Achebe, Chinua
Angelou, Maya
Austen, Jane
Bronte, Anne ...
Hemingway, Ernest
Essays on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Critical evaluation 1. Synopsis The tenant of the title is Helen Huntingdon, who, under the name Mrs Graham, arrives at the decaying Elizabethan mansion and causes gossip and rumour to spread in the neighbourhood. She arouses the interest of Gilbert Markham, a local farmer, and though she tries to repel his growing love for her, his closeness to her young son eventually makes her treat him in a more friendly fashion. The relationship however is hindered by the opposition and ridicule of his family, and by the figure of Frederick Lawrence, who seems to have an interest in or influence over the mysterious tenant which arouses Gilbert's antagonism. After the pair fight, 'Mrs Graham' thrusts into Gilbert's hands a diary which tells the story of her disastrous marriage. A serious and pious young girl, she has become fascinated by a young man of bad reputation, Arthur Huntingdon, a Byronic figure of great fascination but also of hardly-concealed moral failings. She marries him, fatally confident that her love will reform him. For a time all goes well, but gradually he resumes his drinking and womanising, and Helen becomes increasingly unhappy. A son is born, but her husband's debaucheries become more frequent and more organised. When he begins to corrupt his son into his own 'manly' habits she decides to flee, and after an aborted attempt, sadistically thwarted by her husband, she finally achieves her aim, fleeing to Wildfell Hall, in the vicinity of her brother, who is Frederick Lawrence. | |
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