K@ta: A Biannual Publication on the Study of Language and Literature (Jan 2010)
The Female Artist within the Framing Narrative in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Abstract
Through the use of narrative analysis of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, it is argued in this paper that by introducing a female artist Bronte is posing questions regarding the experiences of the middle class women of the Victorian era, thus showing how much they were allowed to express their desires and emotions. Bronte presents a female artist who is forced to choose between her role as a wife and her role as an artist. The use of a journal in this novel makes it a counterplot in which female maturity is not equated with marriage, but with the heroine’s rejection of her role as a wife, for though Helen’s character develops through her experience in courtship and marriage, it is her flight and rejection of the angel that empowers her to be born as an artist.
