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A Defense of Gilbert Markham

It seems oddly common for people to say about Tenant of Wildfell Hall that while Gilbert might SEEM like a great guy worthy of Helen, ACTUALLY if you pay attention he's really a crappy person.

The thing is that Gilbert is the one who told us that. You don't need to pay attention- he informs us every time he says or even thinks something problematic and even explains exactly what negative trait made him be that way and what was so harmful about it. This isn't subtext, it's plain, blatant, explicit text.

Now, that doesn't mean that Gilbert is a saint. He does, in fact, hit Lawrence over the head with a stick and knock him off his horse, objectively an awful thing to do. I think it does mitigate things somewhat that Lawrence handled literally everything about his interactions with Gilbert horrendously and in the specific head-whacking incident refused to allow Gilbert to deescalate and ride away, but that doesn't actually justify violence, just explain why Gilbert reached that point. But we see Gilbert's whole process as he does it, realizes what he did, refuses to repent of it, changes his mind and tries to help, later apologizes... the whole book is an exercise in seeing a hot-headed young man grow up, and even by the end he hasn't entirely, but he's been learning.

The thing about Tenant is that it is basically the chronicle of a pampered (though pampered from the perspective of human relationships and NOT hard work, which is important) and clueless young man maturing, written with fifteen years or so of hindsight. (We will for these purposes ignore the exact framing device because it makes zero sense.) Anne Bronte is putting us inside the mind of a man who isn't a bad person but hasn't had much of an opportunity to become a good one either; ironically, we see echoes of their first extended conversation at his house in his own situation, in that (as he had advocated for) he DOES learn from his own experiences how to become a better person but in doing so hurts others enough so as to demonstrate that ideally, one should be taught to be better in the first place rather than gain it through trial and error.

But Gilbert has good bones, because he wants to learn and he wants to better himself. He also has, somehow, whether because of Helen's influence or not, managed to overcome his mother's terrible teaching-by-doing as far as spoiling the son at the expense of the daughter, and that being a model for a wife's treatment by her husband. She is disbelieving when her son says he wants to treat his wife well! That he has managed to figure out on his own, and it's that very ability to not just learn to be better but WANT to learn to keep improving himself to be the best he can be for those he loves that shows his value.

A significant part of the book's message is an examination of what men can do to women and what men, therefore, owe women. It is not anti-man or anti-marriage; Bronte, in telling this story, acknowledges that loving marriage is a good thing AND it gives men a power over women that they can, and must, use responsibly. If she didn't think that this was both true and possible, not only would Helen never have married Gilbert, but Hattersley would not have been able to redeem himself. To Bronte, the most important character trait a person can have is to be able to learn and change, with the best way being to be willing to learn and be better BEFORE being faced with the situation that forces you to learn from mistakes.

Gilbert makes a lot of mistakes throughout the book, pretty much from beginning to end, of various magnitudes. But the main thing we get from him is that he is open to growth. Despite his mother's pampering, when challenged by someone whose respect he wants (and who demands that respect from him, which Eliza, for example, never quite does), he rises to the challenge and is open to changing his views and bucking society's toxic norms. Even more than that, he respects her, not just as a woman but as a person. His pride is sometimes an obstacle, but especially by the end of the book he holds onto his pride not because he needs something OVER her but because he needs something to MATCH her.

If there is a subtext that needs to be read into Tenant, it's not "actually Gilbert sucks," it's "beneath all of Gilbert's retroactive self-mockery, what were the things about him that led Helen to love him and to see him as the kind of man who she has realized could make her happy?" And when you peel back those layers of self-assessment and self-analysis, all of which comes of course with an idealization of Helen to contrast it against, it becomes much clearer. Gilbert truly loves her, loves her son, is open to learn and grow and self-assess his behavior to improve. It's that very trait that leads to his own chronicle of the events setting off his more negative traits in such high relief.

