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Summary: 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' - a review
Review: 'Sick of mankind and its disgusting ways' Anne Bronte once scribbled on the back of her prayer book. Her evident harsh view of life, coupled with her moral strength as a woman, are beautifully interwoven to produce this novel; her masterpiece. Although never enjoying the popularity and success of 'Jane Eyre' and 'Wuthering Heights' - her sisters' books - 'Wildfell Hall' is quite fit to join any bookshelf of classic English literature. The themes include utter despair and the tragic consequences of a young woman's naivety; Helen felt that, although she could see Arthur's faults, she would be able to somehow change him once they were married. In reality, her marital experience was a disaster. Anne Bronte creates a world in which the drunken, immoral behaviour of men becomes the norm and this may have been startling to contemporary readers - perhaps a reason for the book's panning at the critics. The narrative is built up delicately; first Gilbert; and then the racier, more gripping diary of Helen as she guides us through her married life; before returning again to Gilbert, whose tale by this time has become far more exciting as we know of Helen's past. Helen's realisation of the awful truth and her desperate attempts to escape her husband, are forever imprinted in the mind of the reader as passages of perfect prose. One of the earliest feminist novels, the underrated Anne Bronte writes in this a classic, and - defying the views of her early (male) critics - a claim to the position of one of England's finest ever female writers.
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Summary: A much forgotten about book with an unusual narrative device
Review: 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' is written by the least remembered Bronte sister. Many people at the time, including her sister - Charlotte, thought that this book tackled inappropriate subject matter, but I disagree. It is a passionate book about a woman's struggle to free herself and her son from her dissolute husband. She flees to a broken down mansion where she attracts the attention of a young farmer. In order to clear the gossip surrounding her dwelling in Wildfell Hall, she offers him her diary to read, which takes up the main part of the narrative. This book is extremely readable and deserves much more attention than it actually receives. The female protagonist is a likeable woman, whose plight obtains sympathy with the reader. It has been described as a feminist book, before its time and when Helen Huntingdon shut the door on her husband it 'resounded throughout the whole of England'.
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Summary: Strong women, take note
Review: A heroine quite unlike the standard Dickensian wallflower. Nor a villaness, although many modern career women will find her too "traditional" for thier taste. Intelligent, strong-willed, virtuous Helen Lawrence falls for the *wrong* guy, marries him against advice, and, discovering that she cannot convince him to change his vices to virtues, struggles to free herself and their son. A bit of high-flown melodrama aside, it is a brilliant and pointed satire of the dating and marriage games of the upper classes, the violence-without-consequences of "Wuthering Heights" and the *unrealistic* expectations placed upon women by the church and by early Victorian society. Did I mention that Anne Bronte loved wild nature scenes, animals and children? :)
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Summary: Strong women, take note
Review: A heroine quite unlike the standard Dickensian wallflower. Nor a villaness, although many modern career women will find her too "traditional" for thier taste. Intelligent, strong-willed, virtuous Helen Lawrence falls for the *wrong* guy, marries him against advice, and, discovering that she cannot convince him to change his vices to virtues, struggles to free herself and their son. A bit of high-flown melodrama aside, it is a brilliant and pointed satire of the dating and marriage games of the upper classes, the violence-without-consequences of "Wuthering Heights" and the *unrealistic* expectations placed upon women by the church and by early Victorian society. Did I mention that Anne Bronte loved wild nature scenes, animals and children? :)
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Summary: The forgotton work from the forgotton sister
Review: After reading a flat and unintresting Jane Eyre I found myself shunning the work of the Bronte family, until I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. This is no Jane Eyre and should never be compared, even though frequently I have heard the outlandish comparision. In the novel Anne Bronte introduces the reader to real women, no Jane Eyre type who's only accomplishment was living one her own. No Anne Bronte's main character leaves her husband ( something which was unheard of at that time) and lives alone with her son. Bronte also changes the form of the classic novel by speaking as from both a man and woman's perspective. The strengh of the novel is the fact that Bronte's starting narrator is a man then a woman and once again a man. She takes a risk which last over 100 pages when the tenant (woman) becomes the narrator as the man narrator reads her journal. This novel tell a tale of a woman who breaks free from society to save herself. Anne Bronte has become the forgotton sister, though her works were never as sucessful as her to sisters, I feel that her risk taking ability, along with her ability to tell a great story makes her the best out of the three. I would also tell everyone to read her other novel Agnes Grey for it to is a great story. I only wish that Anne Bronte had left more works for her loyal fans as myself to read.
