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 In what ways are the authors successful in challenging Victorian
perceptions of women in 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' and 'The
Woman in White'?

'·

1
:-·
Abstract
~

The question I have chosen to investigate, ' Tn w hat ways are the authors successful in challenging
Victorian perceptions of wo men in 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall' and 'The Woman in White'? ' is a
study in Wilkie Collins ' and Anne Bronte's presentation of females in society. Though neither author
necessa rily intended their writing to be spec ifically feminist, both books are regarded as pioneering - V./
and, to a degree, pre-emptive - works of Victorian feminist fiction . 1 consulted a number o f secondary
sources, including a rev iew of The Woman in White written just ten years after it was published and
direct references to Anne Bronte ' s diary, in order not to limit responses to the texts and the issues
within them solely to modern perspectives . Bronte translates her stout moral co nsciousness, for part of
the tex.'1, into a defiantly independent female narrator, who echoes the a uthor's relig io us consciousness
and immovable ideals. However, the novel's stumbling structure, and th e heroine' s return to the rol e
of a w ife at the end of the text destabilises Bronte's profound message in contrast to Collins', despite (..

his less eager attempts to establish a female as a moral advisor. Instead, Co llins prov ides three
symbo ls of the hero ine: the c lassic, modest heiress, na"Jvc and weak; the pitied illegitimate da ughter,
/
frie ndless and harassed; and finally Marian , bold, courageous, intelligent, and - alas- unden iably
masculine. Although he seems not quite w illing to attribute these ti ne qualities to an entirely fem inine
creature, he is able, in the contrast of Marian to hi s gentle hero, and by re-defining th e role of wo men
in relationships, to create an influe ntial text, without Bronte ' s sometimes oppressively didactic tone.

Word Count: 268

\1 l

2
Contents

T itle Page
Abstract 2
Contents 3
Introd uction 4
Narrative structure 5
Anim al imagery 8
Setting and property II
Conclusion 13
Bibliography 14

Word count: 3998

3
In what ways m·e the authors successful in challenging Victorian perceptions of women in 'The
Tenant of Wildfell Hall' and 'The Woman in White''!

Wi lkie Coli iDs and Anne Bronte were both wri ting their novels iD the mid-nineteenth century, w hen
the ir contemporaries, such as Dickens, were creating self-sacrifici ng females like M iss Manette in A
Tale of Two C ities, who were fami liar im ages of female v irtue and th us were wa rmly received by
readers. Thi s was a time when a married woman

ceased to be a person unde r the law of covett ure, which stated that the w ife's interests were
represented by her husband . 1

Women were regard ed as little more than possessions of thei r husba nds, which made the prospect of
escape near impossible. Prior to the 1857 M atrimonial Causes Act, only four women had secured a
di vorce from their husbands in an Eng Iish coutt, but even after being freed , a woman wo uld have to
bear the burde n of social prejudice. A v irtuous woman was thought pure, o bedient and dutifu l, so a
spinster was, if not despised, thought ridic ulous. Although female authors were present at the time,
. \\

rarely did they clare to indulge in matters of mo rality or c hall eng ing ut~u st soc ial systems, though me n
were freely able to do so, again citing D ickens who o ne n satirises and s la nders soc ial inequality of
c lasses in Victorian England.

T he Bronte sisters are regarded as sym bois of fema le success in thi s misogyn istic system si mpl y
through the ir writing books. For many years their works were published unde r pseudonyms, but
Acton Be ll 's gender nevetthc less " roused the curiosity of all and the condom nation ofthose who
judged the subject unfit for a woman"2• Unde terred, A nne responds stoutly in her Preface to The
Te nant ofW ildfe ll H all ( 1848):

I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author ... 1 am at a
loss to conceive ... w hy a woman should be censured for w ri ting anyth ing thal would be
3
proper and becoming for a man.

