Win The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall (Modern Library) Prepared By Anne Brontë Ebook
movies are really pretty bad except for one transcendent performance, Sophies Choice for instance, The glittering pallid Meryl Streep is just brilliant whilst the movie itself is a bit of a pain, Same with novels.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a game of three halves, For the firstpages the tiresomely earnest Gilbert Markham tells his tale of how he fell in love with the new lady tenant of the crumbling hall and how she drove him crazy with her intense mysteriousness and this is all very well but the nextpages is the diary of the said lady and wow.
Helen Grahams own story is fierce and scintillatingly told, Its of how she set her cap for this beautiful bad boy and got all married to him with everyone telling her it was a terrible mistake, and how little by little, she found herself living a life of horror no, there was never any physical violence, but there were all the colours of the rainbow of psychological violence, beginning with the speed his originally perfectly sincere love and lust dwindled away, and how his excursions to London with his old rakish buddies began to take longer and longer, and how the wine and spirits became more and more noticeable, and how eventually he would openly flaunt his affairs in front of her, inviting his latest girlfriend as a houseguest for weeks on end, and she not allowed to say one word, for proprietys sake.
All this in excruciating detail, with the screws tightened on each succeeding page,
Another part of the genius of this section is that Helen herself is selfrevelatingly skewered, I hope this was Anne Brontes intention! Because Helen is a religious obsessive and we have to say really sanctimonious and frankly is more than a bit of a pain in the neck.
She seems to know the Bible backwards and inside out amp always has a handy quote from the second epistle of Samson to the Troglodytes or the book of Maccabees.
Victims of patriarchal oppression are not by this sad circumstance necessarily loveable themselves,
But the awfulness of thepossession of the wife and her money and her property by her husband is a terrifying vision.
You can see arbitrary oppression running through manyth century novels Les Miserables, Oliver Twist, Caleb Williams, etc, And here it takes place not in the gory dungeons but in the mimsiest, most doilyinfested of drawing rooms, For many women, marriage was an invisible prison,
Alas when that part of the narrative closes we are back to Gilbert for the more predictable conclusion to the story and here it is thest century reader who might find themselves a trifle oppressed, by the jawbreaking circumlocutious language and the interminable periphrasing.
Gilbert uses fifteen ten dollar words just to tell you he walked down a street,
The centralpages of Helens diary are astar read, But the first and last sections drag this novel down, down, down, With regret, I have to say overall,,stars.
AND NOW, A SHORT ONE ACT PLAY ENTITLED
THE BRONTESAURUS
It is late September, the drawing room of the Parsonage at Haworth, home of the Bronte family.
The sisters are discussing literature in between bouts of coughing, Bramwell lies dead behind the sofa,
Charlotte : Oh come on, you totally stole from Jane Eyre, admit it,
Emily : Oh shove off, See that stain on the ceiling there Thats Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights now, thats massive,original. Heathcliff, Cathy boom. Already a classic.
Charlotte : Yeah well, its a pity all the critics think you belong in the loony bin,
Anne : Wait a moment, dear sisters, whilst I perform a mental calculation, Agnes Grey, thats one. Tenant of Wildfell Hall, thats two, So thats Anne v Charlotte, twoone, and Anne v Emily, er, oh! Twoone again! Thats called winning, you know,
Charlotte : Oh shut up Anne,
Emily : Yeah, shut up Anne,
Anne : How very vulgar, but of course no surprise,
Charlotte : And anyway, since were on the subject, Jane Eyre, right, shes a governess, right, and your Agnes Grey, what is she then Oh, wait, a governess.
And which one was published first Oh, ME thats who, me, You ripped me off. Im going to sue your backside,
Anne : Then Ill see you in court any day soon, dear sister, I think youll find you have no copyright on the word “governess”, Theres more than one oppressed governess in merry England, Just like theres more than one house, Are you going to sue us because our characters live in houses
Emily : Oh shut up Anne, Drone drone drone just like your feeble novels, Just because you dont know when to stop writing,
They all pause to cough, then resume arguing, I really enjoyed this! Not as much as Jane Eyre which will always be my favourite Brontë novel, but Anne was so ahead of her time with this.
