Heaven 2023: September book group: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
Once again, we’re first with the latest, though this time with a book that was once banned in Britain!, namely The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, first published in 1846. At that time it was regarded as "scandalous" because it was a bit too frank about domestic violence in that era, even (or especially) in aristocratic circles.
Perhaps because of this, Tenant was nevertheless a best-seller, with a second edition following later in the same year, before her surviving sisters suppressed the book , thus keeping it out of the public eye for most of the next hundred years. Without giving too much away, it is worth noting that the novel is set in the 1820s, a time when the husband had absolute legal control of her money and the children of the marriage.
As our DiL is due to give birth sometime this month, both Mrs T and I may be otherwise occupied later this month. Therefore I will post questions for discussion (which I pre-prepared in 1946 ) earlier than happened in August
And let me add my thanks to Caissa for accepting the task of overseeing this discussion group from 2024.
Perhaps because of this, Tenant was nevertheless a best-seller, with a second edition following later in the same year, before her surviving sisters suppressed the book , thus keeping it out of the public eye for most of the next hundred years. Without giving too much away, it is worth noting that the novel is set in the 1820s, a time when the husband had absolute legal control of her money and the children of the marriage.
As our DiL is due to give birth sometime this month, both Mrs T and I may be otherwise occupied later this month. Therefore I will post questions for discussion (which I pre-prepared in 1946 ) earlier than happened in August
And let me add my thanks to Caissa for accepting the task of overseeing this discussion group from 2024.
Comments
* Most contemporary reviews of this book described it as scandalous and particularly unfit to be read by ladies. Were those reviewers right to condemn it so fervently? Does it still elicit such a reaction? Consider particularly the treatment of wives by some of the “gentry” described..
• Nevertheless Tenant sold like hot cakes until suppressed – presumably with most sales to young ladies who did not want to be left in ignorance of the ways of the world, from which the customary upbringing at the time left them in blissful ignorance. The possible consequences of this are illustrated the central character, Helen Graham, who falls into her disastrous marriage ignorant of the ways of some men, especially of “gentlemen” of her time, despite the warnings of her aunt. Are women (e.g. most women in your country) too wise in the ways of the world to do so now?
• Child rearing practices in rich households of the time. Compare those of young Arthur (in his father’s and in his mother’s household) with Helen’s sheltered upbringing. Other examples in the book?
• The book is set before the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act, which inhibited at least some of the abuses described in Part 2 of the book. Are you aware of , or lived in a country or society , where women still effectively lose control of their property and any subsequent children to their husband on marriage?
• To what extent do you think the author’s brother Branwell – who died of alcoholism, and conspicuously failed to be the earner of the family that he was expected to be - was the model for the dissolute set of “gentlemen”? [IRL, by his affair with mistress of the house, he got Emily dismissed from her employment, and she the only one in the siblings to earn any substantial income outside of their writing].
• How do the famous books by the other Bronte sisters compare to this one in your view, particularly Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. (Note that their reception at the time was rather different to how they look now.) Isn’t it amazing how action-packed these books are compared to the quiet country parsonage in the “middle of nowhere” where they lived?
• This story (Tenant) has a more modern feel, at least to me, than some other Bronte novels. Do you agree? Can you think of any relatively recent parallels either in fiction (including films) or in real life?
• What did you think of the style of writing of this book – both the prose style and the way the plot became clear?
• Were the author’s sisters right to suppress this book as soon as they could? Why?
• Did any of the minor characters make any impression on you and/or contribute much to the novel, perhaps even a humourous grin or two? Consider those in the village and those in the ‘dissolute’ set, as you fancy.
• Tenant was Anne Bronte’s second book. Have any of you read her first, Agnes Grey ? How does it compare with this one?
I think the fact that this novel was considered shocking is fairly illustrative of how both society and literature have changed in 200 years. Helen's marriage is unhappy and her husband is a jerk, but there's absolutely nothing either in the events of the novel or the (very very tame) way in which they are depicted, that would shock a modern reader.
Even knowing the sensibilities of the time, I expected that the book's "scandalous" reputation meant that there would be some hint of physical violence in the marriage, but there wasn't. Helen's husband drinks too much, goes away for long periods of time, isn't very nice to her when he is at home, has an affair with one of their acquaintances, and eventually hires a "governess" for their son whom he has installed as a live-in mistress. Not a nice guy or a good marriage even by 21st century standards, but hardly the appalling depths of depravity that its reception at the time would warrant. I guess the point is just that these things were happening but nobody was writing about them?
