Abstract
This article examines Anne Brontë’s dialogue with advanced thinking about drunkenness in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
(1848) by comparing the novel’s approach to extreme drinking with the
advice of moral and medical theorists, and with contemporary temperance
fiction. It addresses the novelist’s approaches to key questions about
alcohol addiction: what are its causes; what are its symptoms; how
should the urge to drink be understood; what constitutes successful
treatment? It argues that the death of Arthur Huntingdon, who embodies
Anne’s brother Branwell’s affliction, manifests her feelings of
hopelessness and resulting frustration with the positive pictures of
treatment and recovery presented by modern medicine and temperance
fiction.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 29-47 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Social History of Alcohol and Drugs |
Volume | 29 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- Alcohol
- Brontes
- Wuthering Heights
- Tenant of Wildfell Hall
- Suicide
- Medical Humanities
- Science
- Drinking
- Drunkenness