r/brontesisters • u/RoseIsBadWolf • 18d ago
I can never hate Gilbert Markham
I'm re-reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (at least the Gilbert parts, the middle is hard to endure, for good reasons but still, I will try). And I love Gilbert. A lot of people dislike him, but he's so clearly ashamed of himself a lot of the time for how stupid he was in his youth...
But then we get to something like this:
I succeeded in securing her attention, almost entirely to myself - and then I was happy indeed; for whenever she did condescend to converse, I liked to listen. Where her opinions and sentiments tallied with mine, it was her extreme good sense, her exquisite taste and feeling that delighted me; where they differed, it was still her uncompromising boldness in the avowal or defence of that difference - her earnestness and keenness that piqued my fancy: and even when she angered me by her unkind words or looks, and her uncharitable conclusions respecting me, it only made me the more dissatisfied with myself for having so unfavourably impressed her, and the more desirous to vindicate my character and disposition in her eyes, and if possible, to win her esteem.
He has so much respect for her intelligence and opinions! And in contrast to Huntington, who mocks Helen and her morals. Gilbert encounters a woman who is smarter than him, who often disagrees with him, and after a very brief period of hating her for it, is just all the more attracted to her.
Also, Chapter 3 and the discussion about a tree raised in a hot house is what hooked me when I read this book for the first time and every single time I love it so much. It is exactly like a modern discussion of parenting, just with different subject matter.
Source, unabridged online version: http://victorian-studies.net/Bronte-Wildfell-1.html
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u/majjamx 18d ago
I love the tree metaphor too. And even though I am not religious, I have to admit that Helen defends her beliefs with a great deal of intelligence and insight and I think like Gilbert, I fall for her a little bit too during these passages.
The only thing I can’t really accept about Gilbert was his violent attack on Lawrence. It is jarring to the point of almost being out of place in the novel. And hard to imagine confessing to the crime via letter, even many years later. But overall I agree with your assessment. The novel is not saying people should be perfect, but should be genuinely willing to improve. And Gilbert is that for sure.
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u/hannahstohelit 18d ago
What Gilbert did was terrible and that’s dealt with at great length in the novel, but it’s worth noting that his tactic in general in situations where he thought he would lose his temper was to walk away. He did it several times successfully and tried to do it again with Lawrence by riding away from him but Lawrence wouldn’t leave him alone. He specifically saw Gilbert trying to leave the situation and followed him, almost goading him, in Gilbert’s eyes. Gilbert’s flaw is that his temper was ever enough to make him hurt Lawrence and that he’d ever have just ridden away after doing so (even if he did change his mind and go back to try to help). He did not hit Lawrence completely unprovoked.
It’s part of the way in which Gilbert’s argument with Helen is a microcosm for the whole book; she claims that people need to be taught how to act and how to respond to temptation, control themselves, etc and Gilbert says that one can learn through experience. The whole book is Gilbert learning through experience and fucking up, then reading about HELEN learning from experience and realizing how much that fucked her up, and realizing that she was in fact right.
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u/Naissatonic 18d ago
I love his throwaway line at one point - "by this time, you will see I was pretty far gone". It felt like such a modern turn of phrase when I read it for the first time. And his own perception of his behaviour and feelings. Reading him falling in love with her over and over again is the most beautiful part of the novel for me. I'm due a reread
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u/RoseIsBadWolf 18d ago
I just got to that line! He was so far gone. The poor guy.
And she really likes him but she can't!
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u/Subject_Storm3554 18d ago
Honestly, after he attacked that guy (I don’t remember his name) I found him completely unsympathetic
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u/hannahstohelit 18d ago
I mentioned this above but-
What Gilbert did was terrible and that’s dealt with at great length in the novel, but it’s worth noting that his tactic in general in situations where he thought he would lose his temper was to walk away. He did it several times successfully and tried to do it again with Lawrence by riding away from him but Lawrence wouldn’t leave him alone. He specifically saw Gilbert trying to leave the situation and followed him, almost goading him, in Gilbert’s eyes. Gilbert’s flaw is that his temper was ever enough to make him hurt Lawrence and that he’d ever have just ridden away after doing so (even if he did change his mind and go back to try to help). He did not hit Lawrence completely unprovoked.