To what extent do you think the author’s brother Branwell – who died of alcoholism, and conspicuously failed to be the earner of the family that he was expected to be - was the model for the dissolute set of “gentlemen”?
Oh yes, I'll bet Branwell was a significant inspiration (not in the good way) for the young men in this book. Has anyone else read Dark Quartet by Lynne Reid Banks, a biography of the Bronte siblings? I read it at an impressionable age and it gave a very vivid portrayal of Branwell's life and death and the distress he caused his sisters.
How do the famous books by the other Bronte sisters compare to this one in your view, particularly Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.... Were the author’s sisters right to suppress this book as soon as they could? Why?
By my modern-lady-reader standards, this book is actually far less "shocking" than either Charlotte's or Emily's best-known novels. Helen is married to an awful man, but she quickly understands that he's awful, falls out of love with him, and spends most of the rest of the book trying to get away from him. In Jane Eyre, Rochester is objectively a pretty terrible guy, and the "happy ending" is Jane marrying him! And while Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is not presented as a romantic ideal by the plot, the language used to describe Cathy's attraction to him has left generations of readers feeling like it is a romance, albeit one that can only be satisfied by both the lovers being united in death.
By contrast, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is about a young woman who makes a poor choice in marrying an unsuitable man, is unhappy, sensibly leaves him, and then, when she is freed by his death (the only way she would be seen as free to respectably marry again in that society), marries a much nicer man and is finally happy. If you compare it to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, it's by far the least psychologically disturbing of the three.
I have more thoughts and will come back to some of the other questions in a bit, but I did want to weigh in first on the idea of the book being so "shocking" it its day. It's actually a bit ridiculous to me that Charlotte and Emily tried to suppress this book, when it's (IMHO) much less disturbing than their own books.
Though there is one chilling moment that made me stop and think I would expect to read this in a novel written in 2023 and not the 19th century. Milicent Hattersley is being bullied and tormented by her husband in front of friends and she says to him:
“Do let me alone, Ralph! Remember, we are not at home.”
“No matter: you shall answer my question!” exclaimed her tormentor; and he attempted to extort the confession by shaking her, and remorselessly crushing her slight arms in the gripe of his powerful fingers.
That 'Remember, we are not at home' goes to the heart of intimate partner abuse and what men get away with behind closed doors.
I have been thinking too about how shocking it would seem for a Victorian upper-middle class society in which marriage was everything for a woman if she was to have status, respectability, children, security, to read about Helen Huntingdon closing her bedroom door to her furious drunken husband. Such topics back then would have seemed coarse and unseemly, dirty linen not to be aired in public.
The case of Caroline Norton as a social reformer is pertinent here too and Anne Bronte would have read about it:
Caroline married George Norton in 1827, and the marriage was marked by his outbursts of violence. Finally, in 1836, George removed their three children to another house and barred Caroline from entering. He then sued Lord Melbourne for “criminal conversation” with his wife–this essentially meant that he was accusing Lord Melbourne of alienating his wife’s affections and committing adultery with her. Although George quickly lost the case, the Norton marriage could not be dissolved and George could continue to deny Caroline access to her children. Caroline helped advocate for the passage of the 1839 Custody of Infants Act, which granted mothers custody of children under the age of seven and access to children under the age of sixteen. Tragically, one of Caroline’s children died in an accident before her husband would allow her to see them.
It's worth remembering that women and children were the legal property of fathers and husbands. Men could exercise absolute power over daughters and wives: Jane Eyre’s Rochester has determined his wife is mad, locked her up, and taken control of all of her property. She is presented as dangerous, violent and an arsonist. However, it is not a board of doctors or a court which has ruled on her condition and treatment, but rather her husband alone who has decided to hide her away. Although the novel questions Rochester’s judgment in attempting a bigamous marriage with Jane, no-one questions his legal right to dispose of his existing wife as he chooses (except her brother).
@Tukai mentioned the Married Women's Property Act of 1870 which gave limited rights to married women as regards their inheritances or property. The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1923 allowed women to initiate divorce – previously only men could divorce their wives. The Domestic Violence and Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1976 acknowledged domestic violence and allowed women to be able to get restraining orders against abusive partners. Marital rape was only recognised in law in UK in 1992 and ratified in 2003.
Mrs Graham's efforts to escape from her husband are quite desperate and she is in hiding. Only her brother Frederick is able to help her and he has to do so surreptitiously.
