...Emily Brontë: Hopeless As a young girl and young woman, Emily Brontë lived a difficult life. Although she had a close relationship with her family, especially her sisters, her life may have been difficult because of her sensitivity. She had few friends because she could never bear to be away from her family or her home. As she grew up, she experienced numerous tragedies and used writing to express her feelings. Brontë’s writings reflect her sensitivity and sadness. Brontë was the fifth of six children born to Patrick and Maria Brontë in 1818 in Yorkshire, England (“Emily,”Famous). She had four sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Anne, and one brother named Patrick Branwell (“Emily,” Poetry). At the age of two she moved to Haworth, a poor town in Moorland, where her father served for the parish committee. Maria Brontë died of cancer in 1821 and Elizabeth Branwell, Maria’s sister, moved in with family to help them out (“Emily,”Famous). As children, the Brontë siblings were first educated at home. Literature was very important in the Brontë household and both Patrick and Maria were writers. Their house contained a large collection of all different types...
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...To what extent do you believe Bronte challenged the expected role of women in wuthering heights? To a certain extent ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte was successful in challenging the expected role of women. The novel was published in 1847, when the traditional expectation of women was to be a housewife, plain but pretty and never outspoken. Bronte challenged these expectations within herself because at the time, it could have been viewed as out of order for a woman to write a novel (which is why originally, Bronte called herself Ellis Bell), let alone a novel about an outspoken woman like Cathy. In this respect, characters like Cathy and Catherine both carry traits of a modern woman, which at the time would have been a shock to the reader. Whereas, characters like Isabella and Nelly were the expected roles within society. Firstly, Nelly is the only female role in wuthering heights that doesn’t challenge the expected role of women, because in fact, she could be viewed as the role model for women in society at the time wuthering heights were written. This is because Nelly doesn’t try to push the boundaries and because she partially narrates the story, Emily Bronte might have thought that making Nelly an unruly character would be too much and would over complicate the novel. In my opinion, Nelly doesn’t need to challenge like Cathy and Catherine because she acts as a neutral force because she demonstrates the difference between a traditional woman of the time which was seen...
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...Childhood is generalised as the happiest and carefree times, however in Wuthering Heights childhood is not portrayed as that. In order to effectively judge childhood being a unpleasant experience in Wuthering Heights, various methods that Emily Bronte must be looked at, as well as characters such as Heathcliff, Edgar, Isabella and Catherine may be analysed as examples. In particular, Bronte’s use of setting, dialogue, narrative voice as well as her exceptional and imaginative language choices. In the same way an analysis of the bitter childhood experiences will be explored in The Colour Purple. The first significant portrayal of bitter childhood in Wuthering Heights is with Heathcliff. Upon entering the Earnshaw household as a child Heathcliff is immediately faced by questions of his parentage. Which ultimately leads to Heathcliff being characterised as devilish and is inhumanely referred to as “it”, his body language is “gibberish” and his dark features thus gives him the name calling of “gypsy”. Being a foundling and a resentful son Heathcliff had a tough childhood, always not having the feeling of being wanted. On top of being resented, Heathcliff was ultimately rejected by Catherine I which adds on to the bitterness of his childhood. Emily Bronte uses methods such as imagery and language choice to display Heathcliff’s bitter childhood, “He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shedding a tear, ”...