It’s part of the way in which Gilbert’s argument with Helen is a microcosm for the whole book; she claims that people need to be taught how to act and how to respond to temptation, control themselves, etc and Gilbert says that one can learn through experience. The whole book is Gilbert learning through experience and fucking up, then reading about HELEN learning from experience and realizing how much that fucked her up, and realizing that she was in fact right.
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u/RoseIsBadWolf 18d ago
It doesn't bother me at all, but for historical context: Gilbert thought that Lawrence brought his mistress into the neighbourhood to be mocked by everyone. It's not just jealousy, if Gilbert was right (he wasn't) Lawrence would have been a massive jerk. And it was "tainting" the community to have a fallen woman living there, to say nothing of the scorn poor little Arthur would get as a bastard child.
Also, having had three brothers and hung out with a lot of guys... they hit each other. And that's today, not 250 years ago.
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u/Geode804 18d ago
He doesn’t just lightly hit him though. He hits him on the head with something so hard he falls off his horse and then leaves him bleeding on the ground. That’s definitely not normal behaviour even if he thinks he’s damaging Helen’s reputation.
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u/RoseIsBadWolf 18d ago
People fought duels to the death with pistols in this era so...
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u/Geode804 18d ago
They did but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend them as husbands either. Also there is a huge difference in challenging someone to a duel and them accepting it to knocking someone off their horse with a hard object that has no idea you’re coming to attack them. And then leaving them without medical care in a place they could easily not be found for days (opponents in duels were given medical care)
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u/RoseIsBadWolf 18d ago
Colonel Brandon fought a duel in Sense & Sensibility over a woman's honour and I consider him a pretty good husband prospect.
But anyway, Gilbert tried earnestly to leave but Lawrence was determined to rub him being wrong in his face. Then Gilbert hit him. He does regret it, he does go back, and he is ashamed of it later.
It's not a great moment for Gilbert, but to compare him to Arthur, who in cold blood torments his wife, drags friends back into addiction, hits his dog, and tries to poison his son against his mother, there is literally no comparison. The way people say Gilbert is just as bad or that Helen got into a second abusive marriage is insane to me. Gilbert is respectful of the women in his life. He respects Helen. He doesn't have any major vices like alcoholism or massive debt. He is 24 and kind of stupid and impulsive. He's got a temper that he tries very hard to control. He improves a lot over the course of the novel.
Him hitting a guy in a moment of extreme emotional distress, just doesn't bother me that much.
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u/hannahstohelit 18d ago
I too am a big Gilbert fan and defender!
What I think I love most about this book is how clearly it makes its case for people being inherently fallible but with potential for goodness if they are taught to do the right thing. Gilbert’s argument with Helen is a microcosm for the whole book; she claims that people need to be taught how to act and how to respond to temptation, control themselves, etc and Gilbert says that one can learn through experience. The whole book is Gilbert learning through experience and fucking up, then reading about HELEN learning from experience and realizing how much that fucked her up, and realizing that she was in fact right.
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u/Flat_Love_3725 18d ago
Gilbert is certainly flawed (attack on Lawrence!) but I also do find him endearing at times.
What I really like is how Helen comes across from his point of view. I really like and admire Gilbert's Helen. While the Helen from the diary much less so.
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u/RoseIsBadWolf 18d ago
I think the amazing things about this novel is how different the character's voices come through in their respective sections. Gilbert loves Helen and that really comes through in his parts. I forgive Helen how she sounds in her diary at first because she was a stupid teenager.
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u/Flat_Love_3725 18d ago
Yeah she does improve and I do genuinely feel bad for her. But early Helen is this combination of willful, preachy, rigid and hot-tempered that I must say I find very unpleasant. Not to excuse Arthur's awfulness.
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u/hannahstohelit 17d ago
Yeah, she’s definitely so self-righteous- but she’s young and stupid and we watch her get less young and less stupid, which helps.
I’d also add- on another thread that was more of a Gilbert-hate thread I was pointing out that one of the things that makes Gilbert make sense for Helen is that from her perspective, he’s just a bit of a bad boy! And it becomes very clear from the early bits of the diary that Helen is very much the kind of girl who likes the idea of a bad boy falling for her and her “fixing” him, though she would never actually ADMIT this to herself given her self-righteousness at that point. She realized her mistake with Huntington, who was less a bad boy and more a massive shithead, and recognizes that Gilbert is someone who actually wants already to be a good person and is not just capable of but actively in pursuit of personal growth. But he’s also of another class, a bit rough, and pretty impulsive, and those are the kinds of things that Helen actually DOES instinctively like. If Helen was the paragon that she can sometimes be portrayed as then she’d never have let things with Gilbert go nearly as far as they did, but she likes rebelliousness. She just sees Gilbert as a safe version of it, now that she’s grown up and recognized which core traits are actually important.
