Victorians! discussion

This month our group has chosen The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. She is often overlooked in favour of her two more famous sisters, Charlotte and Emily. Join in and read the book and decided whether you think that this is deservedly so.

This discussion is for chapters 1 to 15 (A Discovery through to An encounter and its Consequences).


Please note that I have taken the chapter references according the the Oxford World Classics edition so please double check against your own.

Let the disucssions begin. Have fun!

People might be interested in the Yorkshire locations of the novel so here are a few links to 'set the scene':

The novel begins in the Yorkshire Dales, where beneath the 'steep acclivity of Wildfell' lie those 'more frequented regions, the wooded valleys, the cornfields, and the meadow lands' (Chap 1):-

http://www.the-yorkshiredales.co.uk/p...

The Brontes frequently visited Scarborough (cf The Excursion Chap VII) and Anne is buried there. This link shows her gravestone and other interesting old photos of the area. (See particularly Anne Bronte - The Scarborough Connection.):-


http://www.yorkshire-coast.com/abgrav...

This is South Bay, Scarborough as Helen might have painted it:-

http://www.mytongallery.co.uk/john%20...

You can see from this map that the distance from the Dales to Scarborough was too far to walk, so some artistic licence was taken by Anne Bronte for the 'Excursion' chapter - a distance that would normally be travelled by carriage and a journey which the Brontes frequently took from Haworth to Scarborough:-

http://www.visit-yorkshire.info/image...


The Black Bull, Haworth, was Branwell's pub:-

http://www.yorkshire-escapes.com/york...

Here are some details of Blake Hall School and Roe Head School, which the Bronte sisters attended. Blake Hall was the source for Wellwood House in Agnes Grey and she may have drawn upon them both for Wildfell Hall.

http://mick-armitage.staff.shef.ac.uk...
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Thanks for all these links, Margaret....I like to get pictures and information related to my readings.This is just great !!!
I read The Tenant a long, long time ago and had forgotten all about it except that I had loved it at the time.....I still love it so far !!

I agree, Chandra. Gilbert seems rather egotistical and... what other word can I use for "full of himself"? The way he treats Eliza alone is cause for concern!

I agree with both of you...I am right at the moment when he is trying to back up in his relationship with Eliza.

My first impression is of the ironic humour in the novel, which is unusual in the Brontes and not what I expected of the writer of the dour Agnes Grey. The teasing of Fergus by Gilbert in Chapter 1 and later Gilbert's teasing of Helen portrays a very Yorkshire characteristic - what my father called 'backhanded humour'. It drew me into the novel and into Gilbert's family. I think much of Gilbert's conversation needs to be interpreted in the light of this irony, which is what we might today call 'tongue in cheek'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-i...

Margaret, you are so wonderful for posting those links. This is where I live, everyone! Well, OK, I live in a town rather than in the middle of a field, but Yorkshire is my home. I have visited these places so many times - I love it! When I look at it I can so easily see how the Bronte's were so inspired. Can you tell I'm really passionate about all things Bronte and all things Yorkshire? LOL.

Margaret wrote: "My first impression is of the ironic humour in the novel, which is unusual in the Brontes and not what I expected of the writer of the dour Agnes Grey. The teasing of Fergus by Gilbert in Chapter ..."

I would agree with that Margaret.

I actually loked Gilbert when I read it but I do know what others feel about him not being Helen's equal. He seems very much younger than her, doesn't he?

What Margaret said about the sense of humour, I also agree with. Here in Yorkshire we are known for being very blunt; we say what we think - it's a trait that we're know for. If you think of Mr Darcy (he was from Derbyshire which is the next county south from Yorkshire) he was quite like that too. There is less pomp here, than you would see in a novel set in London for example.

This is my first reading of it as well, but I have read Agnes Grey before.

In agreement re Gilbert. Very pompous, I think! Still, I'm only on page 12 so ought not to judge yet. I'm determined to give this one a proper go. I've been so lazy with the classics this past year.

Yes, Boof, our frankness is legendary and gets us into a lot of trouble:D. Folks in the South East are much more 'mannered', perhaps because they are nearer to the seats of power - the monarchy and parliament - and have had to watch their p's and q's more than their northern cousins.

(It is where I used to live too Boof, and where my heart is.)

