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Books Like The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Best books to read after The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
Readers who love The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë are drawn to its combination of the most radical feminist statement in Victorian fiction, the unflinching investigation of marriage dissolution through alcoholism and vice, and the double-narrative structure (Gilbert Markham's framing story and Helen's diary). They want works that deal with the impossible position of the Victorian woman in a bad marriage, the Brontë canon, and the nineteenth-century investigation of what a woman can and cannot do to save herself.
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Agnes Grey
by Anne Brontë
Anne's companion first novel — Agnes Grey as governess. The companion as the autobiographical predecessor: both are organized around the same quiet, precise, direct social observation of a woman navigating a world that has no adequate respect for her intelligence or her moral authority
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Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
The companion — Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. The companion as the most famous investigation of the same questions (the woman who refuses to be defined by social expectations, the man whose previous marriage is a secret) but organized through the romance mode — Charlotte's Jane ultimately finds happiness in a way that Anne's Helen is more ambivalent about
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Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
The companion — Heathcliff and Cathy. The companion as the most extreme and visionary investigation of the same themes: where The Tenant of Wildfell Hall investigates the destruction of marriage through realistic domestic detail, Wuthering Heights investigates the same destruction through the romantic-gothic mode of absolute passion
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A Doll's House
by Henrik Ibsen
Ibsen's companion — Nora's departure. The companion as the dramatic version of the same investigation: Nora Helmer's decision to leave her husband and children is the Norwegian theatrical equivalent of Helen Huntingdon's escape from Wildfell Hall — both women choose integrity over the social law that makes them their husband's property
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Middlemarch
by George Eliot
Eliot's companion — Dorothea's marriage to Casaubon. The companion as the most complex Victorian investigation of the same theme: the marriage that destroys a woman of exceptional quality, and the social world that permits this destruction while offering no adequate remedy
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Tess of the D'Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy
Hardy's companion — Tess's tragedy. The companion as the late Victorian investigation of the same theme: the woman whose character makes her vulnerable to the social system's merciless judgment, and whose destruction exposes the injustice of that system
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The Story of an African Farm
by Olive Schreiner
Schreiner's companion — Lyndall's fierce rejection of the marriage contract. The companion as the colonial feminist version of the same investigation: Lyndall's refusal to live by the social expectations placed on women is the Southern African equivalent of Helen Huntingdon's escape from Wildfell Hall
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The Awakening
by Kate Chopin
Chopin's companion — Edna Pontellier's awakening in New Orleans. The companion as the American version of the same investigation: Edna's gradual refusal to live by the social expectations placed on her is the American equivalent of Helen's decision to leave Arthur Huntingdon, but organized through the romantic-awakening mode rather than the realistic domestic critique
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