Tenant

It really bothers me how so many people forget about the Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It isn't a compelling, passionate love story like the others, but it isn't meant to be. It's a cautionary tale, which many can still benefit from. The love between Gilbert and Helen is realistic and honest. The central themes of this book are the impact of nurture in the formation of character, steadfast integrity, and redemption, which, in my opinion, are the most important virtures that one can acquire in this life.

What do you think?

I love Tenant. Helen is such a strong character. The case might even be made that she is stronger than Jane, because while Jane ran away, Helen ran away with a child. I can't really remember how much money Helen had when she ran. I sort of think that she might not have been penniless the way Jane was. So maybe they are equal.

I have never really thought about it before until just this moment, but the Brontë heroines are always running...

I love The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for its delciously wonderful language. Very beautifully written.

~ TT

I looked through the first few chapters to see if I could find a good quote about nature vs. nurture. I didn't find exactly what I wanted. When Helen explains that she wants to remove as many stumbling blocks from her son's path as she can, the others laugh at her.

She defends herself saying that "testing" does not make one virtuous. Then an interesting conversation occurs about the difference between girls and boys. This might be an interesting piece of the nature vs. nurture. The difference in education almost begs that the genders natures are different because the girls are not strong enough to resist temptation. The boys should be. One could also hold that the way they are nurtured: one is allowed tempation, the other not, could cause a different in the outcome. Men are more likely to fall because they must be tested. Womn are more likely to be upright because they are reared away from temptation.

This is exactly one of the passages that I find most powerful in the novel: when Helen asks whether what they would want her to do for her boy, they would want to do to their daughters and they reply: of course not, she needs to be 'tenderly and delicately nurtured, like a hot-house-plant'. In the DVD-adaptation it is very well said, and I so agree with Helen!

I always wonder that I really like the novels of this period because of the way women were treated (I'm always glad I'm living now). But then again, maybe I like them because these novels portray strong women...

Most romantic line of all time: "I would rather have your friendship than the love of any woman in the world." OMG. Gilbert said that to Helen and every time I think of it, I wish I could find my Gilbert! I love his character and the nature of his interest in Helen. He's passionate and determined in his pursuit, has the integrity to thumb his nose at public opinion, and as soon as she appears he's smart enough to tell a diamond from a rhinestone (the flirt he liked before).

I hope this is ok, and please excuse if it isn't...I wrote a blog post on Anne Bronte that largely features The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. It might interest you here in this thread: http://naimahaviland.blogspot.com/2011/09/amazing-underrated-anne-bronte.html

Cheers~

I couldn't really bring myself to like Gilbert. I'm not sure what it is about his character that I just find exasperating.

Personally, I think that Tenant is not as good as the wonderful Jane Eyre, but it's at least as well-written as Charlotte's other novels.

This novel might also be one of the first to advocate the values of the new temperance movement (which would gain in momentum over the next few decades).

I am about half way through my first reading of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and it is not at all what I expected. But I am quite liking it perhaps not so much, (at this time), for the story as for the wonderful prose of it. This is also my first visit to this thread. But like ElizabethPotter, I too have noticed that she is standing her ground and not running like Kathy and Jane both did though she did flee her marriage with her son. And like naimahaviland I find Anne Bronte to be very underrated compared to Emily and Charlotte. In fact I have friends who have studied the classics and I have classmates in Lit who are not even aware that there was a third Bronte sister though most of them know of Branwell Bronte.