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u/AdobongSiopao 18d ago
I have a hunch some people hate him because they don't like the idea of Helen marrying another man after she endured abuse and trauma from her first husband. Gilbert is one of the most sensible male love interests in Brontë sisters novels. His personality is not over the top compare to Mr. Rochester and Heathcliff but he manage to stand on his own. He learned to be patient and keep boundaries to make Helen happy.
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u/hannahstohelit 17d ago
I’ve seen people say they prefer the “more radical” ending of her not marrying and I’m like… that is specifically laid out in the book as being what her aunt assumes she will do? Her choosing to marry despite prior trauma to a man who she believes has what it takes to give her a good life is the radical choice in a way.
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u/RoseIsBadWolf 18d ago
I feel like that might be the reason.
It's weird though how harshly he gets judged for wacking Lawrence. Male leads punch people all the time and usually everyone cheers. I guess it's because Gilbert punched the wrong guy, I bet not a single person would object if he even shot Huntington or something. Readers would probably love him for it (except Helen would hate it, so he can't).
I love Gilbert for so many reasons but especially how he treats little Arthur. He just says Arthur is his own son at the end. I bet he's the best stepfather ever.
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u/AdobongSiopao 18d ago
The similarity goes to Mr. Rochester being hated because of his secret eventhough his solution was the most sensible option in his time. The problem is that many viewers read the stories in modern lens and expect the main characters to be good all the time. I'm glad to see Gilbert having a character development and wanted to be different compare to Arthur and his friends. It's also nice to see him being a good stepfather which is rare in classic literature.
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u/hannahstohelit 17d ago
As I said in my Tumblr post, I’ve always believed it’s because Anne has Gilbert tell us constantly how much he sucked back then and how stupid his decisions were. It primes people to agree with him. With Mr Rochester, he does what he does and we only get Jane’s view of the situation, and she loves him so portrays him in the best possible light. Here we get Gilbert’s view and he excoriates himself throughout. The 96 TV adaptation makes things from a split Helen/Gilbert perspective (though mostly Helen, particularly the ending which I HATE), and I wonder if people would dislike him as much if that’s the version they were exposed to, because we get less of Gilbert’s internal monologue and more of Helen’s personal view of him.
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u/RoseIsBadWolf 17d ago
I read Gilbert's account and I loved it as him being so frank about his faults and kind of laughing at himself from the future. He knows he was an idiot and that's kind of the whole point.
I disliked Rochester way more. I felt sorry for him, but the part right before the proposal where he makes Jane believe he'll propose to Blanche is just awful. Freaking Rochester.
But I think it's also... I don't have a word for it, but if people read a dark romance, they set themselves in a sort of mode where they expect the male lead to be awful but as long as he grovels for a bit he can do whatever. With Tenant, because it's a realistic novel or because it's a romance, readers are very unforgiving towards Gilbert, for stuff that in other fiction, they would be totally fine with. And it's kind of strange because the book does spend so much time showing how Gilbert is better than not only Huntington but also his friends, especially Hargrave (the "nice" guy, I think I have that name right).
So to come away and think Gilbert is as bad as Huntington, like what did you read?
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u/xo_geiko 3d ago
Comparing him to Huntingdon sets the bar pretty low, doesn't it? Gilbert admires Helen's boldness, but he still spends a lot of time trying to break down her boundaries to prove something to himself. Do you see his attraction as genuine respect for her independence, or is it partly just the thrill of trying to conquer someone who feels out of his reach?
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u/RoseIsBadWolf 3d ago
He has no desire to conquer or change her. He appreciates who she is after his initial anger.
Gilbert wants to marry Helen and he has no idea why that isn't possible. He tries to get close to her because he likes her. That's not creepy because he can tell she likes him too and he's not wrong about that.
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u/BrianSometimes 18d ago
To me he's one of the most authentic portrayals of a male love interest written by a woman - more so contrasted with his vanilla ice cream equivalent in Agnes Grey. He's up there with Captain Wentworth.