Killing the Angel in the House

A new scholar book with Brontë-related content:

Intersections of Gender, Class, and Race in the Long Nineteenth Century and Beyond
Edited by Barbara Leonardi
Palgrave
ISBN: 978-3-319-96769-1

This book explores the intersections of gender with class and race in the construction of national and imperial ideologies and their fluid transformation from the Romantic to the Victorian period and beyond, exposing how these cultural constructions are deeply entangled with the family metaphor. For example, by examining the re-signification of the “angel in the house” and the deviant woman in the context of unstable or contingent masculinities and across discourses of class and nation, the volume contributes to a more nuanced understanding of British cultural constructions in the long nineteenth century. The central idea is to unearth the historical roots of the family metaphor in the construction of national and imperial ideologies, and to uncover the interests served by its specific discursive formation. The book explores both male and female stereotypes, enabling a more perceptive comparison, enriched with a nuanced reflection on the construction and social function of class.

It contains:

pp 297-320
Killing the “Angel in the House”: Violence and Victim-Blaming in Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
by Claire O'Callaghan

This chapter examines Anne Brontë’s proto-feminist critique of the “angel in the house” in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). It argues that Brontë’s novel offers a twofold critique of angelic femininity. Firstly, she “tests” the feasibility of angelic womanhood when situated in impossible domestic circumstances, and secondly, she highlights the forms of violence that angelic femininity is often subjected to. In doing so, the chapter argues that Anne Brontë exposes the pervasive nature of victim-blaming in mid-nineteenth-century culture and anticipates recent legislative changes in the twenty-first century that now recognises emotional and psychological abuse in definitions of domestic violence.