Anne Bronte's The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall

In its simplest form, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre tells the story of a young woman, Jane Eyre, who grows up poor, makes the decision to be independent, does so, and, eventually, marries rich. The novel follows her from her childhood to her reunion with the love of her life and she, throughout it, deals with classism and sexism and exhibits her own form of feminism. By the end, it becomes clear that, with this semi-autobiographical novel, Charlotte Bronte was providing a criticism on society’s discrimination toward those of a lower class, a subtle argument against the male-dominated society’s treatment of women, and an even subtler call to action for women to find their own agency outside of the men in their lives. On another end, however,

Throughout Charlotte Brontë’s novel, Jane Eyre is afflicted with the feud between her moral values, and the way society perceives these notions. Jane ultimately obtains her happy ending, and Brontë’s shrewd denouement of St. John’s fate juxtaposes Jane’s blissful future with St. John’s tragic course of action. When Jane ends up at the Moor House, she is able to discover a nexus of love and family, and by doing so, she no longer feels fettered to Rochester. Moreover, Rochester is no longer Jane’s only form of psychological escape, and thus Jane is in a position to return to him without an aura of discontent. At the end of the novel, Jane is finally able to be irrevocably “blest beyond what language can express” (Brontë 459) because she is “absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh” (459).

Their engagement and marriage has numerous red flags that a modern reader can pick up on. NCADV, or the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, has laid out certain guidelines to recognize abuse and while The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was written in 1848, the modern guidelines can still apply. At one point, Helen did love Huntingdon. Helen believed that she can change Arthur and make him a better person. This is a common theme for people who marry abusers. They believe that they can fix their partners and that is simply not the case. Helen truly cared about Huntingdon and was hurt when he made her jealous with another woman, Annabelle. When Huntingdon hears of how Helen was hurt, he compliments Helen, claiming that she is the woman he loves. He then proposes to Helen and effectively traps her “nearly squeezing [her] to death in his arms” (page 143, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). Helen asks him to leave and talk to her aunt and uncle about marriage, Huntingdon says that he will not leave until she admits that she loves him. He then smothered her with kisses, a term that can be endearing however, in this case it takes on a more sinister

In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte demonstrates how one’s Christian faith affects love, obedience and career. The morality provided by Christianity sketches an ideal life which is interpreted and executed in how one loves, obeys, or finds satisfaction in a career.

“I sincerely, deeply, fervently long to do what is right; and only that” (426). Throughout Jane Eyre, the characters struggle to live out and develop their faiths, according both to God’s will and their own. In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, faith and religion are displayed in different forms through the characters of Helen Burns, St. John, and Jane Eyre.

Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre embraces many feminist views in opposition to the Victorian feminine ideal. Charlotte Bronte herself was among the first feminist writers of her time, and wrote this book in order to send the message of feminism to a Victorian-Age Society in which women were looked upon as inferior and repressed by the society in which they lived. This novel embodies the ideology of equality between a man and woman in marriage, as well as in society at large. As a feminist writer, Charlotte Bronte created this novel to support and spread the idea of an independent woman who works for herself, thinks for herself, and acts of her own accord.

Nineteenth century western Europe was fraught with religious tension. Riots between Catholics and Protestants were everyday occurrences, often resulting in deaths. It was socially forbidden to be have a relationship, especially a romantic one, with anyone who was of a different religion than you. This was the world that Charlotte Bronte came of age in. This was the world in which she and her siblings began their writing careers. This world of religious tension very obviously affected the things which Bronte wrote about, and how she wrote about them. Two of her novels almost directly address religious contentions, however, they do it in very different ways. Her second novel, Shirley, addresses women’s role in religion and corruption within the Protestant denomination. Bronte’s last novel, Villette, very directly comments on the differences between the Protestant and Catholic religions while at the same time showing how it is more than possible to live peacefully with people who believe different things than themselves. Through both of these novels Bronte is able to address and propose solutions for the religious turmoil that was rampant in the world.

