The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Helen's diary; and in turn, Helen's diary includes Arthur's autobiographical reminiscences. Anne Brontë starts her novel in a social comedy manner, reminiscent of Jane Austen. Like "Pride and Prejudice", "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" starts with the arrival of a new person in a neighbourhood — a source of curiosity for a small rural community. Unlike Austen, Brontë makes a woman the center of interest. Reticent Mrs. Graham with her views on alcohol consumption and girls’ education, controversial for the 19th century, soon becomes an outcast. Tess O'Toole calls "The Tenant" "the most unusual example of 19th century domestic fiction",
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tenant, not an owner-occupier, of Wildfell Hall, the place of her birth, which was bequeathed to a male descendant, her brother. "The Tenant" features numerous allusions to a wide range of other texts, from the Bible to contemporary novels. Apart from being used as a quotation, allusions are often applied by peculiar characters to reflect their personalities. Sometimes the individual voices of characters are shown as a patchwork of quotations. Such "borrowed voices" may denote the displacement of the main heroes – Gilbert, being a well-educated man with high ambitions for some "great achievements," is forced to take over his