P the Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte Submitted by: ro‘ziqulova maftuna

Keywords: Realism in 19^th century, realism theory, The Tenant of Wildfell hall, Anne Bronte, sociological approaches.

INTRODUCTION

Fiction played a part in this process; the vast majority of fiction produced in the nineteenth century supported, to a greater or lesser extent, the myth of the angel. Charlotte Yonge, for example, has a clearly didactic purpose in her work, which is primarily to maintain the status quo (although Yonge's work merits a deeper reading than this). However, other women novelists took a position, whether conscious or unconscious, with regard to the image of the angel: some in an elided or subterranean way, such as George Eliot; others, such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Anne Bronte, in a more directly confrontational and combative form. In Ruth and The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall, for example, both writers engage with the image which was subsequently given the name the angel in the House; they employ a similar language, though with differing results, to explore the problematic conflicts at the center of the image, and to take issue with the possibility of such an ideal woman's existence, or indeed with the right of society to expect such an impossible standard. They use images of religious women as a ploy to write into their texts their own radical reassessments of the dominant culture, and, although retaining some ambivalence in their own position, both novels can be described as rebellious texts, which disclose and enclose a questioning subtext, whose purpose is to confront the ideals by which they themselves would have been judged.

ANALYSIS

In analyzing The Tenant of Wildfell hall, the writer uses two elements that are essential to support the analysis. They are intrinsic and extrinsic elements. The theory of intrinsic elements contains setting, character and conflict to help the writer analyzes the novel. Because the writer focuses on the social realism in this study, the extrinsic theory uses realism theory to analyze the novel from extrinsic perspective. The novel is divided into three volumes. Part 1 (Chapters 1 to 15): Gilbert Markham narrates 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 rumors 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. Helen and Gilbert by Walter L. Colls

Part 2 (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 (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 melancholy 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 will not grant her a divorce. Arthur's corruption of their son – encouraging him to drink and swear at his tender age – 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, Helen finds a secret refuge at Wildfell Hall.

Part 3 (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. Setting is a representation of place, time and atmosphere of the events that take place in the story. Setting is more than simply a geographical location or period that serves as a backdrop to characters' actions. It can help set the mood, influence the way characters behave, affect the dialog, foreshadow events, invoke an emotional response, reflect the society in which the character live, and sometimes even plays a part in the story. The setting of The Tenant of Wildfell hall is Bronte Country – also known as Haworth and much of both the landscape and Wildfell Hall itself evokes Anne’s experience and pride in her hometown. It is possible that Wildfell Hall was inspired by Ponden Hall, a farmhouse near Stanbury. This is also the inspiration for Wuthering Height. So many major characters build the story of The Tenant of Wildfell hall. The novel begins in 1847, but flashes back to the period from 1821 to 1830 before returning. Firstly, I want to analyze the character of the novel. There are some main characters. Those characters are Gilbert Markham, Helen Huntingdon, Arthur Huntingdon, Frederick Lawrence, Annabella Wilmot. These characters have their own personalities that function as the materials of the story. The major conflict is the happiness of Helen and her son Arthur. Having married foolishly, under the mistaken notion that a woman's love can compensate for a man's wrong intent, she finds herself torn between watching her husband mistreat their young son and running away with their child. During that time period, the law gave the man sole rights to his wife and children. For Helen to run away with their son was a dangerous double breach of the law. To survive as fugitives in the home that she had shared with her brother in their childhood, Wildfell Hall, Helen has to live in cautious secrecy. The second part of Helen's conflicted quest for happiness occurs when a handsome neighboring man (the narrator), Gilbert, develops an affection for her, visiting her and following her about when she paints and eventually growing to love her. She explains the presence of her brother Lawrence by letting Gilbert read her diary, which also reveals the story of her husband, Huntington. The conflict is resolved when Huntington becomes seriously ill and requires help, which Helen feels it her obligation to give. After nursing Huntington though a long illness, and through a relapse, Helen is freed from her early wrong-headedness and stubbornly arrogant choices by Huntington's death. To add to the resolution, her uncle soon afterward also dies, and Helen is left with his fortune. When Gilbert comes to find her, the resolution is crowned by their engagement and eventual marriage.

