Tennant of WildFell Hall part 2

This poses a serious dilemna for the 'Angel in the House', how can you achieve the salvation of a soul, the reclamation of a rake when he refuses to listen to anything you say with seriousness? Huntingdon's behaviour, never physically violent, becomes increasingly damaging to Helen's self esteem. Initially limiting his wild life to London jaunts and retreating to his country home, with wife waiting in residence, to recuperate, he begins to bring friends home for country parties. It is at this point that Huntingdon is seen to be engaging in a flirtation with Lady Lowenbrough and Helen's knowledge of this growing relationship results in her exclusion of Huntingdon from her bed "'I am your child's mother, and your housekeeper - nothing more'" (Bront�,316). This marks the begining of Helen's active challenge to society's expectations. But she is powerless to act in any constructive fashion without male support. The options that Bront� offers her here are, to apply to her brother, Lawrence, or to accept the offer of Hargrave, Millicent's brother, Huntingdon's friends, and their neighbour. There is another irony created here by Bront�, that Helen, whose troubles are caused by the world of men needs to apply to men for her release, because it is the men who have laid down the rules of the world.

Helen as a woman of high moral principles can obviously not accept Hargrave's offer, but she suspects, and is correct, that her brother will not countenance any scheme of escape. For her brother, the troubles she suffers, the affair with Lady Lowenbrough conducted in her own house, Huntingdon's callous attitude towards her, the encouragement given to her son to drink, while all lamentable circumstances are not sufficient cause for divorce. There were no sufficient causes that Helen could proffer that would legitimate a separation : her dilemna is sealed by law "Women every where were still trapped in a state of slavery" (Miles,222). It is only the moral enormity of Huntingdon moving his latest mistress into the house as a governess for Helen and Huntingdon's son, which provides Helen with the necessary weight to carry her brother into her planned flight; but not before she is able to share some of her accumulated wisdom with Esther, Millicent's younger sister "'You might as well sell yourself to slavery as marry a man you dislike...you are bound to your husband for life....Marriage may change your life for the better, but ... it is far more likely to produce a contrary result.'" (Bront�, 382).

Having achieved a tentative freedom from Huntingdon, Helen is confronted with a further stumbling block to women who would be independent of men. For a woman of her class, there were few ways which Helen could earn money sufficient to keep herself and her son. Her brother assisted in her location at Wildfell Hall, an untenanted family property, another tying of Helen to dependence. But, through her painting, the outgrowth of a hobby, she is able to gain some means of income, though again, linked to the assistance of her brother; even here she is not able to be free of male dominion or the fear of discovery and forcible return, her ability to earn her living is hedged in by masculine restriction in her access to the art markets and the retribution of patriarchal marital laws. Helen's arrival at Wildfell Hall causes a stir because she is what she should not be, a woman living seemingly independently; even her story of widowhood is not sufficient to allay the suspicions of society.

In Helen's return to her husband, to tend him on his deathbed, we see Helen, the morally correct, fulfilling her duty to try to ensure the salvation of her husband's soul; but Huntingdon does not want to be saved; Lowenbrough does reclaim himself, but only in isolation and only because it is a path he has chosen for himself, placing all temptation aside; Hattersley reforms, not through the 'Angel in the House' Millicent, but because Helen causes him to consider the impact of his actions on those he loves - again a choice of his own; Clearly, Bront� does not give much value to the 'Angel in the House' : salvation or reclamation ultimately spring from the individual. In Gilbert, Helen recognises much that is appropriate to her husband, but also the ability to provide his own salvation, by the end of the novel, Helen is beyond believing in her own ability to save anyone against their own intentions. Nor does she show any respect for the idea of passivity in women's lives. Helen acts consciously in her life, makes mistakes, addresses them, learns and moves on.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall can not be labelled simply as a feminist novel; to do so is to limit the range of ideas which Bront� has strived to present within it. It certainly cannot be termed a manifesto of any description; to do this is to allow questions of it's quality as a novel which is unquestionable. It can not even be declared a first. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a novel containing feminist ideas amongst others, written at a time of rising expectations of women's rights and written from a tradition rich in the exploration of such ideas in fiction and treatise. Helen is a feminist hero within the structures of a novel containing feminist ideas quite simply because she refuses to accept that which has been declared her lot. In her actions of trying to gain independence, she is seen struggling against a patriarchal society which has no respect for what she herself might wish. Faludi quotes Rebbeca West on just this definition of feminism "I myself have never been able to figure out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat" (West in Faludi). Bront�'s exploration of the way in which Helen confronts her designation as doormat is not at all polemical; it does not strive to make points of ideology, it simply shows the realities of life for women in nineteenth century England, allows the reader to see Helen acting against convention. As such it is more effective than a polemic or manifesto could be. The description "manifesto of women's lib" falls well short of addressing the complexity of this novel; well short of allowing for the creative and ideological scope evident in it; in the end, the application of such restrictive labels can only impair it's value feminist thought and literature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BRONT�, Anne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, (1979), Penguin Books, Great Britain.

EVANS, Barbara & Gareth Lloyd, Companion to the Bront�'s, (1982), J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London

EWBANK, Inga-Stina, Their Proper Sphere, (1966), Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd, Great Britain.

FALUDI, Susan, Backlash, The Undeclared War Against Women", (1991), Chatto & Windus Ltd, London.

MILES, Rosalind, The Women's History of the World, (1989), Grafton Books, London.

PIZAN, de, Christine, The Book of the City of Ladies, (1983), Pan Books, London.

RUSS, Joanna, How to Suppress Women's Writing, (1983), Women's Press, London.

SPENDER, Dale, Women of Ideas, And What Men Have Done To Them (1982), Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

SPENDER, Dale, Mothers of the Novel, (1986), Routledge & Kegan Paul Inc, London

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