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Summary: THE ENIGMA OF ANNE
Review: Anne Bronte was certainly the most mysterious member of the Bronte family. Often refered to as sweet, shy and pious, it is almost unbelievable that she could have written a book as fiercly rebelious as The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She went against all the Victorian ideals of the ladylike woman novelist and brought to light the cruelty of domestic violence in a time when women were taught to 'shut up and take it.'
Perhaps the biggest mystery is why she is so under-rated. She is perhaps more daring and unconventional than Charlotte or Emily, tackling themes that people did not dare to talk about, let alone publish. I would love to have been able to read the mind of 'quiet, sweet Anne' to see what was REALLY going on in there.
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Summary: Better than Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights
Review: Anne Bronte's description of the married life of Helen and Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall shocked me with its abuse and wanton cruelty like no other book from the 19th century has. Taken in an historical perspective, the feminist view of this book is impressive. Helen Huntingdon defies the conventions of her, and Bronte's time, by leaving her dissolute husband and living independently. This gives Bronte the opportunity to criticize village life with its nosy neighbours and petty gossip, and aspect neither of her sisters achieved in either Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, where the characters exist in vacuums. I enjoyed the book immensely and recommend it highly. I also recommend the PBS movie version starring Tara Fitzgerald and Rupert Graves.
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Summary: Riveting.
Review: Anne Bronte, the most underappreciated of the Bronte sisters, is a brilliantly talented author and storyteller. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a masterpiece of romance, suspense and simply a darned good read! Helen Huntingdon and Gilbert Markham are multi-dimensional characters. Bronte descriptions of the setting are moving as well. I can't say enough about this book, yet mere words don't do it justice. If you loved Jane Eyre (which I did), than the Tenant will be a novel you hold in high esteem. Read it, and then read it again. Enjoy!!
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Summary: Unusual for its Time
Review: Anne is not the most well-known of the Brontes, but perhaps she's the most forthright of the three. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is the story of an independant woman of infinite strength. A woman who, after making the seemingly fatal mistake of a bad marriage (a mistake that might doom other women of her age to depression and ) manages to set herself free. It is not a haunting story, nor a frightening one but it is one filled with alcolism, abuse and great misery in a marriage, all issues that were (and are in the novel) swept under the carpet, politely ignored. A woman was to be pitied, but not helped. Helen helps herself. The novel's single confusing and disruptive aspect is the fact that it is in two sections, the beginning and ending the letter Gilbert Markham writes to his friend, and the middle Helen's own diary. Both stories are part of the same narrative; Gilbert's beginning just before Helen's ends, and are inseperable, but this forces the reader to 'begin' again. The story itself, and the boldness with which Helen's life and Gilbert's careful uncertainty are addressed, is near perfect. A masterpiece, and by no means any less great than Anne's sisters' works.
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Summary: The Forgotten Sister
Review: Anne is the Bronte we never read in school and most of us don't read afterwards, which is a big loss for those who don't, because she's at least as talented as her two older sisters. "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" can hold its own against "Jane Eyre" or "Wuthering Heights" any day in the week, but it was panned in its own time, in large part because of its "unladylike" topic of alcoholism. Anne Bronte knew alcoholism first hand through her brother Bramwell who drank himself to death, and her revulsion of the alcoholic personality is central to this book. The heroine of "Tenant", Helen Graham, is a headstrong and independent young woman, who marries Arthur Huntington against the advice of her family. She is one of those who loves not wisely but too well, because Arthur, a selfish and irresponsible womanizer, cares about nothing but satisfying his own wishes and desires. Helen wants to help Arthur turn his life around, which Arthur couldn't care less about, and his drinking and adultery right under her nose eventually repels her to the point where she despises him as much as she once loved him. It is only when she sees him attempting to influence her young son to become a chip off the old block, that she realizes her responsibility as a mother to save her son from his father trumps her duty as a wife to stand by her husband. With the help of her brother, she runs away with her son to the anonymity of life in a small village. Here she meets Gilbert Markham, who falls in love with her, but realizes that their relationship has no future as long as her husband is alive. Arthur's ultimate death from alcoholism not only frees Helen from an abusive and degrading marriage, it also leaves her free to find happiness with Gilbert. Anne Bronte pulled no punches in writing this book and that is probably what so perturbed readers of her own era; too bad for them, because they were unable to appreciate this book for what it is, one of the unrecognized classics of English literature.
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