Abstract:

Anne Brontë, in her novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, criticizes the power of the patriarchal society in the nineteenth century and the practices that legitimize the actions of men considered superior to women. Helen, the female protagonist of the novel, shows that by running away from home with her child due to her cruel and neglectful husband, she can both stand on her own feet and raise her child well without a father like Arthur, and thus opposes the patriarchal order and discourse of the period. In order to illustrate male oppression on women represented in the novel, this study employs critical theories of Michel Foucault as well as feminist criticism. In this respect, the study claims that the novel subverts patriarchal order while implying that women like Helen should be equal with men in social life and before the law. In the light of the protagonist’s portrayal as a rational, creative, hardworking and self-confident woman contrary to Victorian conceptions, this study reveals that the superiority of men over women stems from the patriarchal discourse created in the bourgeois society.