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...wuthering heights by Emily Bronte are considered to be two of the most famous love stories ever written in the English language. Both explore love from many different perspectives such as domestic, maternal, social,romantic,religious and transcendent. The main characters in these two novels are Romeo and Juliet and Cathy and Heathcliffe.Cathy and Juliet’s lives are similar by how their lives rely around their lovers. Both of which also have their own personal obstacles to overcome, for example Juliet does not want to jeopardise her reputation and Heathcliff has to put aside the hatred he has towards them. Both stories display forbidden love by how Romeo and Juliet’s families are involved in a family feud and they are betraying them by falling love with one another, how Cathy is married to Edgar and sneaks around to visit Heathcliff behind Edgar's back is also portraying this idea of forbidden love and secrecy. Cathy describes her love for Heathcliff like the “sea” and that her love for Edgar is like a “horse trough” this suggests her love for Heathcliff is ever going and dangerous/unpredictable whereas her love for Edgar is confined and motionless unless prompted. It is evident that Cathy’s true love is Heathcliff although she puts that aside in order to gain wealth and a higher social status. Romeo and Juliet is a play which used to be performed in the globe theatre in the Shakespearean times whereas Wuthering heights is a novel written by Emily Bronte under the pseudonym...
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...events that take place in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë are all explained to Lockwood by singular narrative of Nelly which creates a biased perspective. Growing up with the Earnshaws, Nelly’s understanding of her surroundings are very similar to theirs. Negativity towards Heathcliff and the urge to be like the Lintons is the backbone behind Nelly’s story. Lockwood, who has an outside perspective is forced to believe Nelly and also adopts a similar point of view. Brontë uses Nelly’s embedded narrative to make the story more realistic and to suggest that her version of the story is biased as she has been influenced by the Earnshaws with their values and thoughts; the reader,...
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...In Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights, it seems that violence is a recurring theme throughout the book. The main reason Emily Brontë uses violence is to passionately convey the emotions of the characters within the story. In the novel, Heathcliff tries to get revenge in as many ways as possible. And, unfortunately a lot of the way he is vengeful is through violence. Because Heathcliff is bad at communicating his thoughts and feelings, he tends to be more violent. Another huge reason that Heathcliff is violent is because he is jealous. Most of the characters are spoiled within the novel, and Heathcliff feels left out many different times. The reader is introduced to Heathcliff in the first chapter of the novel. Mr. Lockwood has just moved...
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...Wuthering Heights Throughout the novel, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the characters endure many losses, including death and other misfortunes. Just as people in real life, each character deals with their losses differently, which helps develop the characters’ personalities. Two characters who experienced very similar situations, Hindley and Edgar, represent this idea the strongest. Hindley resorted to addiction and abusiveness while Edgar was hopeful and focused on loving his daughter. Bronte unfolds the idea that a person’s character is developed from adversity faced throughout life by creating a unique and bleak plot and characters. Although there are many characters throughout the novel who experience adversity, Hindley and Edgar have the most similar situations; they both endured the death of their wives who they loved greatly. Before Hindley’s wife, Frances, died, Hindley was perceived as strong and powerful since he took on the master position of the household after the death of his father and asserted his dominance through...
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...Those amazing women writers I decided to do this topic because so much information I found online connecting to it surprised me so much. I have seen that much of the research papers common opinion was ”Women writers can never write as excellent as men.” Is that true? In my opinion, these thoughts are too narrow and bigoted. The people who have this opinion probably already have their own preconceived notions before they’ve made their judgment. I know there are more men writers than female writers, but you can’t deny that there are a lot of excellent female writers in this world too. Some of them are very famous and the fictions they created are so popular nowadays. They affect countless reader’s minds and how they chosed their next books. For example, Agatha Christie’s << Murder on the Orient Express>> and Charlotte Brontë’s << Jane Eyre>>, are better than most books which are in the same genre. We can never ignore what women writers did to help build the history of world literature and their amazing fictions. They have their own advantages and disadvantages. One big positive quality that female writers have is that they can describe their character’s feelings and minds very well. Most of the time they can express feelings with their pens far better than men. Kegan Gardines believes that these differences in experience will be apparent in the writing. She gives examples of the characteristics of women’s writing that differ from men’s writing: “recurrent...
