Painting Narrative And The Construction Of Female Subjectivity In The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall

Anne Bront(?)(1820-1849)was a distinguished nineteenth-century British female novelist whose work The Tenant of Wildfell Hall with a lot of painting qualities,is regarded as one of the representatives of feminism.The female character achieved financial and spiritual independence by stepping into the public sphere of painting and constructed her subjectivity as a female artist.Domestic and foreign scholars’ researches on this novel mainly focus on its theme,comparative studies,and biographical studies,but few scholars probe into the construction of female subjectivity through its painting narrative.In the field of intermedial studies,painting narrative is not limited to telling stories in pictures but also includes the verbal representation of visual representation.Through this way of narrative,Anne Bront(?)expresses her feminist ideas and demonstrates the close connection between painting and writing.Through close reading,this thesis,with the help of existentialist feminist theory,explores how Anne Bront(?) represents Helen’s predicaments and transcendence by painting narrative from the perspective of intermedial painting narrative.Besides,the thesis made a further exploration of the relationship between the functions of painting narrative and the construction of female subjectivity.First,by representing Helen’s juvenile artworks and imitating the framing of the drawings,Anne Bront(?) shows Helen’s predicaments as a female artist,a wife,and a mother;Second,through the ekphrastic description of Helen’s mature artworks,her self-awareness and the process of self-realization are also displayed.Helen’s artworks present her dissatisfaction at the state of being “the other”.She turns the ideas into actions by painting to get rid of the reliance on her husband and achieve both spiritual and financial independence to construct her subjectivity.Finally,this thesis analyzed the close connection between painting narrative and the construction of female subjectivity in this novel.From the aspect of intra-text,Helen’s constantly developing feminist thoughts and self-awareness are presented in painting narrative,which reflects the process of her construction of female subjectivity;from the aspect of extra-text,Anne Bront(?) also constructed her subjectivity as a female novelist by writing such an innovative novel and stepping into the domain of gender politics.The painting narrative in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall displays Anne Bront(?)’s innovative spirit in writing novels.Probing into the painting narrative and the construction of female subjectivity in this novel can not only enrich the studies of this novel from an aesthetic perspective but also dig out Anne Bront(?)’s feminist thoughts.