DISCUSSION

It is a traditional three part novel, with a narrative structure that may seem clumsy to a reader used to omniscient narration. Gilbert Markham, a gentleman farmer, writes to a friend about the arrival of a new tenant for the nearby and near derelict Wildfell Hall.. The novel’s opening subverts that used in ‘Pride and Prejudice’, in that instead of a male tenant arriving in a community and being the cause of local gossip and interest, here a mysterious widow, Mrs Helen Graham, is the newcomer. Mrs Graham fascinates and attracts Markham, even though she is the focus for local scandal, the detail of which is never spelt out explicitly but relates to an implied relationship with her landlord, Mr Lawrence. The central section of the novel is recounted in Helen’s diaries, given to Gilbert to dispel his suspicions about her ‘affair’ with Lawrence, and presumably carefully transcribed by him into his letters. Helen is a much more moralistic character than Gilbert. She tells the history of her relationship with and marriage to Arthur Huntingdon. Huntingdon is a rake, and does little to disguise his flaws from Helen, who foolishly thinks she will be able to reform him. He boasts openly of his dissolute former life with its seductions and affairs: “His favourite amusement is to sit or loll beside me on the sofa and tell me stories of his former amours, always turning upon the ruin of some confiding girl or the cozening of some unsuspecting husband”. (Chapter 24) The birth of their son, also called Arthur, exacerbates the problems with their relationship. Helen can stand Huntingdon’s drunkenness and openly conducted affairs, but when he encourages Arthur junior to drink and swear she begins to plan her escape. The final section of the novel starts after Gilbert’s reading of the diary. By now his ardour for Helen is at full pitch, and the news that she is still married does not deter him. Her moralistic sermons have the desired affect however, and he promises to leave her alone, for six months at least. He complies but is shocked to find out, from her brother, that she has returned to her husband who has fallen seriously ill. Huntingdon dies a squalid if convenient death, leaving the path open for a reconciliation between the now rich widow and the farmer. Despite some minor confusions and misunderstandings, the lovers marry, retire to the country and live happily ever after. It is only at the novel’s conclusion that we learn that the letters have been written to Gilbert’s brother-in-law, a Mr Halford, in the form of a memoir. In many way ‘The Tenant’ is a conventional romance, with a happy ever after marriage and children at the end of a complex courtship, where the characters slowly discover their feelings for one another. The long separation in the middle of the novel, followed by the reconciliation at the end, is reminiscent of the structure of ‘Jane Eyre’, where Jane exiles herself to avoid temptation. Helen is an extraordinarily strong woman, determined to keep her marriage vows, when she can, care for and protect her son, and keep true to her faith. True love is her reward for these sacrifices. Critics have long identified her defiance of her husband – albeit after years of psychological torment and abuse, including his conduct of an affair openly before her – as the actions of a proto-feminist. She’s certainly a strong determined character, but I think it is important to remember that she returns to her husband as soon as he needs her, putting duty to him above her personal interests, and remains faithful to him despite everything. I had hoped that the wonderfully named Wildfell Hall would play a central role in the novel, and the portrait of it given by Markham in the novel’s opening chapter promises much: “Near the top of this hill, about two miles from Linden-Car, stood Wildfell Hall, a superannuated mansion of the Elizabethan era, built of dark grey stone, venerable and picturesque to look at, but doubtless cold and gloomy enough to inhabit, with its thick stone mullions and little latticed panes, its time-eaten air holes and its too lonely, too unsheltered situation – only shielded from the war of wind and weather by a group of Scotch firs, themselves half-blighted with storms, and looking as stern and gloomy as the Hall itself”. The narrator then goes on to tell the reader how the garden has run to seed, and all the topiary bush animals have “spouted into such fantastic shapes as resembled nothing in heaven or earth but presented…a goblinish appearance that harmonised well with the ghostly legions and dark traditions…of the haunted hall”. Who can read that portrait and not expected a traditional gothic novel to follow, with things that go bump in the night and half a dozen or more mad-women locked in the attic? If so they will have been disappointed, because Wildfell Hall is a minor character in the story, a haven for the escaping Helen rather than the venue for any Scooby-Doo style antics. Instead we have a disturbing story of unhappy marriages and domestic violence which must surely have been all the more shocking and transgressed when first published – rich people really didn’t do such things within the confines of marriage, or if they did we certainly didn’t read about it. We are not surprised when Heathcliff is violent towards animals, but when Huntingdon hits out at his favorite cocker spaniel – “He struck it off with a smart blow; and the poor dog squeaked, and ran cowering back to [Helen]. When he woke up half an hour after, he called it to him again; but Dash only looked sheepish and wagged the tip of his tail. He called again, more sharply, but Dash only clung closer to [Helen], and licked [her] hand as if imploring protection. Enraged at this, his master snatched up a heavy book and hurled it at its head” – the violence is a thinly veiled metaphor for domestic violence. This in many ways is more troubling for being hinted at rather than directly portrayed, for example in this sinister description of the casual violence of one of Huntingdon’s debauched friends towards his own wife: (chapter 32) “I love thee Milicent, but I don’t adore thee’. In proof of his affection he clutched a handful of her light brown ringlets, and appear to twist them unmercifully. “Do you really Ralph?” murmured she, with a faint smile beaming through her tears, just putting up her hand to his, in token that he pulled rather too hard.” Is ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ a good novel? Well of course it is a classic, but at the same time it is usually ranked below ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Jane Eyre’. It shares many features with these novels, the slightly awkward narrative structures, the dark secrets, and troubled love affairs. But a distinct aroma of sanctimoniousness pervades ‘The Tenant’. Helen is rarely very loveable or off her guard, and goodness doesn’t she love to preach! (Chapter 45) – We are children now; we feel as children, and we understand as children; and when we are told that men and women do not play with toys, and that our companions will one day weary of the trivial sports and occupations that interest them and us so deeply now, we cannot help being saddened at the thought of such an alteration, because we cannot conceive that as we grow up our own minds will become so enlarged and elevated that we ourselves shall then regard as trifling those objects and pursuits we now so fondly cherish, and that, though our companions will no longer join us in those childish pastimes, they will drink with us at other fountains of delight, and mingle their souls with our in higher aims and nobler occupations beyond our present comprehension, but not less deeply relished or less truly good for that, while yet both we and they remain essentially the same individuals as before”. The supporting cast of minor characters is also weaker in ‘The Tenant’ – they tend to blur into one another and are less clearly differentiated. None of which really detracts from the overall power of the novel. Two other brief observations. Firstly, this short scene caught my attention. It happens when Helen is running her fingers through Huntingdon’s hair: “The head looked right enough, but when he placed my hand on the top of it, it sunk in a bed of curls, rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle”. I can’t find that any critics have picked up on this description (which is not referred to again), but I find it hard to read any other way than that the author is suggesting Huntingdon has an ‘alarming’ depression in his cranium. What the Victorian pseudo-science of phrenology, referred to more extensively by Charlotte in ‘Jane Eyre’ would have made of that depression I can only imagine, but it surely is a heavy hint of the moral depravity to be exposed as the novel progresses, or possibly a propensity to addictive behaviors.