It's worth noting too that although the final decline of John Huntingdon is probably based on Branwell, Anne Bronte drew on memories of her dissolute employer Mr Robinson at Thorp Green hall and his circle of friends, all gamblers, drunkards and laudanum addicts. The nature of addiction was not understood as we would think about it now. Only in 1935 does Alcoholism Anonymous argue that substance dependency is not a moral failing but an illness.
I think I can see why it was thought shocking and that is because the men in this seem so ordinary unlike Rochester and Heathcliff. Therefore it would have been much easier to imagine this happening in one’s own life or that of your friends.
(*) The all-too-realistic depiction of the cruel school in Jane Eyre is another example of horrific realism, but schools were an institution more open to discussion at that time than marriage.
Actually English women could initiate divorce before 1923 but they had to prove both adultery plus some other offense (e.g., desertion, cruelty) by her husband. The husband need prove only adultery by his wife. It was also not unknown, if both in the marriage wanted out, for the husband to take the blame since it was less socially damaging for him to be considered guilty (and frequently the evidence was created). One set of my great grandparents were divorced in 1918 this way with him taking the blame.
1857 was the previous big change when the law changed to effectively allowed civil courts to handle divorce in the first place (prior to that you had to get a private bill past parliament to allow a divorce which required quite a bit of money and connections). Scottish law was different.
Social ostracism too was such a powerful force ensuring women stayed compliant or silent. The rumours about the mysterious Mrs Graham and her son Arthur who bears a close resemblance to the new gentleman visitor in the village are like a whisper campaign to shame her into leaving.
Three? other attempts failed though in at least one case the woman moved to Scotland and got her divorce there.
Between 1857 and 1923 about 60% of the divorces were gotten by men which still means 40% were by women (admittedly some of the latter were cases when both partners wanted out).
Most of the above is from "Divorce in England 1700-1857" by Sybil Wolfram, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer, 1985), pp. 155-186.
Note Mrs. Graham might have been able to gain a legal separation from the church courts; however, custody of her son would have almost certainly gone to her husband.
For contemporary readers an upper class woman not only running away from her husband, but taking her child and living alone would have been shocking. Many men lived like the elder Arthur Huntingdon and saw nothing wrong with it and many women put up with it or had affairs of their own.
Then novel definitely seemed more realistic and much less Gothic than the other Bronte novels. Gilbert Markham's relationships with his siblings and mother were relatable to a modern reader, though I hope mothers today would not so blatantly favour their sons, especially the eldest and teach their daughters their role was to pander entirely to their husbands and sons. I would have liked to know more or Rose Markham's story and who her husband was, given the whole book is Gilbert writing to his brother-in-law.
The only scandalous part I would think was that it provided a recipe for women’s emancipation from the tyranny of abusive marriages. I find Wuthering Heights to be scandalous on so many different levels. The Tenant is tame in comparison.
• Nevertheless Tenant sold like hot cakes until suppressed – presumably with most sales to young ladies who did not want to be left in ignorance of the ways of the world, from which the customary upbringing at the time left them in blissful ignorance. The possible consequences of this are illustrated the central character, Helen Graham, who falls into her disastrous marriage ignorant of the ways of some men, especially of “gentlemen” of her time, despite the warnings of her aunt. Are women (e.g. most women in your country) too wise in the ways of the world to do so now?
Hard to comment as a male but where angels fear to tread… I hear of all sorts of disastrous relationships where men are mentally and/or physically abusive.
• Child rearing practices in rich households of the time. Compare those of young Arthur (in his father’s and in his mother’s household) with Helen’s sheltered upbringing. Other examples in the book?
The parents presented to extreme. Arthur senior wanted to raise him in his own image. Aside from using some aversion tactics, Helen’s major approach was to shelter him from the world.
• The book is set before the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act, which inhibited at least some of the abuses described in Part 2 of the book. Are you aware of , or lived in a country or society , where women still effectively lose control of their property and any subsequent children to their husband on marriage?
I am not aware of the history of Canadian law on this issue. I am sure it probably mirrors Britain’s experience.
• To what extent do you think the author’s brother Branwell – who died of alcoholism, and conspicuously failed to be the earner of the family that he was expected to be - was the model for the dissolute set of “gentlemen”? [IRL, by his affair with mistress of the house, he got Emily dismissed from her employment, and she the only one in the siblings to earn any substantial income outside of their writing].
Branwell provided Anne with excellent material for the role of Arthur.
• How do the famous books by the other Bronte sisters compare to this one in your view, particularly Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. (Note that their reception at the time was rather different to how they look now.) Isn’t it amazing how action-packed these books are compared to the quiet country parsonage in the “middle of nowhere” where they lived?
