An Agential-Realist Re/configuring of Helen Huntingdon as a Victorian Painter-Heroine
Keywords:
Anne Bronte; Victorian feminist imaginaries; Post humanitiesAbstract
Through mattering discourse, this work attempts to re/configure Helen Huntingdon, the heroine of Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). A diffractive reading is provided through the aegis of Karen Barad’s agential realism by relying on Victorian feminist imaginaries. Helen, the mother and Helen, the romantic partner, stands “together-apart” (Barad, 2014, p. 168) with matter (painting). There are no “absolute separations” now or (n)ever. All future renderings may (not) matter the same. This diffractive re/worlding focuses on the inseparability of Helen, the human, from the non-human thereby emerging a more than-human phenomenon.
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