The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë

 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

by Anne Brontë

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is told in epistolary form, as a letter from Mr. Gilbert Markham to his friend Mr. Halford, but also contains a long diary entry within this letter.

In the letter Markham is recounting how he came to meet Mrs. Helen Huntingdon, the new tenant at Wildfell Hall, his growing love for her after much abasement, and how he learns of her life before she came to be living there, which she recounts to him through her diary entries.

Helen grew up with her aunt and uncle, meets a dashing young gentleman named Arthur Huntingdon at a party. Everyone warns her of his lascivious ways, but she believes that if she marries him she could change him and make him live a Christian life. Ahh, girls. I kept wanting to scream, "You can't change people, Helen! Don't do it!." But she does it. He takes a fancy to her, proposes, and she accepts against her aunt's wishes. Afterward, they move to his home, Grassdale Manor, where he proves what everyone has said about him. He brings his rough  and callous friends for months-long stays where they drink excessively and swear, and do all manor of things that go against Helen's morality. Sometimes Arthur leaves for many weeks or months to do these things, and probably worse.

Arthur comes to be meaner and meaner to Helen, and she does her best to try to be forgiving and dutiful, because she believes she chose this life and has to deal with the consequences. Then she has a baby, whom they name Arthur, and she finds she can no longer put up with Huntingdon's behavior because he is systematically poisoning the mind of little Arthur, encouraging him to swear, to be mean to his mother, and to drink wine. After many attempts by Helen to separate the boy from his father, she realizes she has to leave Huntingdon and take Arthur away. She does this with the help of her maid, Rachel, and another servant, Benson. They steal away to Wildfell Hall, which is owned by her family. There she plans to make her own way as an artist under the guise of being a widow.

Soon the neighbors come to call, forcing themselves on her and she does her best to keep them at bay and to keep her secret. Eventually the town gossips concoct a story as to why she is there and she decides she has to leave to escape what she thinks will be the unraveling of her story. She does leave and Markham, who has been falling in love with her is distraught, asking after he brother as to her whereabouts. He learns she has returned to Grassdale Manor because Huntingdon has had an accident and is gravely ill. Markham worries that Helen has returned and forgiven her husband, but it is not the case. She still loathes him, but feels it her duty to nurse him, making him sign a waiver that if he does anything she dislikes she will leave and take Arthur with her. Eventually Huntingdon succumbs to his hurts because he will not be changed to his dying day, but to his credit he leaves her with everything he owns.

She retires to her family's home, Staningly. Markham learns of this and goes there. They reunite and happily ever after.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is lauded as the first sustained feminist novel, and it is that. Helen speaks her mind, and makes her own choices. Due to the times, there are conventions that women had no choice but to follow, but it was nice to read about a woman in the 1800s speaking plainly about what she expects of men, and deciding to make her own way rather than put up with her husband's debauchery. This book is also a treatise on the dangers of alcohol. I thought the story was good, readable for a classic, exciting at parts, infuriating in others, with despicable characters you are glad to see come to their tragic ends. I give it 4 stars.