Book Review
A Renaissance of Victorian Female Narratives: Anne Brontë ’s “The Tenant of the Wildfell Hall” (1848)
While you’re fangirling over Charlotte and Emily, our Anne legit steals the scene. The Brontë sisters have always been esteemed as storytellers and hailed for their outstanding literary abilities. While Emily is involved with the Gothic and Charlotte is somewhere imagining the redemption of Rochester as fire kills Bertha Mason, we have Anne Brontë who writes a character that carries the potential of shaking the Victorian values to the core: Mrs. Graham.
The lady who comes as a tenant to the Wildfell Hall causes quite a stir amongst the locals. Even though she is in her mourning attire and comes to the -shire with her son, Arthur, there is a mysterious air around her which breeds suspicion in the gossiping circles. And added to that, she is beautiful and not conventionally timid according to feminine standards. And it is here that we meet Gilbert Markham, a farmer and the village sweetheart. He obviously falls for Mrs. Graham. Now what happens here is quite tricky. The woman obviously doesn’t want to let her guard down and rejects Markham. But to nip this in the bud there and then would be incongruent with patriarchal brackets/trends and would be deterrent to an otherwise undaunting male persistence (read arrogance). So, our protagonist is stubborn and decides to become her friend instead. His curiosity and the need to intrude in her affairs despite rebuttals stirs the narrative to unravel for the readers. And what unravels is one of the most interesting plots of all time!
Now, let’s talk about the magic of Anne Brontë which starts from the Author’s Preface itself. The Bronte sisters were taciturn about their identities and wrote as Currer Bell (Charlotte), Elis Bell (Emily) and Acton Bell (Anne). However, after the release of Agnes Grey, Anne’s first novel, there was a lot of hue and cry on the pretext of hurting moral sentiments of the society and the same followed with the first edition of The Tenant of the Wildfell Hall. And questions were raised about the author being a woman. So, in the second edition, Anne Brontë wrote a very cutting preface where she writes:
“I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it” and “It is better to depict as they really are than as they would wish to appear.”
And on the question of the gender of the author, she maintained that intelligence is androgynous and if the author is framed for being a woman despite the name, “Acton Bell”, then it would be accepted as a compliment for portrayed female characters very well. She is ingenious!
Her genius is justified in the narration of the book as well, a perfect “Inception” of the Victorian Age: a story within a story. The book starts off with the frame narrator, Markham writing to interest his friend, Halford, with a story. Eventually, Mrs. Graham starts narrating her story. A catch here is that it’s Markham who lends a voice to Mrs. Graham’s story. The latter’s story was a diary entry and Markham’s act of reading amplifies it for the audience. As a reader, I have always wondered about this aspect if Anne Brontë wanted us to criticize some “truth” of the society here as well like how the society necessitates to have a male foil around a female voice, which cannot exist free and alone (we need Acton Bell for Anne Brontë to write).
Since, the entire narrative is a reconstruction from memory, the readers need to be careful before making conclusions because we might be dealing with inconclusive evidence. While most of the events do not deserve justifications (they’re straightaway obnoxious) but we could carefully tread through the opinions made towards the various characters in the book: Annabella, Eliza etc.
Another important aspect of the novel we, as readers, can analyse is the role of gossip whether it is constructive or destructive in the context. More often than not, in Victorian novels, gossip plays a very important role so they can reveal to us a lot than we think. After reading my fair share of Victorian novels, I can identify another pattern. The setting will be an idyllic countryside where the conflict comes to cause a stir: Mrs. Graham to Wildfell Hall, Darcy and Bingleys to Netherfield Park or in a few cases the imminent guests cause fissures in a seemingly idyllic space and take it to resolution like Lockwood in Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre to Thornfield Hall.
In conclusion, The Tenant of the Wildfell Hall is a must read, it’s relatable and does not preach ideal consolidations and stirs discussions way ahead of its times ( As a devout Austen fangirl, I could feel my devotion shaking a bit). With a heroine that stirs a revolution in Victorian values by being a complete outsider both in person and values, Bronte brings about a renaissance in the characterization of female heroines. There might be more radical contemporary heroines but Mrs. Graham hits home with her sheer relatability and her courage to stand up for her personal values and principals to overthrow the Victorian dictum of ideals of character over examples.
I hope that you are excited to read the book as well and once you read, share your ideas about it.
Bonne chance!