Yes, Boof, our frankness is legendary and gets us into a lot of trouble:D. Folks in the South East are much more 'mannered', perhaps because they are nearer to the seats of power - the monarchy and parliament - and have had to watch their p's and q's more than their northern cousins.

I think it is really interesting that Tenant is written from Gilbert's perspective and not Helen's.

Rebecca, this is my first time reading it as well. I just finished Chapter 19 (Barnes and Noble Classics Edition).

I love love LOVE this book so far. One of my favorite "scenes" so far is one where Helen and others are having a passionate discussion about how Helen raises her son and whether or not she is too shielding and protective. This transforms into a debate over differences in male/female virtue. (In my edition this heated discourse extends over several pages in Ch. 3). At one point she even says that she'd rather her son die than to become what she describes as "a man of the world."

Darcy wrote: "I think it is really interesting that Tenant is written from Gilbert's perspective and not Helen's. "

Keep reading, Darcy.

lol--I've read it before ;) I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I do think it is curious nonetheless, since it sets up a very different relationship between reader and narrator than we find in other Bronte novels (like Jane Eyre, for example). Jane is very chatty with her unknown reader ("Reader, I married him."). Here, though, the reader is positioned as one of Gilbert's intimate friends, who knows him well and is acquainted with his family to a degree. That's a very different relationship, it seems to me. Especially since it allows Gilbert to say a lot of things about a lady that would be otherwise ungentlemanly to put in a novel.

Darcy wrote: "lol--I've read it before ;) I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I do think it is curious nonetheless, since it sets up a very different relationship between reader and narrator than we f..."

Yes; I think it's a very effective technique.

My version has a brief intro that explains that when Tenant was published, the initial reaction was that it was done by the same author as Jane Eyre and that there was a lot of discussion about whether the author was male or female (Tenant being originally published under the author name Acton Bell).

Perhaps this technique of narrating the story in Gilbert's voice, and in particular of Gilbert talking to another man, was intended to further confuse readers/critics?

I'm only just starting Chapter VII, but I suspect Gilbert is a bit of an unreliable narrator.

Don't you all think that Gilbert is a lot like Lockwood in Wuthering Heights, although it remains to be seen whether or not he will play a role in the story.

Well, he is pretty young, rash, and in love. I guess that makes him unreliable, to a degree ;)

Seriously, though, I think you are probably right, Paula, and that at least one effect of the technique is to confuse readers about the gender of the author. I wonder if AB consciously made the decision to write from a male perspective because of the general interest in the gender of all the "Bell" authors. Any Bronte lovers know?

Yeah, I'm with you, Chandra, on Helen being the mysterious artist and Gilbert being the more "domestic" figure. It's a neat reversal.

Does anyone think that Helen is to be seen as unconventional from a Victorian standpoint (a theme in all of the novels of the Bronte sisters) I. E. she is not typically engaged in the pursuit or involved in marriage. Isn't that what makes her noticible to Gilbert is her subtle unconventionality?

I agree, Paul! The fact that there is a woman, living on her own with her son, who stands up to a gentleman in his own home and very clearly makes known the non-traditional raising of her son (via sobriety and closeness to her as the mother), plus the fact that she seems to be doing ok for herself independently, I think she is wonderfully unconventional. I'm not that far in, though, so there could be other aspects I'm missing that steer her back to the more acceptable behaviors.

I have only just started reading this book, so I have not yet got very far within it, though I have to say, it takes me a while to get use to the fact that it is a woman author writing 1st person narrative from the point of view of male character. That does not seem to happen very often.

It seems when I think back most the stories I have read, that are 1st person, the character is always the same gender as the author.

Paula wrote: "I agree, Paul! The fact that there is a woman, living on her own with her son, who stands up to a gentleman in his own home and very clearly makes known the non-traditional raising of her son (via ..."

An early critic wrote that it was a book 'utterly unfit to put into the hands of girls' and it is considered to be one of the earliest feminist novels. Given that at this time married women (and their fortunes) were literally the property of their husbands and they could not get custody of their children if they separated, Helen is from the outset a very controversial character whose behaviour would have outraged Victorian society. We may admire her but the average Victorian most certainly would not have done so. Anne Bronte was very brave (or foolhardy?) to step into the minefield of 'The Woman Question'.