We stan a feminist icon!
TW: abusive relationships sitelinkThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall is not quite sitelinkWuthering Heights or sitelinkJane Eyre, but I did really enjoy it.
It's surprising, given how dated the characters' moralizing is, but I was so swept up in the past and the setting that I felt totallythCentury level shocked by the cheating and lying and gasp drinking.
There's something about the Brontes because it feels impossible not to speak of them collectively that just works for me.
Maybe it is our shared birthplace close to those dark, dreary Yorkshire moors, Maybe I just love that all three are unafraid to create characters protagonists, even that are pretty darn despicable, Or worse annoying and sanctimonious like Helen Graham,
I'm pretty sure I should hate Helen, I almost do. But I thoroughly enjoyed reading her story and despite her being absolutely insufferable in her selfrighteous diatribes I can find a sort of affection for her and admire how strong and steadfast she was in a time when women had very little power.
Here, Anne Bronte frames one character's firstperson narrative inside another, which I actually really liked, Whether it be this, or first person minor like in sitelinkWuthering Heights, I love how the Brontes frame their stories.
This book begins with Gilbert Markham writing a letter to an old friend and telling him about the strange circumstances of the titular tenant of Wildfell Hall, then later switches to Helen Graham's first person when Gilbert reads her diary.
And, you know, outdated as it may be, there are some universal themes that have withstood the test of time wanting to change someone for the better and realizing you can't, and wanting the best for your children.
Like Jane Eyre, Helen Graham often speaks out on the position of women, In some ways, she is the most outspokenly feminist Bronte character I have met, quick to point out double standards and
lament the limitations placed upon her.
Perhaps most surprisingly of all, I found this a highlyreadable character drama, I usually settle into classics with the assumption that I will have to work a bit harder, but this was a pleasantly easy read.
I'm glad I finally made time for it,
sitelinkBlog sitelinkFacebook sitelinkTwitter sitelinkInstagram sitelinkYoutube What a surprisingly good read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was.
I think when you read a Classic like this you have to immerse yourself in the time when it was written and this one goes back to the mids, a time when the pace of life was slower, and when there was no Television or social media and a time when snail mail and word of mouth were the facebook and twitter of the time.
I think if you have the ability to do this you would love and enjoy this novel as I am sure this was a rocking good read for any reader back in.
The novel is divided into three volumes and begins with the arrival of the beautiful and mysterious Mrs Graham in a sleepy country neighborhood.
Mrs Graham causes quite a stir as she gives the country folk something new to talk and gossip about but the talk soon turns to nasty rumors about her and her son.
The The Tenant of Wildfell Hall's setting is the English country side with its isolated sprawling manors, rugged good looking gentlemen and cackle of young women on the hunt for well to do husbands.
The story is edgy and fresh for its time with likable and dislikable characters and a plot that was suprisingly engrossing.
The writting is descriptive but very readable and while I read this one at a slower pace than normal I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with this classic.
So if you enjoy classic literature, but have been putting this one off I advise putting it on your winter reading list, cosy up by the fire and take yourself back in time to get the best out of this book.
An autobiographical novel that shocked society then, it mainly addresses the problems caused by alcoholism and debauchery and the struggle of women to achieve equal rights.
Gilbert Markham is deeply attached to Helen, a woman with a reputation for being immoral and hiding an obscure past, which he always tries to defend even if he does not know the truth.
Only over time does Helen gains confidence and reveals her sad history, poorly treated and badly loved by an alcoholic and an unfaithful husband who enjoyed his religion.
Although she struggles for her independence, Helen is still under the power of her husband, from whom alone death will free her.