The only one I have read is Wuthering Heights. I suppose if you live in a quiet place you want to escape to somewhere more exciting in your imagination.
• This story (Tenant) has a more modern feel, at least to me, than some other Bronte novels. Do you agree? Can you think of any relatively recent parallels either in fiction (including films) or in real life?
Much more modern feel than WH. I think the lack of use of dialect was one of the elements. The use of a letter made it feel a bit like a frame story like WH.
• What did you think of the style of writing of this book – both the prose style and the way the plot became clear?
The prose was very clear. The plot unfolded as would most tales of reminiscence.
• Were the author’s sisters right to suppress this book as soon as they could? Why?
No! Seems like jealousy to me.
• Did any of the minor characters make any impression on you and/or contribute much to the novel, perhaps even a humourous grin or two? Consider those in the village and those in the ‘dissolute’ set, as you fancy.
Lord Lowborough was probably my favourite minor character.
• Tenant was Anne Bronte’s second book. Have any of you read her first, Agnes Grey ? How does it compare with this one?
I have yet to read it. Thanks for giving me a reason to read The Tenant.
I thought the device of having Gilbert write a long letter to his brother in way and then find out Helen's story by a large chunk of her journal was rather unwieldy to say the least. The style I really enjoyed, it felt, as has already been noted, modern.
Did any of the minor characters make any impression on you and/or contribute much to the novel, perhaps even a humorous grin or two? Consider those in the village and those in the ‘dissolute’ set, as you fancy.
I thought many of the minor characters were well drawn, Fergus the annoying younger brother and the flirty and trouble stirring Eliza for instance. I got a bit confused between the friends of Arthur Hammond, why did so many of them have surname's beginning with H, but they way the parties were described seemed pretty plausible to me.
I liked the way that Gilbert was not the great stuff of romantic fiction, in fact he seemed rather lucky to end up with the good fortune to marry Helen, who having got herself a settled life might have been better deciding to stay single. I did find her moralising a little annoying in places though I understood why she had become that way after the behaviour of her husband. I too was rather shocked my Mrs Markham thinking pressing diluted wine on a six year old was a good idea.
The other real weakness I found with the structure of the book is that, whatever his character flaws, I think Gilbert is much more lively, engaging, and interesting narrator in his sections of the book, than Helen is in hers. I felt bad for what she had to endure, but she often seemed preachy, dull, and moralizing in her diary entries, and lacking the spark of humour which makes Gilbert's sections more interesting to read.
I agree with others that it's a bit jarring for the modern reader to find everyone in Gilbert's social circle (including the vicar!) indignant at the idea that Helen won't allow her small child to drink alcohol.
The gender difference is interesting here too of course -- presumably there would not be the same pressure on a little girl to drink. The women do drink alcohol too, in moderation, but drinking as presented both positively and negatively in this novel seems to be closely tied to ideals of masculinity.
To get back to The Tennant, I really liked the depiction of village life in the 1820s where small parties were a regular form of entertainment. I felt I got a real insight into what life was actually like.
I agree that Gilbert was a much more rounded character. Helen in the beginning seems very much your average teenage girl. If she was as devout as she becomes towards the end she'd have ditched Arthur when he went to church with her on their engagement and didn't take the service seriously.
Of course the biggest red flag did occur after their marriage, when they were having quiet days at home and Arthur was bored because he couldn't or wouldn't read a book!!
Get out of there, girl!
But there was something irresistibly comic for me in the last chapters, a male ineptitude both infuriating and endearing. Once Helen's husband has died, nothing prevents Gilbert from going to her. They have mentioned a waiting period of six months and he could wait that out and then go. But Helen's brother says nothing to encourage him and Gilbert can't bring himself to ask any direct questions of Frederick. Then he hears Helen has gone to her aunt's home and so he delays any visit. Dithering. He then becomes convinced she is remarrying and rushes off to confront her at the altar only to find that her brother is the one getting married, a secret not shared with him. So Gilbert dashes across the country to see Helen back at her aunt's place but discovers she has inherited her uncle's estate and wealth and is far above him in social status. He decides to return home and live as a bachelor. Helen's small son recognises the forlorn Gilbert standing under a tree beside the road and Helen invites him home. More misunderstandings, a rose is thrown out of a window and Gilbert leaps through the window and picks it up, light breaks in and love is declared. I couldn't help thinking that between the reticent moody brother and the adoring but clueless husband, Helen will have her work cut out for her. And probably no hope of her art going anywhere once she is married...
Plus a few asides about morning after headaches improved by a hair of the dog.