The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

I read this book before I’d found words to describe the impact on my teenage self of living in a patriarchal world that didn’t allow me to do things I wanted to because I was a girl—and that insisted I do things I didn’t want to. I read it before I’d heard the word feminist used other than as an insult. But the essentially feminist spirit of the novel touched me deeply. 

I raced through the book, hoping that this single mother who’d fled an alcoholic and abusive husband with her child would make it out alive, that she’d find… show more.

This literary masterpiece employs some of the most common tropes of early novels: letters, a diary, an old mansion, forbidden love, rumors, gossip, and an overall air of foreboding mystery.

These are the ingredients that make for a gripping story. Yet, Anne Bronte does so much more in this remarkably pioneering work.

In fact, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is one of the earliest novels address head on alcoholism and domestic violence. It is at once a feminist novel and one that celebrates love that endures—but, most importantly, love based on equality.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall resists the age-old… show more.

So far as I know, this novel, published in 1848, is one of the first fictional depictions of life with an abusive alcoholic. (True, Wuthering Heights by Anne’s sister Emily features the drunken Hindley, but in that book’s world of chaos, his behavior isn’t any more damaging than that of the other characters.) In Tenant we discover that a seemingly respectable marriage is one of disgust, pain, and humiliation for Helen, the titular tenant, and as she sees her aristocratic husband’s influence over their son grow stronger, she takes unconventional action. The book was shockingly frank for its time; now… show more.