This ' proper and becoming' topic is that of a young woman, Helen, escaping ber cruel, alcohol ic
husband with her son- an action that wou ld not be suppotied by Eng lish law at the tim e. It is not so
much the constraint of women that motivates he r writing, however, as a sense of respons ibility to
convey human fo lly, w itnessed in the houses where she was empl oyed as governess. She was,
nevertheless, well aware how ill received it wo uld be from the pen of a woman :

1
Anne Humphreys Breaking Ap!!rt: th e Early Vict orian divorce novel in Victorian Woman Writers and the
Woman Questioned. Nicola Diane Thompson (Cambridge University Press, 1999) p. 46
2
Winifred Gerin, ' Introd uction' to The Tenant of W ildfell Hall (Penguins Books Ltd ., 1979, reissued 1984) p. 7
3
Anne Bronte, 'Preface to t he Second Ed it ion' of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Pengui ns Books Ltd., 1979,
reissued 1984, first published 1848) p.31

4
 when L reel it my duty to speak an unpalatable truth, w ith the he lp o f God, I will speak it,
thoug h it be to the prejudice of my name.4

By presuming the ri ght to teac h morality to men, through the voice of he r hero ine, Bron te promotes
fe males from the ro le of humble service to one of self-righteousness and w isdom .

Co llins, li ke Bronte, ha d no intention of be ing a feminist writer, indeed a ny fe minist movements in

literature are norma lly accredited to the 'New Woma n ' concept, w hich recognisably arose after the
publication of The Woma n in White ( 1859-1860), around the 1890s. Nevettheless, Dorothy L. Sayers,
in her introduction to T he Moonstone states that " he is the most genuinely feminist of all the '..
5
nineteenth-century novelists" . Unlike Bronte's hero ine, the young wo ma n in this text (Laura) docs
not save herself from an unf01tunate marriage to S i.r Perc ival, but is rescued by her draw in g master,
Ha rtright, and sister, Marian, spurred by the warnings of Anne Catheric k who escapes tJ1c psychiatric
institu te in w hich she had been unjustly placed by Laura ' s husband. The contrast of these three
heroines' ro les within the plot a nd t he ir re lationship with male c harac ters highlights the immine nt
transformation of wo men in literature and in soc iety. Having been la unched towards economic
security by the industrial revolutio n in the 18111 Century, England was on the brink of socia l revoluti on,
whic h defines modern Eng lish idea ls of democracy a nd equa lity. In Iight of this, T w i II investi gate the
effect these novels may have had on the ir Victorian readers' perception o r women, through the ir
liberation of the fem a le as a narrator, the presentation of gende r roles through a nima l m otifs, and the
way in w hich the setting is used to create images of imprisonme nt and of asy lum .

/
Both nove ls are written as a co llection or first-person accounts, a llowing both male and fema le
cha racte rs to he lp narrate the text. Collins grants Marian Halcombe and some other min or female
cha racters a ro le in narrating The Woman in White, thou gh it can be argued th at Ma rian is not e ntire ly
empowered by it. While challeng ing V ictorian decorum by c limb ing ac ross a roof at night to
eavesdro p on the men, she is str uc k down w ith a fever (the inev itable hindrance to the ty pica l heroine,
pa1iicul arly those of .Jane Austen and Emil y a nd C harlotte Bronte) " that causes her to lose contro l
over her text" 6 and thus she " proves a fa ilure as a woman writer" 7 . Even w ith t he heart a nd mind o f a
man, her v ulnerable fe rn in ine a nato my succumbs to the weathe r, and thus Collins imp Iics that even
the most stub bornly masc uline of fema les cannot overcome her greatest hind rance: he r sex. In The
ll
Tenant of W ildfe ll H all, the ma le n arration is div ided by a large extract of Helen ' s joumal, a lthough,
as Elizabeth Lang land points OLlt, at this time " women writers had not yet c la imed fo r themselves the