The question "Jane Eyre or Catherine Earnshaw/Linton/whatever" has always annoyed me, I couldn't stand Wuthering Heights, accomplished though it was, and I think lots of people tend to assume I must be something of a Jane Eyre devotee: I'm not.
I'm really not.
The next time someone asks me which I prefer, I shall tell them: Helen Huntingdon, Emphatically, enthusiastically, and with the fire of a thousand suns, Helen Huntingdon don't need no man, She's had enough of your friendzoning bullshit, Helen Huntingdon will tell you precisely what she thinks of you, with documentary supporting evidence from your wife, and then she will close the library door and make good art, which you are not allowed to see.
Helen Huntingdon is a force of nature, and and she has a happilyeverafter to manufacture for herself, She might not know exactly what it'll look like, but it'll be hers,
This book okay, let's get the one solitary negative out of the way, which is that the structure is a bit weird, The framing narrative is boring compared to the meat of the story, and the meat of the story is told in diary form.
It doesn't really work. Do I care Not in the slightest,
For the first sixty or so pages, we join Whiner of the Month Gilbert Markham, who discovers that there's a new lady living at the house out of town it's Wildfell Hall, she's the tenant, are you with me and she's far nicer and prettier and less of a bitch than the girl he's currently in love with, so he starts flirting.
New Lady isn't interested. He embarrasses himself in a wide selection of ways: getting caught climbing in her window by her maid and being told to move on, punching a guy off his horse and having to sidle along and apologise later, endless "are you watching me paint"/"no"/"stop watching me paint, Gilbert" conversations.
. . and then she decides to explain herself,
What follows is Helen Huntingdon's diary through the first seven years of her marriage to a heinous bastard, from when they first meet, to when she leaves him.
Anne Brontë sugarcoats nothing. She doesn't say there are good times, She doesn't suggest that Arthur Huntingdon might be alright, really, deep down, She doesn't even make him a monster, You'll recognise him I certainly do, He's of a kind with Rochester, with Heathcliff, with a hundred men inspired by them Edward Fairfax Rochester: the thinking woman's abusive romantic hero.
But Anne Brontë tells the truth: you'll never reform him, He doesn't just love you, Nobody's different. This is what it's always going to be like,
I read this for a book group, and we noted that Helen Huntingdon does what Isabella Linton does in Wuthering Heights: she marries young and idealistically, thinking she can change a man who obviously strings her along.
She does her best, for as long as she can, and then she takes her son and runs, We're not really meant to like Isabella she's young, she's foolish, we're sort of supposed to think she should have known better but you know, I was with her all along, and I'm still with her.
Luckily for us, Helen Huntingdon is a complete badass, She sticks around, she puts up with a lot, but she doesn't do it quietly, She doesn't lie down and take anything, There is a core of her that remains there, but it's not hidden away under layers of thick skin, It's right out in the open, and staring pointedly, And when it gets too much, she takes her son, and she leaves, And she supports herself. And she does difficult things, and they hurt, and she does them, and she grows as a character and as a woman and I mean that as opposed to girl, rather than as opposed to man.
Such character growth. I love it,
She's portrayed positively, which is why she's different from Isabella Linton, why she's fascinating and important and my hero, and why you've not read this book.
Anne, and Helen, were too far ahead of their time, It was too much, and Charlotte Brontë denied Wildfell Hall a reprint, It fell out of the public eye, In thes, I gather, noticing that marriage wasn't always perfect came back into fashion, and the book had something of a resurgence.
Frankly, it deserves a bigger one,
In the author's foreword, she says that she was trying to write something true, For me, Wildfell Hall rings far more true than Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights ever did.
The characters act in ways that are true, They say things, and respond to things, in ways that are true, They escape, finally, or don't, in ways that are true, I am happy that I have found this Brontë, for she is my Brontë and I am hers, I think you should read it, Seriously, you can borrow my copy, .