Recently, I was listening to a Great Courses audiobook, “The Art of Reading.”  The lecturer, Professor Timothy Spurgin, shared the common insight that there are really only two main plots, which are recycled and repeated ad nauseum.  They are: “stranger comes to town” and “hero takes a journey.”  Since I listened to that lecture, I’ve amused myself by assigning each book I read to one category or another.  Sometimes it’s more difficult to figure out where a book belongs, but in the case of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, it’s clear as a bell – this is a classic “stranger comes to town” narrative.

The book opens as a letter from one Gilbert Markham to his brother-in-law (who never appears in the story).  Markham is putting pen to paper to tell a story that the brother-in-law must have asked about regularly: the appearance of a mysterious woman, calling herself Helen Graham, lodging in a few rooms of the crumbling Wildfell Hall with her little son and one old servant – and everything that happens afterward.

Helen is an object of immediate fascination for Markham, his mother and sister, and all of the neighbors in their little hamlet.  Who is she, and what brought her to this desolate spot, and what possibly possessed her to want to live in an abandoned old mansion?  Helen clearly prefers to keep to herself, but anyone who has lived in a small town knows that’s the first cardinal sin – and indeed, the villagers will not rest until she’s been dragged into the community.  They bully her into attending a small gathering at the Markhams’ farmhouse, and there discover that she has some interesting ideas about child-rearing.

“I will lead him by the hand, Mr. Markham, till he has strength to go alone; and I will clear as many stones from his path as I can, and teach him to avoid the rest – or walk firmly over them, as you say; – for when I have done my utmost, in the way of clearance, there will still be plenty left to exercise all the agility, steadiness, and circumspection he will ever have.  It is all very well to talk about noble resistance, and trials of virtue, but for fifty – or five hundred men who have yielded to temptation, show me one that has had virtue to resist.  And why should I take it for granted that my son will be one in a thousand? and not rather prepare for the worst, and suppose he will be like his – like the rest of mankind, unless I take care to prevent it?”

“You are very complimentary to us all,” I observed.

Helen’s insistence on instilling temperance in her son from an early age is interpreted by Markham and the villagers as some sort of man-hating Victorian helicopter parenting, and the village’s curiosity about her quickly turns to animosity.  The more she keeps to herself, the more rumors begin to spread about her virtue (or lack thereof) – especially when some eagle-eyed gossip notes that Helen’s son Arthur bears more than a passing resemblance to the landlord of Wildfell Hall, the young squire Frederick Lawrence.  But as the village looks with greater suspicion on Helen, Markham is falling in love with her (with no encouragement, and rather ostentatiously) – at least until, spying in a hedge (gross), he observes Helen in what seems to be a compromising position with the very same squire, Mr. Lawrence.  Consumed with jealousy, Markham attacks Lawrence and confronts Helen, who presses her diary upon him as evidence of her good faith.  And it turns out (spoiler alert!) that Helen’s name is not Graham after all; she is living at Wildfell Hall under an assumed name, on the run from her cruel, drunken, abusive and cheating husband.  Helen’s journal details the entire progression of her doomed marriage, from when she first meets Arthur Huntington as a high-spirited debutante, to the moment she begins to lose faith in him and the downward spiral that follows.

October 5th.–My cup of sweets is not unmingled: it is dashed with a bitterness that I cannot hide from myself, disguise it as I will.  I may try to persuade myself that the sweetness overpowers it; I may call it a pleasant aromatic flavour; but say what I will, it is still there, and I cannot but taste it.  I cannot shut my eyes to Arthur’s faults; and the more I love him the more they trouble me.  His very heart, that I trusted so, is, I fear, less warm and generous than I thought it.  At least, he gave me a specimen of his character to-day, that seemed to merit a harder name than thoughtlessness.

Reading through Helen’s journal, which Markham faithfully transcribes into the letter to his brother-in-law, is like watching a train wreck happen in real time – Bronte’s intention, no doubt.  And while the journal answers many questions – Helen’s relationship to Frederick Lawrence; the circumstances of her flight to Wildfell Hall; the reason she supports herself as a painter – it raises still more.  Will she return to her horrendous marriage?  If so, will she go back willingly or by force?  If not, how will she get out of it – divorce being basically impossible at that time?  Will Markham’s faith in Helen be rewarded?  Will the villagers ever learn the real story, and if they do, will they ever believe it?  These questions are answered by the remainder of Markham’s letter to his sister’s husband.

I think the conventional wisdom on Anne Bronte is that she is the least known and least read of the sisters, but for those who have read all three Brontes, Anne is often the favorite.  That’s certainly how it is for me – while Jane Eyre will always have my heart, I think I value Anne’s works (which seem less melodramatic and more realistic, but gripping all the same) even more than those of Charlotte and Emily.  (I did not care for Wuthering Heights at all.)  The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is as feminist as Jane Eyre – perhaps even more so.  It’s far ahead of its time in advocating for women’s independence and right to leave an abusive marriage.  (Worth noting for purposes of trigger warnings: other than a time when Arthur Huntington throws a book at his dog and hits Helen instead, accidentally, he does not harm her physically.  Although I’d argue that an injury imposed accidentally in the process of trying to intentionally harm an animal is not better.  And there’s no question that he is an emotional abuser and that his conduct towards little Arthur is reprehensible as well.)  It is very clear what Anne Bronte thinks about the lack of options available to a woman like Helen; Tenant is outspoken in its indictment of Victorian laws and customs relating to matrimony.  Helen is fortunate to find (a few) allies who help her out of her desperate situation; poorer women may not even have that stroke of luck.

I loved The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but as I read through Helen’s harrowing diary, I remembered why it took me so long to come back to it for a re-read after first picking it up more than fifteen years ago.  It’s a captivating, gripping book with an important message, but not the easiest read.  I’m sure I’ll come back to Tenant again, but I’ll need to let it settle for a couple of years.

Which Bronte sister is your favorite?