...Emily Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights, is a proverbial soap opera stew, filled with love, lies, and deceit intertwining two families that reside only four miles apart across the moors in ever-seemingly dreary northern England. The two main characters, Catherine and Heathcliff are born to be together, but destined to be apart. Although truly happy and hopelessly in love with Catherine during the bright times in his life, Heathcliff couldn’t withstand the cruel, evil grip of jealousy and revenge that consumed him, eventually dragging all of those individuals associated with him, as well as his own being, to a dark demise. Wuthering Heights is unlike any other story that I’ve come across, and it is difficult to put a specific category label on it. Thrilling, tragic, damp, and dark, filled with villains and heroines, Bronte never clarifies who said villain or heroin is, seemingly purposefully changing the proverbial mind with each turn of the page. From the moment young adopted Heathcliff becomes friends with Catherine, it’s apparent that he is sincerely happy as he and Catherine’s love grows with each innocent tryst among the moors, ever growing from friendship into love. Catherine gives us a glimpse of that love and adoration when she states, “My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath…He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being” (Bronte, 1847, p. 64). The...
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...Female Consciousness in Wuthering Heights ZHAO Juan1,* 1 Institute of Foreign languages, Beijing Technology and Business University, China * Corresponding author. Email: zhaoj@th.btbu.edu.cn Received 16 May 2011; accepted 18 August 2011 Wuthering heights , a representative work in Victorian Era by Emily Bronte, a famous female writer of the 19th century in Britain, has greatly influenced readers for generations. This article investigates the female consciousness in Withering Heights and analyses how Catherine rebels against the male-dominated society and pursues her love. The female consciousness includes the sense of independence and the pursuit of her true self. The spiritual equality is the foundation of happiness between lovers, and although women dace lots of obstacles in their struggle and fight against the society, a wonderful future to women is to be ushered in if they keep fighting. Key words: Feminism; Female consciousness; Rebellion; Spiritual pursuit Z H A O J u a n ( 2 0 11 ) . F e m a l e C o n s c i o u s n e s s i n Wu t h e r i n g Heights . Studies in Literature and Language, 3 (2), 252 7 . Av a i l a b l e f r o m : U R L : h t t p : / / w w w . c s c a n a d a . n e t / i n d e x . p h p / s l l / a r t i c l e / v i e w / j . s l l . 1 9 2 3 1 5 6 3 2 0 11 0 3 0 2 . 2 1 5 DOI: 10.3968/j.sll.1923156320110302.215 Abstract INTRODUCTION When mentioning the literature in 19th century, nobody can avoid Wuthering Heights , which laid the foundation...
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...The opposing forces of Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights can be seen as one of the most influential works of fiction produced during the Victorian age. In Brontë’s novel, the reader will encounter many oppositions across several elements of the story. These oppositions play a vital role in the development of both the characters and the plot and have been discussed by many critics. According to Melvin R. Watson, as he describes in his article “Tempest in the Soul: The Theme and Structure of “Wuthering Heights,”” a most influential theory is that of the opposing forces of calm and storm developed by Lord David Cecil (Watson, 88). This theory, however, does not completely encompass the multitude of opposites found in the novel. The oppositions found in Wuthering Heights all serve specific roles in the development of the characters and the plot of the novel. The universe of the opposing forces of the calm and the storm that can be found within Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is one that encompasses many elements of the story. At the very start of the novel, the narrator, in the form of Mr. Lockwood, gives the reader a detailed description of the house he is about to enter: Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling. ‘Wuthering’ being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess...
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...Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte This eBook is designed and published by Planet PDF. For more free eBooks visit our Web site at http://www.planetpdf.com/. Wuthering Heights Chapter I 1801. - I have just returned from a visit to my landlord - the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist’s heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name. ’Mr. Heathcliff?’ I said. A nod was the answer. ’Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts - ‘ 2 of 540 Wuthering Heights ’Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir,’ he interrupted, wincing. ‘I should not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it - walk in!’ The ‘walk in’ was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, ‘Go to the Deuce:’ even the gate over which he...
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...12/7/2015 Wuthering Heights - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Wuthering Heights From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. Written between October 1845 and June 1846,[1] Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 under the pseudonym "Ellis Bell"; Brontë died the following year, aged 30. Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey were accepted by publisher Thomas Newby before the success of their sister Charlotte's novel, Jane Eyre. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited the manuscript of Wuthering Heights, and arranged for the edited version to be published as a posthumous second edition in 1850.[2] Although Wuthering Heights is now widely regarded as a classic of English literature, contemporary reviews for the novel were deeply polarised; it was considered controversial because its depiction of mental and physical cruelty was unusually stark, and it challenged strict Victorian ideals of the day, including religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality.[3][4] The English poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti referred to it as "A fiend of a book – an incredible monster ... The action is laid in hell, – only it seems places and people have English names there."[5] In the second half of the 19th century, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was considered the best of the Brontë sisters' works, but following later re-evaluation, critics began to argue that Wuthering Heights was superior.[6] The book has inspired adaptations...
