There is no doubt that Victorian aristocratic society is portrayed defectively in Brontë’s novel. ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ has a didactic function and clearly it challenges the status quo of Victorian society. When Helen Graham arrives at Wildfell Hall, she is a mysterious figure. Immediately she finds herself in a very narrow minded and gossiping society. Mrs. Markham, Eliza Millward and other such characters pass judgement on her in an unacceptable way. In chapter three the reader encounters an argument between Helen and the local community. Victorian principles dictated that feminine values would be unbecoming in a male, and consequently males needed a superior standard of education. Helen challenges Mrs. Markham’s comment of making a ‘Miss Nancy’ of her son Arthur by teaching him herself. She takes quite a radical approach and ignores society’s standards and she carries out what she considers to be right for her son;
‘..if I thought he would grow up to be what you call a man of the world – one that has ‘seen life’ and glories in his experience, even though he should so far profit by it, as to sober down, at length, into a useful and respected member of society – I would rather that he died tomorrow – a thousand times!’
Similarly Helen defends herself and stands up for what she believes in when there is the debate about the alcohol. Helen’s strong and clearly radical ideas contradict the statement that this novel is a conservative text.
Brontë is also clearly disapproving of many of the men’s dissolute and unscrupulous behavior throughout. Huntingdon especially is presented as a very ill mannered selfish and arrogant character. Brontë uses Huntingdon to demonstrate the double standards applied to women in society through his maltreatment of Helen and his belief that as a wife Helen must obey and be concerned for him all of the time, while he is left to do what he wants. An example of these double standards are illustrated when Huntingdon goes to London on his own for several weeks and he will not even let Helen even attend her own father’s funeral. Huntingdon argues that, ‘the cases are different…it is a woman’s nature to be constant.’ In chapter 25 Hattersley also expresses a similar view and he regards marriage as being about someone who will let him have his own way;
‘I must have somebody that will let me have my own way in everything…I must have some good quiet soul that will let me do just what I like and go where I like, keep at home or stay away, without a word of reproach or complaint.’
From a twenty first-century perspective we would not put up with a bad marriage like Helen’s, but in Victorian society women were powerless in marriage. Brontë makes the reader aware of the sheer insincerity and hypocrisy of marriage vows, which required women to comply with their husbands needs and demands. Language such as ‘escape’ and ‘asylum’ hints at the idea that marriage was similar to slavery or being confined to a prison. The insincerity of the marriage vows are highlighted when Huntingdon indulges in an affair with Annabella, however Helen has no option but to stay with Huntingdon as women in Victorian society were not able to divorce their husbands. Conversely, when Annabella has a second affair Lord Lowborough is able to divorce her and find happiness in another relationship. Brontë uses Annabella as an example to warn young woman against the use of marriage as a method of achieving higher social status. Annabella’s pure selfishness is highlighted here and paralleled with the selfishness of Huntingdon also. It is significant that Brontë chooses to end Annabella’s life in unhappiness and poverty, illustrating that marriage only concerned with your own needs can never result in any good. This reflects Brontë’s didactic style of writing.
Many of the characters in the novel give us insight into what exactly they feel marriage should be about. Right from the start Helen views marriage to be all about love. However Helen’s aunt does not view it so much in this light. The belief at that time was that marriage was about and concerned with social status, financial position and marriage was a often viewed as career and it was seldom that there were any romantic notions. Helen’s aunt warns Helen ‘to be watchful and circumspect from the very commencement of your career…you can boast a good family, a pretty considerable fortune and expectations.’ Gilbert’s mother also raises her ideas of how marriage should be showing again the double standards of the Victorian class;
‘it’s your business to please yourself, and hers to please you.’
The mother of Millicent and Esther Hargreaves shows that many mothers worried about their daughters and often appealed to them to marry for the sake of wealth. When Millicent’s mother coerces her into marrying a man she feels trapped but she feels if she does not marry him she will only disappoint her mother and she justifies this by saying, “I must try to love him.” Esther worries that she will also be forced into marrying someone she doesn’t love. She represents all the people Anne Brontë is writing to warn about marriage and so it can be said that as she is trying to bring about change and warn others, this is not a conservative text.
One might say that Helen is an extraordinary character, as it is about a heroine who copes and eventually reestablishes herself. Helen is a strong woman, she is a heroine and she repeatedly tries to make changes. Helen elicits much admiration. Despite her immense misery Helen does something quite revolutionary for the time and she leaves her husband. Anne Brontë skillfully manipulates the plot and makes the audience feel that Helen’s situation is justified and perhaps quite a heroic act on her part. It is significant also that Helen takes a pseudonym as this suggests she rejects male patriarchal society. At the time of this novel women wrote or painted to entertain, but Brontë does not write for just entertainment she had a clear didactic function and this is why she too took a pseudonym, Acton Bell, so that she would be taken seriously. If we look at Helen and consider her role as an artist she embodies important features and she challenges accepted views on the role of women as an artist. She establishes a measure of financial independence and is not reliant on her husband. Brontë presents the idea of escaping a bad marriage and society’s norm and women not always being resigned to their fate. The fact that Helen also marries someone below her class was quite revolutionary as well. Overall it can be said this is quite a radical text for its time.
Helen’s strong religious morals are seen throughout this novel. In fact she is so devoted to God that Huntingdon is actually quite jealous of it as he worries that it may decrease the love which she has for him. Brontë also had a very strong religious faith and she chooses to show that religion has a major part in Helen’s life through numerous biblical references. To a certain extent Helen could be considered as a ‘model of Christian resignation’ as she endures immense suffering and even after she leaves her husband due to his maltreatment, she still goes back to nurse him when he is dying. However others may contest that Millicent is more a figure of Christian resignation as Helen fights back unlike Millicent.
In the novel Brontë gives Helen her own voice through her diary and this gives insight into her own thoughts and feelings. At the beginning of the novel Helen appeared to be quite a strange character but when the book shifts from the epistolary form to Helen’s soliloquistic form we begin to understand Helen more. Up until this it had been more common for a females thoughts to be described by a male narrator. Brontë also uses a non-linear method of writing, which was associated with French feminist theorists. Brontë perhaps uses this literary style to demonstrate that ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ was not a conservative text. Brontë has also been linked to revising themes from Richardson’s ‘Pamela and Clarissa’ as the heroine has her own voice and so on account of this the novel can be considered as being quite radical. So not only was the Brontë’s message quite groundbreaking at the time, so was her literary style.
In today’s society many themes in ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’ would be quite common, but at the time the actions of Helen Graham were simply unthought of. There is no doubt that in this novel Brontë challenges the attitudes and norms of Victorian society on an array of issues. Personally I feel that this text is very radical for its time, and even its literary style is not conservative. Although Helen is considered a figure of Christian resignation, I feel she is not. She is a heroine who essentially defies a convention and who has enough bravery to break away from society’s norms, again highlighting that this is by no means a conservative text.