This is why, incidentally, I can't STAND the 1996 adaptation. Setting aside how it takes a book with real moments of both comedy and insight and flattens it into misery porn, the ending is a slap in the face. The book is great as a portrait of Gilbert's growth, and while Toby Stephens is great casting for that book character he's given little to do to show it (and thus little to make Gilbert interesting or anything more than Not-Huntingdon), and instead we know everything about Helen from the start. The show is portrayed as HER journey, thus not only defanging the book's depiction of an ordinary young man's growth to become better and thus removing half the plot but also, ironically, casting Gilbert as someone who Helen needs to grow and heal enough to be able to love and accept by reversing the marriage bait-and-switch at the end. They cast the show as being about a woman's healing from a toxic marriage through the love of a better man, which is fine for what it is, but it's not Tenant! Helen has already healed, more or less, if by healed one means acquiring the understanding of the world that will structure the rest of her life. By the end of the diary that Gilbert has read, written before she ever meets him, she understands what she previously missed and what she needs now. Throughout the book she is consistent and Gilbert is the one who needs to grow and develop and meet her where she is, and its this ability to do so in him that proves to her that he can, if imperfect, meet the standards that she requires. By flipping this around and having Helen be the one worried that Gilbert is married, the story feels cheapened because the rest of the story doesn't at all bear it out and Gilbert isn't interesting enough on the screen to sustain it. I guess they saw themselves as flipping it to be "the book from Helen's side" but they'd have really needed to commit to it and they didn't bother.

They both got a job with a cold, closed boss, whom many consider unattractive (frigid, unsuitable for a relationship). As time passed, they both began to have strong feelings for this boss. Then they find out the previously hidden truth about their boss, which scares them (don't scold me, I don't compare the wife in the attic with Nigel's betrayal) and they quickly run away. After a long time (1 year vs 20 years) they return to the boss, only to find him/her helpless (Miranda needs Andy! Rochester needs Jane!) and stay by his/her side forever

Do you like get the vision or am I actually insane

Heathcliff would hate Huntingdon as a Hindley 2.0. Huntingdon would probably underestimate Heathcliff, then realise his mistake and shit absolute bricks. Huntingdon would look at Mr Rochester and be like "ew, what an ugly grumpy freak. Why is he babbling on about fairies?" meanwhile his drunkenness, hedonism and infidelity would push ALL of Mr Rochester's buttons.

And while Heathcliff and Rochester both know what it's like to go bananas about a girl, they'd never get close enough to notice that commonality. Heathcliff would hate Rochester as a weepy posh boy who won't stop yapping and Rochester would be like "what the FUCK is your problem, WHERE is your pity".

On the other hand, Lockwood, Rochester and Gilbert Markham could get along tolerably well. Rochester is the beetle-browed grump Lockwood initially hoped Heathcliff would be, and Gilbert Markham could talk to him about land and how to handle feelings of jealousy.

" I tried dissipation—never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. That was [Bertha]’s attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it."

Heathcliff would hate Huntingdon as a Hindley 2.0. Huntingdon would probably underestimate Heathcliff, then realise his mistake and shit absolute bricks. Huntingdon would look at Mr Rochester and be like "ew, what an ugly grumpy freak. Why is he babbling on about fairies?" meanwhile his drunkenness, hedonism and infidelity would push ALL of Mr Rochester's buttons.

And while Heathcliff and Rochester both know what it's like to go bananas about a girl, they'd never get close enough to notice that commonality. Heathcliff would hate Rochester as a weepy posh boy who won't stop yapping and Rochester would be like "what the FUCK is your problem, WHERE is your pity".

On the other hand, Lockwood, Rochester and Gilbert Markham could get along tolerably well. Rochester is the beetle-browed grump Lockwood initially hoped Heathcliff would be, and Gilbert Markham could talk to him about land and how to handle feelings of jealousy.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the new TV adaptation of Jane Eyre will be like.

I have no idea if it will be good or bad. I don't know Aimee Lou Wood: I'd never heard of her until now. But as long as they don't try too hard to "improve" or "modernize" the story, I'm curious to see what they do.

I can imagine Gi-hun as jane and In-ho as Mr rochester that has attic wife already, but the fun and thrill of having one has became more of chore for him lately.