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...Reaction Paper Bronte Perez #2 I found the concept of infant memory really interesting and when we started talking about the recall memory tests it reminded me of a similar situation that I noticed in one of my infant cousins. For as long as I remember, my aunts have sung a little Spanish song about a baby girl in a satin blue dress that goes to the beach, she gets sick, but comes home and gets better. It sounds a little more endearing in the Spanish version. But the other week, my aunt was watching a couple of the kids. Camilla, who just turned one in December was carrying a little doll. My aunt asked her if she could see the doll and Camilla handed it to her. My aunt started singing the song and made the doll “dance” on the chair in front of Camilla. My aunt handed the doll back to her and sung the song while Camilla moved the doll. They went back and forth a couple of times handing the doll to each other. Maybe about an hour or so later, Camilla had gone into the other room and my aunt was singing the song to Emily who is only two months old. I guess Camilla heard the song being sung and she came back and started to dance the little doll on the chair again. When I saw it I just thought it was a cute action she did but I think its really cool that I have the background information on it now. I would be interested to see what score Camilla would get on the jingling puppet test. She’s such a bright little girl and now she’s saying some of her first couple of words. When...
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...This was one of the strangest novels I have ever encountered. At times I dislike it, at other times I was compeletely captivated by it, and now that I'm through with it, I am utterly haunted. There are more detailed reviews on this site about Wuthering Heights but I'll go into what I liked and didn't like and you'll forgive me if the story description that I give isn't 100 percent up to par with everything that happens because frankly alot of stuff occurred and it would be impossible to fit it all here. Catherine and Heathcliff are two people destined to be together as they have been inseperable since they were children and Heathcliff was adopted by her father Mr. Earnshaw. But as they grow older, people try to keep the two apart. The neighbors, the Lintons, have a son named Edgar who Catherine becomes friends with also and this will bring trouble in the future. Also, Catherine's brother Hindley hates Heathcliff because his father doted on him. This will bring more trouble. And finally, once they are fully grown, Heathcliff overhears a part of something Catherine says about how it would be degrading to marry him. Intensely hurt, he leaves for years and years before he can hear her proclaim how much she loves him with a passionate love if ever there were one. She marries the Linton boy Edgar and Heathcliff returns. A tragedy occurs and he uses every fiber of his being trying to get even. To say more would be major spoilers I think, so I'll leave it at that. Now to the good and...
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...“She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him.” How far is Nelly’s comment a fair summary of the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff and the problems it contains? In Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the theme of love is central; particularly the love between both Catherine and Heathcliff. Bronte’s illustration of the love between the two protagonists transgresses beyond the “normal”, romantic love previous authors, such as Jane Austen, would portray. Emily Bronte’s love uniting both Catherine and Heathcliff contains undeniable gothic conventions alongside the idea of idolised romance; she has created a love story which includes aspects of passion, lust and suffering. Nelly, commenting on the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, states “She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him”, suggesting that the intense love they had for one another will forever be problematic. It is important here to focus on Nelly’s use of the adverb “too”, as it describes that Catherine’s love towards Heathcliff goes beyond average. When having to choose between Heathcliff and Edgar, Catherine concludes “I’ll try to break their hearts by breaking my own”. For Heathcliff, Catherine refuses to eat or sleep and also willingly exposes herself to a chill when she is feverish. Here, Catherine’s love towards Heathcliff has resulted in...
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...Relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine in Wuthering Heights The central theme of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine. The problem of the bond between Heathcliff and Catherine and its significance remains the central mystery of the novel till the very end. In fact, the novel is a revengeful love story of Heathcliff. Catherine is the daughter of Mr. Earnshaw and Heathcliff is a pickup boy by Mr. Earnshaw from the slums of Liverpool. Mr. Earnshaw treated Heathcliff like his own child. As children, Cathy and Heathcliff seem to represent the spirit of freedom rebelling against the tyrannical authority and religious bigotry of Hindley and Joseph. Their love was infinite which draws them together irresistibly. Heathcliff repeatedly calls Catherine his soul. Catherine and Heathcliff love is based on their shared perception that they are the same. Catherine famously declares, “I am Heathcliff,” while Heathcliff upon Catherine’s death, wails that he cannot live without his soul, meaning Catherine. Both Heathcliff and Catherine love each other profoundly. Yet some ambiguity is noticed in both Cathy’s speech and action. Cathy and Heathcliff are creatures of the wild moorland where conventional social standards are meaningless. After meeting with Edgar Linton, Cathy develops an interest towards him. She now seems to be equally interested in Edgar and Heathcliff. But there remains a striking contrast between them as far as looks...