~An ne Bronte, 'Preface to t he Second Edition' of Th e Tenant of Wildfe ll Hall op. cit. p. 30
5
Dorothy L. Sayers 'Int roduction' to Moonstone p.vi i (J. M . Dent, 1947)
6
Tamar Heller Dead Secrets: Wilkie Co llins and th e female gothic (Ya le University Press, 1992) p. 135
7
ibid. p. 135

5
 \)
\

8
authority of speaking directl y through a woman as narrator" , that is, that authors us ually wrote in the
third person from the perspective of a woma n, avoiding first-band accou nts. In contrast to Collins '
novel, it is the man in T he Tenant ofWildfell Hall who is struck down, specifically, by his own vices,
and the wo man who fights for his health and salvation. A nne Bronte will not allow Helen to succumb
to the whim s of other heroines of the period, but rather makes her maintain the rationality all too often
attributed solely to male protagonists.

Although A:n11e Catherick is not provided with her own narrative, her voice plays an important ro le as
a prophetic symbol in T he Woman in White. Her power is derived from her " voice of the rhetoric of
dissenting C hristianity w hic h .. . was popular in the nineteenth-century .. . fe minist movements"9 . Her
relig ious references us ua lly ha ve connotations to the contrast of good and ev i I; of a fe male's purity to
a man 's selfi shness, for example in he r lette r to Laura regard ing he r engagement to Sir Perciva l,
describing how in her dream "there, behind him , stood a !le nd la ughing .. . and there, behind [Laura],
10
stood an angel weep ing." She a lso uses specific Biblical references to validate he r anxieties, citing
11
" (Genesis xl. 8. xli . 25; Daniel iv. 18-25)" -scenes of dream interpretation, suc h as Joseph and the
Pharaoh - in an attempt to prove that her dreams have prophetic re levance and are not merely fantasy.
Althoug h Collin s later reveals that An ne's aversions are born of prior experience of S ir Pe rcival rather
than foresight, her enigmatic warnings are vital to his eventua l downfa ll , thus ascribing power even to
the most vu lnerable of females.

Bronte g ives He le n a didactic voice, presum ing a moral superiority despite her gender. She preaches,
with a rei ig ious tone s imilar to Anne Catherick, the corruptibi lity of ma nkind, re n ected in the
I

metaphor of the path one takes through life. So vi tal is it to the text, it is included both in d1e Preface:

Is it better to reveal the snares and pitfalls of life to the yo ung and thoughtless traveller, or to
12
cover them with branches and flowers?

And also later in the text, stated by Helen:

... I see the whole race of mankind (with a few rare exceptions) stum bling a nd blundering
along t he path of life. 13
11
Bronte, embittered by " unpleasant and undreamt of experiences o f human nature" ' in her post as
governess at Tho rp Green Hall, uses Helen as an outlet for her own disgust at the fi·ivo lous behavio ur

8
El izabeth Langland Anne Bronte: t he other one (Barnes and Noble books, 1989)
9
Tamar Heller op. cit. p. 124
10
Wilkie Collins The Woman in Whi t e (Penguin Books Ltd ., 1994, first published 1868) p. 66
Jl ibid. p. 65
1
z Anne Bronte 'Preface to the Second ed ition' ofThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall op. cit . p. 30
13
An ne Bronte TheTenant of W ildfell Hall (Penguin Books Ltd. 1979, reissued 1984, first published 1848) p. 54,
55

6
of gentry, adopting- through the authoritative stance of a mother rai sing a child - a sombre tone of
judgement on men. Moreover, Bronte uses this ~ne to express what she perceives as the un necessary
distinctions between the treatment of sexes:

.. .to teach her how to sin is at once to make her a sinner, and the greater her knowledge, the
wider her libetty, the deepe r will be her depravity,- whereas, in the noble r sex, there is a
natural tendency to goodness ... which, the more it is exercised by trials and dangers, is only
fUither developed. 15

