The Tenant of Wildfell Hall has interest for readers in the early 2000s because of its insight into the historical roles of men and women and for the ways it illustrates how marriage has changed and how some things-such as domestic abuse-have not. Some considered the novel unfit for women to read. Critics then and later criticized the uneven characterization, but it was Brontë's progressive ideas about the rights of women that caused an uproar in the mid-1800s. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was a wildly popular and controversial novel when it was published in 1848.
Brontë's use of realism-unlike the gothic romances of Charlotte and Emily-was a precursor to the literary traditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Brontë is the youngest sister of the famous Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë and although her poetry and novels have never received the same attention, she was arguably the pioneer of her family. It tells the story of a young wife during the Regency period in England (1800-1830) who runs away from her drunken, adulterous, verbally abusive husband, an act virtually unheard of at this time in history. Box office: 01904 623568.The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë, is one of the first modern feminist novels. For all the trauma she endures, it’s hard to escape the intimation that she may be suffering as much from an excess of piety as her husband is from an excess of drink.Īt the Theatre Royal, York, until 6 May. Phoebe Pryce provides a suitably flashing-eyed performance in the title role, yet the concision imposed by the adaptation does her few favours. However, in this instance she resorts to a stolid literalism that features a real, roaring fire and even a real border collie, which gives an intelligent performance but upstages the human actors’ attempts to establish a convincing illusion of rugged, rural life.
And there seems to be a grave structural miscalculation in that the diary does not change hands until the end of the first half, at which point the heroine blurts out the key points of its contents, thus negating the impact of the revelations to follow.Įlizabeth Newman – artistic director of the Bolton Octagon where this co-production originated – has collaborated with McAndrew on some exceptionally imaginative Dickens adaptations in the past. The great difficulty this poses to Deborah McAndrew’s adaptation is that such a crucial exchange, and the innermost thoughts it reveals, are extremely difficult to convey without falling into the precis trap, parsing the plot without gaining access to Anne Brontë’s deeply internalised style.
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