The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for her association with [her sisters'] imperative spirits." Mary Ward, a novelist, who was widely known for her anti-feminist views, in her introduction to 1900 edition of "The Tenant", accused Anne of "the narrowness of view" and absence of "some subtle, innate correspondence between eye and brain, between brain and hand, [which] was present in Emily and Charlotte." She concluded that "it is not as the writer of "Wildfell Hall", but as the sister of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, that Anne Brontë escapes oblivion." May Sinclair, while famously saying that "when [Anne] slammed the door of Mrs. Huntingdon's bedroom she
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall the central tenet of 19th century domestic ideology – women's influence on men – famously postulated by Hannah More. This doctrine found its way into even "protofeminist" novels such as "Jane Eyre", where the main heroine fulfills (or reduces) her ambitions for a wider life by taming and managing her husband. In "The Tenant", however, masculinity is impervious to the softening or "superior" influence of women. Marrying Arthur, Helen is convinced that she can reform him, but six years later she escapes from him to protect herself and her young son. Helen’s second husband, Gilbert Markham, who despite many faults