Her first-person narration allows her, controversially, to criticise hy pocritical beliefs of the tim e, in
this case, that while sin makes man virtuous, it makes woman a s inner, ironically ca lling men the
' nobler sex' to emphasise her cynicism .
·"
In The Woman in White, however, M arian, whose vety nature challenges percepti ons of wome n at the
time, contradicts he rself by condemning the gender to w hich she does suc h justice in her abi lity to
narrate . She upholds and openly expresses the belief that wo men are ''foo ls" 11' and yet she procures
the most respect from c harac ters and readers alike, compared to Laura. Although she is better loved
by the hero, Collins does not allow Laura to contribute narration, making her the distant subject of
pi ty rather than empathy . This suggests the on ly woman who deserves our respect is one who
17
resembles man both physically in her " swruthy" features, and also in the stubborn, fearless clements
o f her nature. Marian is " the newer kind of heroine ... ope nl y intelligent and unafraid" 18, but even so,
the Victorian readers believe

such wome n as she are able stand a lone in this world, and a merc iful Providence provides that
19
me n should fa ll in love c hiefly with the less g ifted and self-relianl.

That is, that Laura, being weak a nd de pende nt, appeals more to the Victorian sens ibilities of Hattright,
w ho does not desire an equal as a wife but som eone w ho can rely on him a nd be a dotin g, subordinate . .1
Marian is unlovable, yet cons idered " infinitely more adm irab le'.2o even by Victorian c ritics, and it is
perhaps their inability to pet and pity Marian that re leases her from the ro le of a w ife: Collins libe rates
21
Marian witb a pen (which can be perceived as a " metaphorical penis" , the reby prov iding her with a
metaphorical patriarc hy over the text in her sectio ns), rather than subdue her w ith a hus ba nd . The
essential irony of Marian's role- a parad igm of a powerful fem ale, who ridicu les her sex and

14
Anne Bronte Diary paper, 30 July 1841
15
Anne Bronte The Tenant of Wildfell Hall op. cit. p. 57
16
Wi lkie Collins op. cit. p.26
17

18
ibid. p. 24 /
Sue Lon off Wilkie Collins and his Victorian readers: a study in the rhetoric of authorship (AMS Press, Inc.
1982)p. 138
19
J L Stewart Rose-Belford's Ca nadian Monthly and National Review (Nov 1878) p. 587
w Tamar Heller op. cit. p. 135
21
Sandra Gil bert and Susan Gulbar The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the 19th Century
Literary imagination (N ew Haven Press, Yale University Press, 1979)

7
intimidates men- hi ghlights the injustice by making it alm ost comedic. Collins mocks men for being
horrified by their equa ls, a nd perpetuating pathetic wives in order to feel superior. (' '- L t.l.: k ·, /.

h J ... J. !

T his weakness in male characters is revealed at the conc lusion of the novel. Until this point, Hattright
overshadows Marian's role through his attempts to personally drive the investigation, in order to
assett his masculinity tlu·ough redeem ing Laura's virtue and attaining her love. T his ac hieved, he
22
su bmits, admitting "The pen falters in [his] hand" , and requesting that Marian wou ld " end our
23
stoty" , signifYing that a woman is capable of fulfilling hi s ro le. Conversely , this is w here Bronte' s
heroine falters, in allowing the narrative to be recaptured and concluded by Gi lbert, w ho e nds on a
bathetic note: s igni ng off a letter to a friend, thereby making He len 's na rrative input a mere detai l of
his matrimo nia l conquest. Anne Humph reys, citing T he Tenant ofWi ldfclll-lall, argues that the
atte mpt to address the in equality of marriage in a novel

can destabi lize the narrative and open fissu res through wh ich new types of narrative structures
and closures are tried, not a lways successfully. 24

She refers specifically lo Helen's " long and repetitive"25 contribution to the narrative, which she
c laims hinders the clim ax of the novel. By indulgin g the female to recount her suffering so intimately
through a diary entry, the a uthor has lost the objectivity to express herself coherently; it can be
perce ived as the fickleness of women, in a society that regarded loyalty to be the greatest vittue of a
wife. Consequently, althoug h Bronte 's heroine may appear a sober moralist when described from Lhe
male narrator's pe rspective, when g iven the narration herself she merely encumbers the story,
presenting wome n to be as temperamental as a V ictorian reader may expect.
l ' ._.,