I find I am driven to compare the character of Anne herself with that of Helen (and of Agnes Grey) because we are told that she was a mild mannered and gentle person and yet both her heroines are strong, outspoken women. Does her writing therefore reflect the sort of woman she would have liked to have been, rather than the woman she was? Do we see a lot of her 'angst' in this novel and her frustration at being the youngest in a family of more famous literary sisters, one of whom (Charlotte) wrote that the subject of TWH was an 'entire mistake', that Anne 'had a morbid love of the coarse, not to say of the brutal' and a 'tinge of religious melancholy'.

I think perhaps Helen's struggles to be an independent woman, earning her own living, reflect the struggles of Anne's own life under the domination of her successful eldest sister, as well as her experiences with her alcoholic brother.

I read this one a few years back and I remember how much I liked it! I don't know if I'll have time to reread all of it this month, but I would love to reread bits and pieces - esp from the first half of the novel, which I only remember vaguely.

Happe reading ;-)

I guess it goes both ways, though . . I can't think of many Victorian novels written by men from the first-person perspective of a woman. Bleak House, which Dickens tempers by having two narrators.

Gender crossing didn't occur much for different reasons, though, I would say. A man writing in the first-person perspective of a woman could potentially be emasculated. A woman, by contrast, writing a first-person male perspective would have to be aware of a lot of things she shouldn't (or in some cases, couldn't) be aware of. This is particularly true in the first half of the century, when the nineteenth century novel is still embedded in the eighteenth century tradition of the picaresque--lots of traveling, brothels, sea voyages, jails, kidnapping, duels, etc. etc. Even Dickens writes in this tradition until the 1840s, so the Brontes would be right at the tail end of it.

Perhaps it was easier for Ann to cross gender because she was so very close to Branwell, who probably helped the sisters with their writing, at least in their earlier 'Gondal' days. Talking to him about her plot line would be one way of keeping his mind off drink and laudanum. She also observed some pretty drunken male behaviour when she was a governess.

It's been a few years since I've read this but there was one thing Gilbert did (can't mention as I forget where in the book it is) that was decidedly feminine and kind of threw me off a bit. I think you'll all know it when you get there.

Darcy wrote: "Gender crossing didn't occur much for different reasons, though, I would say. A man writing in the first-person perspective of a woman could potentially be emasculated. A woman, by contrast, writing a first-person male perspective ...."

I was curious if how or if the readers of her time would be affected by the idea of a woman writing in a male first person narrative and if it would have caused any possible controversy, or would have been a non-issue at that period of time, and not really made a big deal of.

It is also kind of interesting, I am reading Villette right now as well, and notice there are certain similarities between the two different books. One of the things which struck out at me, that I just thought was kind of amusing, in both books they refer to a character having red hair, whose mother called it auburn. The phrasing of the description was almost identical within both books.

When the book was first published under the name of Acton Bell, people would not know that she was writing as a male and instead might be shocked that a male could write as a female.

Auburn hair is a description used in the UK for brown hair tinged with red - like mine used to be! It was popularised in the paintings of Jane Burden by the Pre-Raphaelites, like Gabriel Rossetti, which would have been familiar to the Brontes.
http://wapedia.mobi/en/Jane_Burden

Rebecca wrote: "I am reading this one for the first time. Anyone else?"

Me too.

Oh, and my two cents: I'm not liking Gilbert one little bit. It bothers me that Helen, so apparently independent and smart, lets this boob so easily into her life. Granted, he's not drunk all the time, but does this mean he's not difficult to be around? I'm having trouble with that.

Margaret wrote: "When the book was first published under the name of Acton Bell, people would not know that she was writing as a male and instead might be shocked that a male could write as a female.

Auburn hair ..."

Oh, I was not aware that it was originally published under an assumed name.

It just seems interesting to me that the two different sisters both used such similar descriptions of depicting a young man with long curly/wavy hair which is colored red, but considered auburn by their mothers. It strikes me that the image seems to be based upon someone that was actually known to them.

And in both stories it makes a point of highlighting the fact that the hair color was dubbed aubron by the mother while appearing red it seems to other observers.

I'm loving reading all these comments; what a great discussion!

I have to say I have mixed feelings about Mrs. Graham and her relationship to her son. On the one hand I do not agree with the others trying to dictate to her what is the wrong or right way to raise her own child. And their attitude and presumptions annoyed me, and were out of place, to presume and act as if they new better than her, and I do not necessarily agree with their own personal theories about the "proper" way to bring up a boy.

