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"Were not these words conceived in her mind?" Gender/sex and metaphors of maternity at the fin de siecle.

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From: Feminist Studies
Date: 20060922
Author:Weber, Brenda R.

ANNE BRONTE'S The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) offers readers the promise of romantic union that is perpetually interrupted by social restrictions. Its heroine, Helen Graham, is locked in an abusive marriage to a drunken reprobate. Although in love with the male protagonist and narrator, Gilbert Markham, she holds true to her vows as wife and denies her lover her body, or even her physical proximity, instead offering him her words through letters. Gilbert "makes do" with this textual displacement of Helen's body that is both of her and her, both her child "conceived in her mind" ...

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