T he authors use an imal imagery to denote the prescribed gender ro les in society. Dogs are a recurrent
image used in The Woman in W hite, for example Ma1:ian' s description of the shot spanie l, in w hich
Co ll ins makes use of the symbolism " the poor little dog' s eyes were g lazing fast, and there were spots
26
of blood on the g lossy while s ide" to give an allegorical meaning. White is associated throughout the
novel w ith Anne Catherick, as she refuses to wear anything but white upon he r g uard ia n's req uest
(hence the title, 'The Woman in W hite ' ), and also as an im age of the pure, virg inal victims of man: of
Laura Fairlie, and so w hen stained w ith b lood, pottrays the suffering of these two characters.
Furthermore, it is a fam ilia r metaphor of a virginal bride' s irreversibly lost chastity . Marian' s
contemplative comment " the misery of a weak, helpless, dumb c reature is sure ly one of the saddest o f

/
22
Wilkie Col lins op. cit. p. 569
23
ibid. p. 569
24
Anne Humphreys op. cit. p. 46
25
ibid. p. 46
6
' Wilkie Col lins op. cit. p. 18 2

8
 27
all the mo urnful sights the world ca n show" clarifies the breadth of the image; Marian doesn' t
simply mourn the spaniel, she mourns any creature that cannot de fend itself - she mourns for wome n.
Although Collins presents these two women as lowly subjects of pity, he continues to empower .,;
Marian, illustrating a progress io n in the ideal of a heroine: she conte mplates the v ictim , rather than
.I
becoming the victim .

Bro nte, too, uses dogs as a symbol of female status . She illustrates Helen 's re lationship w ith Mr.
I lun tingto n thro ugh a short interaction w ith his pet:

" his favourite cocker. .. took the liberty ofjumping upon him and beginning to lick his face.
He struck it off with a sma1t blow; the poor dog squeaked, and ran cowering back to me ... I le
called again, more s harply , but Dash only c lung c loser to me ... E nraged at this, his master
28
snatched up a heavy book and burled it at his head."

Bronte does not use such profound symbolism as Collins, as she simply utilises the dog as a metaph or
for w ives be ing a possession of their husbands. However, she also portrays the othe r side of Lh is
companionship: the dependence the m an has upon the anima l, and his j ea lous need to be loved,
though he cannot offer mutual affection. Throughout the text, Bronte makes several references to
Shakes peare, w hich suggests th e metaphor of the dog may too be a reference to a scene in A
M idsummer N ight's D ream, in w hic h lle lena, desperate for Dem etrius's love, cries out:

" I am your spanie l; a nd , Demetrius,

The more you beat me, I w ill fawn on yo u.

Use me but as yo u spanie l, spurn me, strike me,

29
Neglect me, lose me . .. "

The clog is not just a plaything for man, but the doting v ictim of its owner's viole nce, beggi ng to be
inj ured for the sake of its master's j oy; an image made more apparent w hen the narrator is the subject
of the metaphor. Bronte, like Collins, allows Helen to contempl ate t his relationship rather than s im ply
ex perience it, as she progresses from a c lassic heroine to a more independent woman. 1...1

Bronte highlig hts H unt ingdon ' s vicious nature through repeated reference to him as a hunter,
30
particu larly w hile courting Helen. When he approaches her ''stained w ith the bl ood of his prey" ,

though th is image is essentia lly one of barbarism, Helen, v ictim to her own naivety, is not repu lsed .
The images o f slaughter empathise with Helen' s pride, whic h has been bruised to the amusement or /