But on the other hand I do think that Mrs. Graham is sheltering her son a bit much, and she does seem to be overprotective of him and has a tendency to baby him. While this might be in part because she is a single parent, it does seem a bit to me as if she is taking out her personal vendettas against men in general upon her son. And by that I do not mean in any sort of mean way, I do not think she is unkind to the child, and I believe she does truly love him, but it is as if she is trying to smother out of him all the traits she finds disagreeable within men because of her fears and anxieties regarding her own personal experiences with men.

Though I really enjoyed the speech she gave about the differences in the way one would raise a girl compared to how they think a boy should be raised, and the hypocrisies in their arguments. I found that flirtation with challenging gender roles to be quite unconventional and advanced.

I have learned in reading the novels of the Bronte sisters that first impressions are everything. Rochester is trapped by life just as he is trapped beneath the horse when Jane first meets him, likewise Heathcliff is always an the same outsider he is at the beginning of the book.
I like what you are saying, there is something wrong in the way she is raising her child and we are clearly meant to see that. Yet, I think this is how we are meant to see Mrs Graham as alone and concerned with what is right. This is her character through out the book. The Victorians would have looked upon single motherhood, so common these days as something horrible. This would be how she would be expected to be seen. It is clear that we as readers are to see something wrong, and want to find a cure. It is a great way for a writer to involve us in the story.
One of my professors, who was not a Bronte fan, said of them that they wrote, "like men" that is they didn't waste words and drew very concrete pictures of what they were saying. I think the opening section is remarkable in how it uses so few words to draw a very believable portrait of a lot of the themes that are in the novel.
I really admire Anne's matter of fact narrative style which made Agnes Grey such a memorable reading experience for me.

You bring up a very interesting point in regards to Mrs. Graham and the way in which the readers of her time would approach her character and the way we the modern reader would view her.

It is true that at the time it have been looked down upon, and seen as something abnormal and as an offence against society and the standards of the time. It would be seen as something broken, or almost like an illness, which needed to be fixed or cured in someway.

While today many modern readers admire her strength and respect her unconventionality and the way in which she refuses to allow herself conform to societies standards.

I was struck how early on the book Mrs. Graham was indeed described in a way that gave her a very "bewitching" appearance with her long black strands of hair and the mystery that was shrouded around her. I think that suggestion of witchcraft that is cast over her does speak of the unnaturalness of her position within the Victorian era.

Certainly, single and divorced mothers would have been very uncommon (and shocking!) in Victorian England, especially since husbands got automatic custody of children, but single widows (with or without children) must have been quite common, right?

In the early chapters, it seems that the surrounding community assumes that Mrs. Graham is a young widow, and actually accepts her into society, despite her eccentric ideas regarding childrearing and her painting operation. So at this point in the novel, she's an unusual character, but she's clearly not seen by her neighbors as "fallen."

Of course, there is loads of foreshadowing, and you definitely get the sense that Mrs. Graham has secrets. I feel there is something "wrong" with Mrs. Graham, although I'm not sure exactly what at this point. We are clearly being set up for a great revelation ...

You make a good point about the presence of widows during the Victorian period, and their positions within society, and it is true that Mrs. Graham has not been osterized from society at this point, just seen as being "miss guided" by her fellow neighbors.

Though it seems that young widows were expected to marry again, as I think it was Gilbert's mother who makes the comment to Mrs. Graham about how she certainly will marry again, and when Mrs. Graham denies any such intent, Gilbert's mother patronizes her and acts as if Mrs. Graham does not truly know her own mind.

Illegitmate children even spring up in Jane Austen, let's not forget Harriet Smith and Jane Fairfax in Emma. As we will see as the book progresses, Mrs Graham has very little in the way of rights in her situation and the husband has them all. If Glyn Hughes novel "Bronte" is any indication it was because of the rights of women that Anna felt compelled to write it in the first place.

I joined this group a couple of hours ago. I raced out at lunch to buy the book. (I don't know why I haven't read this one before). I'm on page two. I couldn't help myself. I am loving it already. I must stop reading all your comments though, at least until I catch up. Love the scene setting by Margaret.

Yes, although widows who refuse to ever marry again are romanticized, too. Queen Victoria herself was a great example of this - she wore "widow's weeds" for decades, right?

