed him. This would certainly make Helen feel better about the possibility of marrying again.
How did you think the novel as a whole held up? Did you feel the story within a story format worked well? Where does this place in your Brontë favourites list?
Please share your thoughts on this section and on the novel as a whole.