27
Wilkie Collins op. cit . p. 182
28
Anne Bronte The Tenant of Wildfell Hall op . cit. p. 225
29
Wi lliam Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dreamed . Harold F. Brooks (Methuen & Co. Ltd ., 1979,
reprinted Thomas Learning, 2000, fi rst publi shed 1600) Act II, Sc. I, lines 203-206, p.40.
30
Anne Bronte The Tenant of Wildfe ll Hall op. cit. p. 177 /

9
Hun tingdon; these blood stains are not a potent image of tattered vi1tue, but o f a proud g irl 's tattered \.1
ego. it is, neve1t he less, a provoking message of the bruta lity of courtship, when ignoran t g irl s are
preyed upon by more experienced gentlemen. T hough th ese ro les may not have been particularl y
controversia l at the time, Bronte' s empathy with the victim hi ghli ghts the potentia l crue lty of
re lationships.

Co llins, on the other ha nd, associates one of his more devious c haracters w ith an adorin g re lationship
to animals. T he mt of this is not purely in the contrast, but in revealing Fosco's c haracter as a more
complex cha racte r than the gene ric V ictorian husband. T he Count's ability to command an ima ls
through affectio n, such as his canaries - " pretty little c leverly trained creatures [which] perch
fearlessly on his hand" 31 - illustrates his relationship w ith women. Particularly, his " once wayward" 32
wife has been endem·ed into subm iss ion, as Marian acknowledges :

he r co ld blue eyes . .. are genera lly tumed on her husband, with the look of mute submiss ive
33
inquiry w hich we are all familiar w ith in the eyes of a fa ithful dog.

H.ere, Co lliJlS highlights the common c haracteri st ic in Fosco with the rest of h is gender; his w ife is no
more of a companion to him than a dog.

Even Marian, the most empowering symbol of her sex, is not im mu ne to him . She admits

r
lf he had marri ed a tigress, instead of a woman, he woul d have tam ed the tigress. I he had
34
married me ... l should have he ld my tongue when he looked at m e, as [his w ife] holds hers

Collins has indulged a femal e character to compare herse lf to a tigress, and rise above the metaphor of
the pet dog, yet even in thi s e levated slate, man rules over her. T he a uthor ftuther confou nds the .,_/
metaphor when Fosco takes up Marian ' s diary and effe minately expresses an attachment lo her,
35
clai ming " Under happier circumstances how worthy l should have bee n o f Miss Ha lcombe" . It
appears after all that Marian can be loved, though not by any ordinary gentlema n. Fosco, a frivo lous
foreigner, is not as conservative as the Eng Iish gentlemen, and contrasts the ir predatory behaviour - as
Ma rian expresses it:

He wo uld bla nd ly k iss his white mice and twitter to his cana1y-birds a mid a n assembly of
36
Eng lish fox-hunte rs, and would only pity them as barbarians.

/
31
W ilkie Collin s op. cit. p. 195
32
ibid. p.192
33
ibid. p. 191
34
ibid. p. 192
35
ibid. p. 303
36
ibid. p. 195

10
 This image summarises the reason he can adore Marian, because he is not ofthe English Victorian
society; he, like Marian, is a liv ing symbo l of liberality and revolution , and is supe ri or eno ugh in her
eyes to pity the traditionalists.

The setting, often claustrop hobic, plays a vital role i11 both texts. It acts both as a metaphor for the
women' s state of mind and being, and more lite rally, in The Woman in W hite, to represent Anne
Catherick' s incarceration and Laura's entrapment in marriage. Blackwater, for example, is desc ribed
to be " situated on a dead flat, and seems to be shut i11 - almost suffocated ... by h·ees" 37 , w hic h act
both as a method of keeping Laura in and the Cathericks out- a symbol of the boundaries constructed
and controlled by patriarchs, which nonethe less are broken through by Anne, li ke the walls of her
asylum (perhaps more accurately described as a prison). In ways, she is a mo re potent symbol o f
female revo luti on than Marian - Sir Percival is more afraid of Am1e, believ ing her to know his secret.
38
Co llins later reveals that, great symbol as she may be, s he " real ly did not know" the secret she
spends so long attempting to convey; she is s ilenced. Sile nce in itself plays a central role in creating a .r ~
11 •

sense of c laustrophobia and helpl essness: in the text both Marian- by her illness, and Laura- by her
1 ignorance, are condemned to be use less at fightin g their part against S ir Percival' s male domi nion.

