The Tenant of Wildfell Hall the authors, having in mind all the novels from Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell published by 1848, "against their fancy for dwelling upon what is disagreeable". "Examiner", while praising all Brontës as "a hardy race", who "do not lounge in drawing-rooms or boudoirs", and "not common-place writers", considered "The Tenant's" frame structure "a fatal error: for, after so long and minute a history [of Helen's marriage to Arthur], we cannot go back and recover the enthusiasm which we have been obliged to dismiss a volume and half before". The gossiping of the inhabitants of Linden-Car village reminded it of Jane
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a widow, Helen makes her role as an artist who sells her works, especially to support a child, more socially acceptable. Resembling the time of Arthur's courtship, when Helen's portraits of him betrayed her affection, artwork once again serve the autobiographical role during her meetings with Gilbert – the painting of Wildfell Hall deceptively labelled "Fernley Manor" discloses her precarious position as a runaway wife. Showing Gilbert handling Helen's paintings without her permission, Brontë, according to Diederich, "hints that remarriage to Gilbert may not hold any greater promise to Helen's self-definition and freedom as an artist than did her first