Gi-hun being young teacher for his child that he had with his current attic wife, had ignite that flame again and wanting this young man as new replacement. He has to figure out on how to deal with his current problem that's locked up in attice, without his future pet from noticing something is wrong.

One night as he lay in his bed fast asleep, dreaming of all the ways he would use his new toy when his plan comes together. The attic wife had manged to escape their prison and made their way to his bedroom without getting caught by the servants and being dragged back into their room for a punishment.

They stand by his bed and watch their husband sleep on before putting their plan into action. They used the candle to set the curtains on fire, it starts off slow but soon the room is full of smoke. They trapped their monster in his room by spare key that they found.

Gi-hun wakes up to smell of smoke, he panics and rushes to wake the child and take them out before the flames get to them.

I think Wuthering Heights feels more modern because it sits on the same bench as contemporary magical realism (at some level I wonder if magical realism DOESN’T have a heavy Wuthering Heights influence. But then some fellow Latin Americans would crucify me for the suggestion). But what makes it stylistically modern doesn’t necessarily make it modern in sensibility? there’s a lot of very shocking things happening in the story (the graphic violence against animals, for example) and none of the characters are particularly likeable. The story has no clear cut morals, no clear heroes we are supposed to root for. I think that makes it rather go against the grain of current sensibilities (I mean in terms of pop culture and general audiences; academia and specific literary circles is a different animal altogether).

Jane Eyre on the other hand, I think, is more familar because it is a heavy inspiration in the romance genre. So, so much Pride and Prejudice fanfic or variations, for example, is really a Jane-Eyreification of the story. Sure, Charlotte Brontë is taking those tropes from works that she read, but the most common known application of them nowadays is Jane Eyre. So it is a novel that is very often accessed first from pop culture knowledge of the work, and pop culture notions of romance, both the brontesque and the Austenian; add to that the Victorian mores throughout and you have an explosive.

Popular culture notions of Wuthering Heights are much more vague. There be moors and isolation and misery and GOTHIC. Also, characters resemble the forces of nature and there’s a lot of psychocosmic parallelism (this last one is not really that accurate, but its absence won’t kill your enjoyment of the novel).

The problem of The Rochester in the RoomTM is, oddly, that I think he frustrates modern expectations in an un-victorian way. The asshole with a heart of gold, which is the Rochester of the modern romance, is a handsome womanizer, very masculine, dominant, and sexy, whose actual sins and tragic past are not really seen as sins from a contemporary pov (the reader play acts that his womanizing ways are bad, but his ability to attract women makes him desirable to the reader and the notion of the heroine that is so much better than the others that she’ll get such a big prize is super alluring).

And so you meet Rochester. And he’s this weird, ugly, stocky guy, that goes into fanciful reveries, who talks about being master and giving orders but who is very often undermined in those power plays with little effort. This is a guy who crossdresses as a fortune teller to see if he can elicit a declaration of feelings from his governess. His sins are real actual ugly sins for the contemporary reader as they were for the victorian reader: he lies, he manipulates, he gaslights… these aren’t sexy sins. His tragic backstory doesn’t easily justify his actions so that you can root for him with your own sense of moral righteousness intact (which I think didn’t justify him for Victorians either). He’s not sexy, he’s not super virile and dominant, and he resists pure woobification.

And now add ice to this hot oil: the Austenian romance expectation is for the romantic hero to be desirable, to earn the love of the heroine, and Rochester very much does not do that. He’s not changed by Jane’s love or to win Jane’s love. He changes through divine punishment and mercy, and Jane’s love is also given in mercy (which is not the same as pity) to the one she thinks is her intellectual equal and the one who loves her best. It’s very beauty and the beast in that sense of the chestertonian “a thing must be loved before it is lovable”. The divine bit is alien to us in terms of victorianism, but the subversion of the “I can fix him”, his horrible disfigurement, and love given as a gift of mercy to one undeserving I think are shocking to modern audiences, not in the same way, but probably close to the same intensity as they were for Victorian readers.