Conclusion.

Anne does not pretend to present an idol. Each of her characters is flawed. In spite of the deep gulf between good and bad, most characters in Tenant are somewhere in between. Even her heroine has serious prejudices and strong tendencies, which make her not so exemplary. It is a powerful move, one which Anne was very much criticized for by Tenant‘s reviewers. Helen proves that she is not the “angel of the house,” though she may have made an effort to be, and that perhaps the “angel” is not an ideal to be modeled against all moral evidence to the contrary. The true model is one whose successes and failures are marked by a willingness, a determination, and, above all, courage. Tenant is a violent declamation, which strives for truth, perhaps even realism, but succeeds, instead, in rendering a chiaroscuro portrait of divine repression and exertion against a black background of indolent, libertine liberality. It is contending of souls and bodies Helen’s “superhuman purity” pitted against Huntingdon’s “heartless depravity”. Yet, while Huntingdon’s vanity lies in his looks and attractions, Helen’s lies in her belief in her own power to elevate him. Mrs. Graham makes the speech above. She speaks of eliminating as many corruptible influences as possible from her son Arthur’s path. She makes little Arthur ill by forcing him to imbibe alcohol and liquors in large doses mixed with a little powder. By exposing Arthur to horrible excesses, Mrs. Graham seeks to instill a terror in him, the results of which can be seen when Mrs. Markham offers Arthur some wine, “[he] shrank from the ruby nectar as if in terror and disgust, and was ready to cry when urged to take it”. It is a vignette of what is intended to happen to the reader. Anne is exposing her readers to violent excesses. She is consciously breeding a terror of overindulgence—maybe even indulgence—and striking her readers from any complacency they may have in regards to marriage. She is doing all in her power to expose and, by those means, to reform. Yet, for all her bringing to light, Anne leaves her readers in the dark in regards to whose behavior ought to be modeled. The first inclination would be to look to the hero. Having made a poor choice in marriage, Helen has repented of it ever since and has striven for moral purity, the more so to wash clean the sins of her husband as well. Nevertheless, even after having experienced such cruel life lessons, Helen continues repeating many of the same mistakes. Anne does not pretend to present an idol. Each of her characters is flawed. In spite of the deep gulf between good and bad, most characters in Tenant are somewhere in between. Even her heroine has serious prejudices and strong tendencies, which make her not so exemplary. It is a powerful move, one which Anne was very much criticized for by Tenant‘s reviewers. Helen proves that she is not the “angel of the house,” though she may have made an effort to be, and that perhaps the “angel” is not an ideal to be modeled against all moral evidence to the contrary. The true model is one whose successes and failures are marked by a willingness, a determination, and, above all, courage. Here is a model, which her readers can relate to, not one of “superhuman purity,” but one with all the faults and errors of humanity.

References.

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