Jane Eyre, often interpreted as a bildungsroman, or a coming-of-age story, goes further than the traditional “happy ending,” commonly represented by getting married. Instead, the novel continues beyond this romantic expectation to tell full the story of Jane’s life, revealing her continual dissatisfaction with conventional expectations of her social era; as a result, many literary critics have taken it upon themselves to interpret this novel as a critique of the rigid class system present in 19th century Victorian society. One literary critic in particular, Chris R. Vanden Bossche, analyzes Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre through a Marxist lens, asserting the importance of class structure and social ideology as historical context and attributing this to the shaping of the novel as a whole. This approach of analysis properly addresses Brontë’s purposeful contrast of submission and rebellion used to emphasize Jane’s determined will for recognition as an equal individual.

In Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Arthur Huntington, Helen’s husband and Arthur’s father, is presented as an alcoholic, disgraceful, narcissistic “gentleman” (Brontë 311). Despite Helen’s efforts to shelter their son, Arthur, from the corrupted masculinity embodied by Huntington and his friends, Huntington encourages Arthur’s “manly accomplishments” that mirror his own character, such as excessive drinking, swearing, and selfishness (297). For fear of Arthur becoming “a curse to others and himself”, like his father, Helen has acquitted herself to prepare for an escape; however, Huntington seizes her journal which reveal her plans (203). In this passage Mr. Huntington is not only devaluing aspect of his corrupted masculinity,

Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre” has captivated readers for generations. As with all coming of age novels, young adults can relate to the struggles and triumphs of Jane. Jane’s setting influences and parallel her emotions. A reader can see the novel through her eyes and perspective. In Bronte’s “Jane Eyre,” the location often parallels Jane’s emotional growth through the tone presented by the environment, resulting in the different places she lives revealing her journey through depression. Jane’s behavioral patterns and thoughts suggest clinical depression that affected her choices throughout the novel and her life at Gateshead, Lowood, Thornfield, Marsh End, and Ferdean.

Helen Burns’s memorable, albeit short-lived role in Jane Eyre proves to be incredibly influential on young Jane during the rest of the novel. Helen serves as Jane’s first direct interaction with strong faith in someone her own age. Helen embodies an incredibly passive faith, believing that she will be rewarded in heaven for her suffering on Earth. She goes as far to say, “...do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you” (Bronte 70). And being a student at Lowood, the boarding school where Jane first makes her acquaintance, she is quite familiar with suffering. All of the students, in fact, are familiar with the sacrifice and self-deprivation present in many aspects of their life, such as their diet of “burned porridge” and “strange

“I am no bird and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will” (Bronte, Jane Eyre 293). In the Victorian time period Charlotte Bronte lived the unequal life as a woman, like many others. The only difference is Bronte did not believe in living in inequality, and she wrote about her hardships in her literature. In her book, Jane Eyre, the reader can see many similarities in her main character’s life and her own. Jane Eyre has many ways of showing how Victorian women were expected to be and act, included in the life of Jane. Bronte also continues her portrayal of the inequality of women and the decision of love versus autonomy through two of her poems, “Life” and “The Wife’s Will.” Charlotte Bronte displays the inequality in life of women in the Victorian era by taking her life and revitalizing it into themes of her works, by providing a journey of discovery of love or autonomy.

Helen Graham, the heroine in The tenant of Wildfell Hall, is a strong and unique woman. She is in many ways a typical Victorian upper-class lady, but in many ways also a very modern and independent kind of woman. She lives with her aunt and uncle, who want to see her married to a wealthy man, but she refuses any offers of marriage since she does not want to marry a man she does not love. When she is about 18 years old and still quite naivë, she falls in love with Mr Huntingdon, who woos and courts her - and seems very much in love with her too. "I will willingly risk my happiness for the chance of securing his" (p 125), she says when trying to persuade her aunt into

Jane Eyre is a novel written by Charlotte Brontë. It is distinctly a female Bildungsroman, as it follows the progress and growth of Jane’s character on her quest for selfhood and independence in a society that tries its best to impress upon her the roles and expectations of women in the Victorian era (which is neatly packaged in the figure of the ‘Angel-in-the-house’.) This is something with which this essay seeks to engage by looking at female figures which feature prominently in Jane’s life, how those who embrace the figure of ‘Angel-in-the-house’ are treated and viewed, versus those who do not. Furthermore, important male figures will also be looked at in order to understand Jane’s own feelings to the ‘Angel-in-the-house’ figure and how she approaches it, as well as how the Byronic hero might relate – if it even does.

Helen’s story opens up with her explaining to her aunt that she does not believe that she will be married because, “I imagine there must be only a very, very few men in