Taming of the Rake: From a Man about Town to a Man at Home in „The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall” by Anne Brontë

Abstract

In „The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” Anne Brontë considers one of the most burning questions of the Victorian period, i.e. the problem of male domestic violence. The novel contributed to the public debate on the defects of the legal system which discriminated against women and made them totally dependent on their fathers and husbands. However, the writer’s diagnosis of the social issue does not focus on the formal aspects only, as she believed that political action should be accompanied by a farreaching reconceptualisation of nineteenth-century models of femininity and masculinity. Brontë suggests that legal reform is not enough to eliminate such pathologies as marital abuse. She tries to dismantle stereotypes not only about female weakness and submissiveness, but also about male dominance and authority to demonstrate that men should be sentient and responsible participants in home life. The successful spiritual metamorphosis of four male characters: Lord Lowborough, Ralph Hattersley, young Arthur Huntingdon and Gilbert Markham is subject to scrutiny in the present paper in order to evidence that moral training embracing domestication of men was one of the keys to family bliss.