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...The Edge…There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are ones who have gone over.” - Hunter S. Thompson. Explore the presentation of the troubled mind in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and the poetry of John Keats, with illuminating reference to Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “The Edge” described by Hunter S. Thompson is, he says, unexplainable. What seems clear is that ‘the Edge’ is at the limit of the human mind. It can’t be explained, Thompson says, because the only people who ‘really know where it is’ are the ones who ‘have gone over’ it, those who have died or else never returned to ‘reality’ and ‘sanity’. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the poetry of John Keats, and Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest all describe, in differing ways, states of mind on ‘the Edge’. When they were first published, the contemporary reception to Keats’s poems and to Wuthering Heights was remarkably similar. Keats was described as writing ‘the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language’ , while Bronte’s novel (published under the male pseudonym Ellis Bell) was called ‘too coarse and disagreeable to be attractive’, and described as ‘wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable’ with characters who are ‘savages ruder than those who lived before the days of Homer.’ These accusations of ‘uncouth’, ‘coarse’ and ‘disjointed’ writing suggest that both authors had already crossed one edge with their writing: the edge...
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...What role does social class and class ambiguity play in Wuthering Heights? The social class and class ambiguity in Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights is a key aspect when following the plot. When Heathcliff is first introduced Hindley, Hindley shows characteristics of dominants and superiorness. Bronte shows that Thrushcross Grange is a far superior manor to the farmhouse at Wuthering Heights by Catherine's reasoning for marring Edgar. This outlines the difference in social class between the two manors. The differences between the house occupants and the servants show the differences in social class and class ambiguity. Without the different roles of social class and class ambiguity the tail of Wuthering Heights would not be one of anger and differences.Wuthering Heights has a different take to the typical social class hierarchy in that era. Heathcliff is an orphan brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw. From the second he is introduced to Hindly, Mr. Earnshaw's son, he was looked down upon. Hindly never took the time to get to know Heathcliff, he just assumed his position as the superior and more dominant male of the pair. When Mr. Earnshaw passed away Hindly took the role of the master of house. He began his quest to make Heathcliff a less of a person. He makes Heathcliff do jobs of which a servant would do. Hindley continues to abuse the young Heathcliff by stopping his education. “He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions...
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...“The poems of Carol Ann Duffy and Emily Bronte’s Prose novel Wuthering Heights, though written in different centuries, can be linked through their portrayal of strong-minded, independent and empowered female protagonists / narrators.” Consider the validity of this argument, through close reference to the texts. Your answer should make reference to at least THREE of Duffy’s poems. Both Duffy and Bronte chose throughout there work to tackle difficult subjects predominantly through the portrayal of females in there writing. Duffy was born 1955 a Scottish poet and the first female Poet Laureate. Her poetry the subject of much controversy, she follows in the poetic tradition of, for example, Robert Browning, in writing monologues from the point of view of a disturbed character. The majority of her poems feminist in themes and approach. Her collection The Worlds Wife took characters from history, literature and mithiloligy and gave them a female point of view, as a sister, a wife, or feminised version of the character. Similarly Emily Bronte was an extremely talented writer, pretending to be a male in order to get her Gothic romance Wuthering Hight's published. A complex novel of love vengeance, is still controversial today.While it has been called one of the most carefully constructed novels in the English language, Charlotte refers to Emily as “an unconscious artist who did not know what she had done;” in other words, a visionary genius. Hence there are uncanny links between these...
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