The messy point I’m trying to make is this: the Victorian frame did not really completely explain or made palatable the novel to its contemporary audience. The mores of our time give a frame that makes some things palatable, some more palatable than the victorian, and some much more less palatable or understandable. Pop culture expectations and genre expectations are a frame within a frame that further complicates this reception. The asshole with a heart of gold from romance novels is acceptable to romance novel readers but toxic in pop culture, and the book character, neither the romance novel stock character nor the sanitized character that would pass the scrutiny of current mores, is getting stabbed from all directions.

however, in a weird way, i feel like this is more palatable to many people bc you can then switch your perception of the story away from being a “romance,” since imo, for a lot of people, thinking of something as a “romance” means that you somehow morally condone or approve of what’s happening in the story. as a side note, i think this tendency has also spread over more widely into linguistic patterns in english that you see these days. (for example, people seem to talk endlessly about why you shouldn’t “romanticize” certain things, which means to them that you shouldn’t idealize these things and assume that they’re morally correct.)

regardless, where jane eyre comes into this, imo, is that, unlike in wuthering heights where the overall narrative voice (especially bc lockwood is an outsider and nelly dean is explicitly positioned as an unreliable narrator) doesn’t really seem to take a concrete moral stance on the events of the story, in jane eyre, the ONLY character perspective we see is jane’s. and bc the only perspective we see is jane’s and since her subjectivity totally permeates every aspect of the story, i think readers are then forced to identify more strongly with her. as a result, to bring this back to reading the book in the modern day vs. the victorian era, when jane makes choices or has thoughts that seem alien to the modern reader, i think it can seem much more jarring since the narrative has done such an effective job of drawing us into her subjectivity and making us feel like we ARE her to a certain extent. 

to bring this to rochester, i think bc he is, as you said, not really a typical romantic hero (even though he inspired many of the “typical romantic heroes” of today) he doesn’t appeal to some readers, but in a way, i think they take this much more personally since they’ve developed this almost symbiotic relationship with jane. so when jane, very clear-sightedly, describes rochester’s many faults or when we see rochester through her eyes, some readers might feel betrayed or suspicious bc he is a very jarring character. he’s not like mr. darcy from pride and prejudice who leaves MASSIVE room for projection imo bc his only real canonical traits are that he’s handsome, rich, and honorable. 

With those sections intact as they are in the book, Jane Eyre is more coming of age story than romance. The romance is important, but its not the MAIN thing. Jane's growth is the central story. Her ultimate challenge is actually rejecting St. John. This is why Rochester's redemption gets treated so summarily at the end--Rochester is not as much of a deuteragonist as some would have you believe. He's prepared off-screen for the ending, once Jane has completed her arc off on her own and is ready to come back. That feels weird if you treat her relationship with Rochester as THE plot, rather than one of a series of formative relationships which she experiences, grows through and then cycles back to later. Rochester is resolved in essentially the same manner as Mrs. Reed and Lowood school are.

...Good morning. I presume that this is intended to take me to task for this post, and this one, in which I assert that being given personalized care is much better for Bertha Mason Rochester than being in an asylum would have been. As I have acknowledged here, this does not amount either to a solution or to a Good Thing.

I have argued here that keeping Bertha and Adèle out of unreformed institutions is presented by Charlotte Brontë as a good thing. For more on her opinions of unreformed institutions, see Lowood! On other options for Bertha, see here, and on 19th-century asylums in England, see here.

You really can't just say "in the 1800s" and get a coherent or accurate answer. Jane Eyre is published in 1847 and set several decades earlier. So, crucially, I think it is set before even the creation of county asylums, and it is definitely published before a massive reform wave of the late 1850s and early 1860s. For a brief overview of the former, see here:

For an 1859 treatise by a reforming doctor, see here:

Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens will appear as guests to have a reunion interview about their work on "Jane Eyre" 2006 in an episode of "Remembers..." programme on BBC4. It will be aired on November 19, 2025. As a bonus, all of the episodes of "Jane Eyre" 2006 version will rebroadcast on the same day. If you're a fan of that "Jane Eyre" adaptation, don't miss watching it.

Source: "Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens Remember...'Jane Eyre'" webpage.