The Art of Comparison: Remarriage in Anne Bronte's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall"

Abstract

Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has been read many different ways. It has been read as either a response to or an imitation of both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. It has been read as a pseudo-biography of Branwell Bronte. It has been discussed as a feminist novel in which Bronte critiques the domestic ideology that subordinated women. 1 Critics who focus on The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (hereafter Tenant) as domestic and social criticism often examine Helen’s abusive first marriage as a subversion of the domestic ideal and then contrast Arthur Huntingdon with Gilbert Markham, Helen’s second husband. 2 The presence of remarriage in the novel is significant and it has not been examined sufficiently as a social practice in relation to both Helen’s talent as an artist and her “ownership” of her paintings. Marriage laws in nineteenth-century Britain restricted women’s opportunities to obtain a divorce, to retain custody of children, and to keep all of their property after marriage. Wives like Helen had only limited opportunity under common law to own their property, and this adversely affects Helen’s ownership of her artwork and her self-definition as an artist. In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Bronte constructs remarriage as a comparative and competitive practice that restricts Helen’s rights and talents. Helen’s artistic ability plays a pivotal role in her relationships with both Gilbert and Arthur. Her alternating freedom to paint and inability to do so on her own terms not only complicate Helen’s definition as wife, widow, and artist, but also enable Bronte to criticize the domestic sphere as established by marriage and re-established with remarriage. When Bronte introduces readers to her young and unmarried heroine by means of Helen’s journal, Helen is already defining herself as an artist. She is with her aunt and uncle at Staningley, her head a-whirl with the social scene of London, and she finds solace in her drawings. She writes that her “head is so haunted with the recollections of the last few weeks that I cannot attend to them. My drawing suits me best, for I can draw and think at the same time; and if my productions cannot now be seen by any one but myself and those who do not care about them, they, possibly, may be, hereafter” (123). Importantly, the first time Helen writes