Education of Children in the Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

Abstract

Abstract The paper analyses the manner in which the education of children was done in the beginning of the 19th century and how this is revealed in the pages of “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall”, the second and also the final novel written by the English writer Anne Bronte, the youngest of the famous Bronte sisters. Despite enjoying enormous success after its publication in 1848, after its author’s death, Charlotte Bronte - Ann’s eldest sister - refused to republish it. She considered it to be too shocking as it dealt with themes like alcoholism, the ability of women to have paying jobs that enabled them to support not only themselves, but also their families, themes that were considered taboo or the “inhibited, polite, orderly, tender-minded, prudish and hypocritical” Victorian society [1]. We focus on the observations as well as on the subtle mentionings and allusions made in the novel with regard to some of the most important aspects of the Victorian Era education: the schooling of children, the differences between the education of boys and that of girls, the educational differences between the social classes.