Bronte uses G ilbert' s description of the garden to introduce Helen' s wasted yo uth and degradation /
even be fore the characteri ~~

a ga rden - once, stoc ked with suc h hardy plants and nowers as could best brook the so il and
c limate, and such trees and shrubs as could best endure the gardener ' s torturing shears, and
most readily ass ume the shapes he c hose to give them ,- now having been left so many years,
untilled and untrimmed, abandoned to the weeds and the grass, to the frost and the w ind , the
9
ra in and the droughr

This is an unmistakeable im age of Helen's once strong character, resilient to agony, a pli ab le victim
to violence, eventually left solitary and vulnerable - unm istakeable, that is, in retrospect, but as an
introduction only hints at her experiences. For fear of her nam e "spreading ... till it reach the ears of
someone who will carry it to [her husband]" 40, Helen must seclude herselt: and moreover, is fo rced to
be inde bted to her brother in order to escape. T he constraints of de bt and seclusion, however, arc
largely self- im posed by pride, not from be ing possessed by another, like Collins ;,females. She does
not harbour any shame in leav ing behind a life of wealth to become self-su fficient and repay her

37
W ilkie Collins op. cit. p. 174
38
ibid . p. 487
39
Anne Bronte The Ten an t of Wi ldfell Hall op. cit. p. 46
40
ibid . p. 400

11
 41
debts, but rather is proud of " my labour, my earnings, my frugal fare" . The repetitions of the
possessive ' my' emphasises her consciousness of her sole ownership and he r independe nce. Through
this, the author deconstructs the Victorian gender ro le of women , showing them to be capa ble of being
an individua l parent and provider, and not s imply an obedient accessory to her husband.

v ../
Even c laustrophobi c images of being surrounded by darkness, such as her " plain black silk dress" 42
43
and " black veil" , both constituent to her disguise as a widow, but a lso symbo lic of her humbled
status, and also the " bleak and barren fie lds" 44 surrounding her house, do not succeed in imprisoning
her, but " echo back [her] own sense of hope and freedom" 45 . She is not walled in by t hese defences,
but rathe r Hunt ingdon -a symbol of male oppression - is walled out. Earlier in Helen 's diary, she
6
describes how she " must sparkle in costly jewels and deck [her]sel f out I ike a pa inted bullerfl y' "' ,

using a modal verb to convey it as an act o r obed ience, to which Helen wi lling ly complies to amuse
he r husband, a nd whic h, Bronte makes c lear, she is pleased no longer to oblige when an independent
wo man . Marian, in T he Woman in W hite, expresses a similar distaste, stating in a bitter tone, denoted
17
by a tricolon of plos ives, that she is " condemned to patie nce, propriety, and petticoats fo r life"' , using
constrictive and superfluous fema le dress of the era to symbo lise s imilarly redundant ideals of being
femal e in Victorian Eng land.

Unlike Bronte's hero ine, Hmtri~ht, Laura, and Marian perceive th~r lowered stahts as a s hameful
hinde rance to Laura's happiness. Furthe rmore, Laura, whose nerves have been damaged by marriage,
cannot contribute to her own salvation as He len does, and so Collins reveals the weakness of the
stereoty pica l he roine. She is, rather, humoured by her carers, and led to believe that her paintings are
so ld to make contribution to costs, whereas they are kept by Hattright, ironica lly as " tTeasures beyond
price'''1g . This is the summit ofHattrig ht' s success as the male; his wealthy he iress now poor and
1'\
dependent. Innocently mimick ing S ir Perc ival, he concludes that " ne ithe r Marian nor Laura should
stir outs ide the door" 49 , en forc ing the supposed frag iI ity of women, and the necessity of man to act as
protector, provider, and - importantly - possessor, and yet, it is all done out of Ha1tright' s ad mirably
remi nine love and respect for these women . i\1

