The Tenant of Wildfell Hall may be influenced by the works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Priti Joshi, believing that Anne had read her works, argues that she not only refuses the Wollstonecraftian indictment of the feminine, but also rejects its elevation, articulated by Hannah More. Anne Brontë’s feminism, in Joshi’s words, "forges a path between the extremes of Wollstonecraft-More spectrum". In "The Tenant", a reformed masculinity emerges not, as More would have it, under the tutelage of a woman, but by emulating feminine ways. Anne presents the "idle talk" of Linden-Car villagers primary as a way of creating fellowship and community, not only as vicious gossip.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and was echoed in Brontë's adult works. The characteristics of Arthur Huntington and Annabella Wilmot, both self-indulgent sexual transgressors, may be relics of Gondal, where most of the main heroes were extravagant and led adventurous lives. Four houses in the younger Brontës' novels have "W. H." initials: Wellwood House in "Agnes Grey", the eponymous mansion in "Wuthering Heights", and Wildfell Hall and Woodford Hall in "The Tenant". "Ur-hall" in Gondal may be the source of inspiration for at least two of them — Wuthering Heights and Wildfell Hall. Citing all this, Davies concludes that Charlotte's statement that Anne "hated her