But you're right - Mrs. Graham is treated as a child, as though she doesn't know her own mind. Funny, I feel a little torn about that as well - when I meet people who have had a bad experience and insist they will "never love again," I might be inclined to respond reassuringly/patronizingly, as well!

Inder wrote: "Yes, although widows who refuse to ever marry again are romanticized, too. Queen Victoria herself was a great example of this - she wore "widow's weeds" for decades, right?"


Funny that you mention that, as Mrs. Graham is refered to by Gilbert at one point as being a "Romantic Widow"

I think the discussion which takes place over child rearing is very interesting in itself because it shows the changing attitudes towards child care which were taking place in Victorian society. Helen is representing the younger generation of parents who were beginning to think that the Victorian belief that 'children should be seen and not heard' was wrong. Her treatment of young Arthur is much more liberal and heralds the views of the Edwardians, particularly the Fabians, which we have been discussing in The Children's Book.

And although Mrs Markham espouses the Victorian viewpoint and recommends strictness, she in fact spoils Gilbert quite badly and obviously 'dotes'upon him in just the way she told Helen not to do. As Gilbert is the hero of the novel it seems as if Anne Bronte was herself espousing the more liberal view of childrearing and we know from biographies that she had difficulties in imposing discipline when she was a governess.

(Unless a widow was wealthy, and Helen clearly isn't, she would be expected to marry again because there was no 'respectable' way in which a woman could support herself in these times, especially if she had a child. Women were regarded as too weak and vulnerable to live alone so we see even wealthy widows like Dorothea in Middlemarch, who was strong, being prevailed upon to remarry. As Inder has noted, Helen poses a bit of a mystery in these chapters.)

While Helen's approach to child-rearing his unconventional, at this point in the book, I cannot see her was truly being a liberal mother in her parenting approach.

She comes across more overbearing, over possessive mother. It seems more to me as if she wants to control all of her son's decisions, and not give him the opportunity or chance to make his own choices and mistakes.

Instead she wants to guard over him, and try and mold and shape him to be just what she thinks he should be. She seems too fearful that Arthur will make the "wrong choices" for her to allow him to stand upon his own.

There is a change in another way. As A. N. Wilson points out in The Victorians, children were not considered as such but as small adults, and a childhood as we would consider it was a luxury. Children were often put to work at a very early age (does any remember Blake's The Chimmeny Sweeper or even Dicken's Oliver Twist.

Paul wrote: "There is a change in another way. As A. N. Wilson points out in The Victorians, children were not considered as such but as small adults, and a childhood as we would consider it was a luxury. Chi..."

Yes that is also true, it makes me think of Villette, when I was totally confused at how old Polly was suppose to be at first. On the one hand she was treated as if she was a rather young child, yet on the other hand her personality seemed quite mature. She was like a little mini adult.

Gail wrote: "I joined this group a couple of hours ago. I raced out at lunch to buy the book. (I don't know why I haven't read this one before). I'm on page two. I couldn't help myself. I am loving it already..."

That is awesome! You ran out at lunch just to get this book? I know that feeling but have never been able to act on it - I'm impressed!

So, perhaps a little late, but wanted to add another thought about Anne writing as a male, or even as an androgynous author. I think there is a tendency to attribute Anne's knowledge of typical male behavior to her brother, the oft-inebriated or drugged Bramwell.

One influence that I think is overlooked, however, is the influence of her father. While the Bronte's mother fell in and died, the brother was drunk or stoned, the sisters clearly had a connection, but I think the father still acted as a major influence on them. I'm sure he wasn't that directly involved in their daily lives, particularly as the Bronte's aunt came to help out after their mother died. Yet, the father was there through it all.

It doesn't appear that he was any less intelligent than his three famous daughters, as he grew up poor, won a scholarship to go to Cambridge, held a solid job for about 4 decades, and throughout championed a lot of initiatives to help out social inequality and conditions, such as an improved water supply, better education, limited church reforms, etc. He even dabbled in a little poetry. (His name was Patrick, by the way).

I wonder what kind of influence he actually had on his daughters' writings? He couldn't have been that far removed from them that he didn't know they wrote, so he must have encouraged it or at least didn't interrupt it, from what I can tell of the few biographical sources available.

Would love to read a bio on Patrick some day... Ah.. another potential for Mt. TBR!