41
Anne Bronte The Tenant of Wild fell Hall op. cit. p. 398
/
4
ibid. p. 395
7.
43
ibid. p. 395
44
ibid. p. 397
45
ibid. p. 397
46
ibid. p. 230
47
Wilkie Collins op . cit. p. 174
48
ibid . p. 433
49
ibid . p. 389

12
Coll in s' introductory statement hardly encourages the reader to expect a tale of female empowerment,
ca lling itself "the story of what a woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's reso lution can
50
achieve" , and yet The Woman in White is described as being "extraordinarily femi ni st"51 • Hartright
conforms to the creations of the author' s contemporaries, yet provides a subtle but profound
appreciation of female characters, not merely by challenging perceptions of wom en, but also thei r
husbands. Bronte provides for the reader a more powerful heroine, whose pain is felt more directly
than Collins' distant female victims, yet it is this potency that emphasises the bathos of the
conclus ion, when she is won back into marriage. She does, nonetheless, continue to challenge
Victorian expectations by all owing her heroine to many below her social status, and for love, like
Colli ns' Laura, but Collins is also able to maintain Marian as a symbol of independence and equali ty.
This could be attributed to Collins having greater confidence in addressing t he topic, as it was
considered more appropriate for a man to do so than it was a woman. Consequently, though both
succeed in addressing gender inequality, the male author, ironically, provides a more potent challenge
to V ictorian perceptions of women than the femal e.

.,
)~
,,1 I '"
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L
\\ . \ .~ ,( q ~v
1(,
L- tv I r' Vvt..

~ ~\-, "'\"" L\ (.V...

I, l 1 vv \c VI

h I ' {
t. I • I( I \
"'' (', I 1
L' t
\, ' I I
~ \
)~
()v II ~
L I.
( ~
.... {,\. t
Itt' J

50
Wilkie Collins op. cit. p.l
51
Tamar Heller op. cit. p. 111

13
Bibliogt·aphy

Bronte, Anne, ' Preface to the Second Edition ' of The Tenant o fWildfell Hall (Penguins Books Ltd.,
1979, re issued 1984, first pub lished 1848)

Bronte, Anne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (Penguin Books Ltd . 1979, reissued 1984, first pub Iishcd
1848)

Bronte, Anne, Diary paper, 30 J uly 1841

Coll ins, Wilkie, The Woman in White (Pengu in Books Ltd., 1994, fu·st published 1868) p.l.

Gerin, Winifred, ' Introduction' to The Tenant ofWildfel l Ha ll (Pengu ins Books Ltd. , 1979, re issued
1984)

G ilbert, Sandra and Gulbar, Susan, The Madwoman in the Attic: T he Woman Writer and the 19111
Century Literary imagination (New Haven Press, Yale University Press, 1979)

Hell er, Tamar, Dead Secrets: Wilkie Co ll ins and the female got hic (Yale Un iversicy Press, 1992)

Humphreys, Anne, Breaking Apart: the Early Victorian d ivorce novel in Victorian Woman Writers
and the Woman Questioned. Nicola D iane T hompson (Cambridge Un iversity Press, 1999)

Langland, Eliza beth, Anne Bronte: the other one (Barnes and Nob le books, 1989)

Lonoff, Sue, Wilkie Coll ins and h is Victorian readers: a study in the rhetoric of authorsh ip (AMS
Press, Inc. 1982)

Sayers, Dorothy L., 'I ntroduction ' to The Moonstone p.vii (J . M. Dent, I 947)

Shakespeare, Wil liam, A Midsummer Night' s Dreamed. Ilarold F. Brooks (Methuen & Co. Ltd .,
1979, reprinted T homas Learn ing, 2000, first publi shed 1600)

Stewart, J. L., Rose-Belford ' s Canad ian Monthly and National Review (Nov 1878)

14