The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Style

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Style

Epistolary Novel

An epistolary novel presents itself as a letter or collection of letters. The form allows the author to write in the first person of the letter writer and to address a particular reader to whom the letter is addressed. This setup provides certain advantages and allows for greater intimacy in tone. This form gives the novel the semblance of fact; the text is a document and not made up or fiction. The use of letters in a novel is a way around the omniscient narrator, as well, because it permits the narrator to show other characters’ points of view. The epistolary form was not unique to Brontë. Letter writing was the most important means of communication in nineteenth-century Britain, after face-to-face contact. This form was used by many authors of fiction from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries. The third-person limited omniscient narrator technique became more popular later in the...
(read more)