Anne Brontë’s novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, focuses on toxic masculinity. Although the book has its flaws, critics found it oddly brutal and doubted whether it was true to life. However, Brontë insisted that it was in a preface to the second edition.
The central character, Arthur Huntingdon, is a cad who treats his wife, Helen, shamefully. He patronizes her, lies to her, commits adultery, spends most of his time in carousing, and eventually drives her to leave him. Despite Helen’s good sense, she fails to see through Huntingdon’s superficial attractions during their brief courtship, which may be attributed to her father’s abandonment, making her vulnerable to Huntingdon’s manipulative coercion.
The author of the article recently read the book when their father was on their mind, and it occurred to them that they had experienced the inverse of Helen’s handicap. They had a good father, a model of what a man should be, who loved and protected them. The ability to protect others is often described as a masculine virtue, but a more important sort of protection is the kind created by a man’s faithfulness to the people in his care, which requires channeling strength into self-restraint and self-denial.
The author describes their father as a tall man with a bone-dry sense of humor, a keen ability to savor the follies of his fellow man, and a model of integrity. He was a representative in the state legislature, had a small private practice focused on municipal law, and limited his working hours to spend more time with his family. He did the grocery shopping every Friday night, took the author often to Barnes and Noble, and loved classical music. He was always whistling it, and even when he was diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer, he remained true to his love of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
The author’s father passed away two days after Father’s Day, in the early hours of the morning of his 42nd wedding anniversary. As he neared the end, the author couldn’t think of what to tell him besides “I want you to know how much I love you.” And he said simply, “I know.” His life had been the preparation for his death.