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...Monday, February 28, 2011 Wuthering Heights - Feminist Criticism The feminist criticism is perhaps the perspective that best applies to Wuthering Heights. For one, any personal possessions of a woman goes straight to the husband once she marries. It’s like the woman doesn’t even exist because she has to live under the husband’s name, who now owns her belongings. Thrushcross Grange would have been Isabella’s had she not married Heathcliff but, since she did marry him, Heathcliff automatically becomes the owner. In addition, the wives of men in the novel are treated at times like they’re below the “man of the house.” One example of this inferior treatment in Wuthering Heights is, again, with Isabella. When Heathcliff beats Isabella, there isn’t much she can do within the law to stop Heathcliff because, in order to make Heathcliff stop physically abusing her, she would have to prove (in a court probably partial towards men) that her life was in danger as a result of the abuse. The law back in Brontë’s day really favored men over women and put women at a great disadvantage. I think the topic that will garner even more attention from contemporary feminist critics will be “the role of film and other popular media in the construction of the feminine gender” (Brontë 451). I remember the very first article our class blogged on about how people are reading less. With more people now turning to other forms of entertainment like watching movies, the creators of movies add their opinions...
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...“The face at the window” Journal article by Heather Neilson Item description: The Gothic novel is characterised by several established features: the supernatural, passion, violence and fear. In this article Heather Neilson examines the predominate characteristics of a genre which emerged as a response to a period of instability in personal, social and political life. Whether conservatively defined as referring to a group of novels written by English authors between the 1760s and the 1820s- a definition which would include Frankenstein, but not Wuthering Heights or The Turn of the Screw- or more liberally as a genre still vital and evolving, the Gothic novel is characterised by several established features. The predominant characteristic is an emphasis on fear: stories in the Gothic mode are overtly affective in intent, concerned with eliciting as well as portraying extremes of emotion. Also generally found in the Gothic novel re a prominent use of the supernatural ( even phenomena have been logically explained away by the tale), an archaic setting, the depiction of violence and passion, and stereotyped characters. It is a commonplace that the Gothic is essentially a middle-class genre, having first emerged in a period of instability in personal, social and political realities. In the Gothic novel there a precarious oscillation between anxiety an reassurance, as regards the alien or disruptive, a sustained tension between the expression and repression or irrational or...
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...have lived happily with Heathcliff. To further emphasize this point, when Catherine's daughter Cathy is in a similar position as her mother, except having been lowered in social status, she is able to marry Hareton for love. ................................................................................................................................ Feminism can be seen in the character of Iabella Linton, The steps she takes to get away from Heathcliffs cruelty and unjust behaviour can be seen as remarkable for a woman in that period as fleeing an unhappy marriage was illeagal and she could risk being captured and punished by the law. She also refused to be known under the name Iabella Heathcliff and when aked by the inhabinent of wuthering heights what is your name she replies "I was Isabella Linton" she relises the consquence of her mistake she has made by marrying Heathcliff. She is also disowned by her brother Edgar "I am sorry to have lost her" after her marriage. This makes Isabellas decision to leave heathcliff seem even more admirable to readers today as she is going out to society with no social status and posibility and at that time would have taken a lot of courage as she would also have been shunned by society. There is no doubt that the female characters are treated like victims however...
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...Through out Wuthering Heights Heathcliff is presented in many different ways to the reader which create a completly different view of his personality and motives. This is no different in the opening four chapters of the novel. During this time we are able to look at Heathcliff’s character through the perspective of three other characters, Lockwood, Nelly and Cathy. Each of these perspectives shine light on certain aspects of Heathcliff’s personality and to understand what a complex character he is. The reader is not provided with enough information on his background to know enough about his former life. We only become aware of whom he really is, later on in the novel when he narrates for himself. Heathcliff enters the Earnshaw home as a poor orphan and is immediately assualted by questions of his parentage. He is characterized as devilish and cruelly referred to as "it" in the Earnshaw household. This impression of a poor, defencless Heathcliff during his childhood creates a binary opposition to the cold, confident Heathcliff we are introduced to through Lockwood’s narration. “ ‘Mr Heathcliff’ I said, A nod was my answer” this shows that Heathcliff holds Lockwood in contempt and doesn’t deem him worthy enough to break his isolation and engage in converse. “He is a dark skinned gypsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman” this description highlights Heathcliffs dark complextion which isolates him from the rest of the Earnshaw family, this is shown to be key as...
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...My Thoughts on Wuthering Heights Amber Richardson AIU Online Professor Chad Fairies The story opens with Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant, talking with his property owner, Mr. Heathcliff, about Thrushcross Grange. After becoming snowed in, at Wuthering Heights, Lockwood stumbles upon Catherine Earnshaw’s diary. Through the diary, he discovers a bit more information about Mr. Heathcliff. After reading the diary, he falls asleep and awakes to a pecking at the window. After suspecting that the pecking was just a branch on the window he arouses, puts his hand through the window to grab the branch. Only what his fingers clenched were the cold fingers of an ice cold little hand. The pecking was the ghost of none other than Catherine Earnshaw, she begins to cry out “Let me in. Let me in.” He replies, “Who are you?” She responded “Catherine Linton.” Confused and expecting the ghost to be Catherine Earnshaw he became frightened and begins to pull her wrist back and forth on the broken pane until it began to bleed soaking his bedclothes in her blood. Lockwood convinces Catherine to let go, blocks the whole in the window with books, and tells her he will not let her in even if it had been twenty years. Morning she said, “It is twenty years. I have been a waif for twenty years.” (p.23). Lockwood screams out it fear and Mr. Heathcliff enters the room to see the problem. Lockwood tells Heathcliff of the little fiend that had gotten in the window and how he thought she was a changeling...
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...Charlotte Brontë described Heathcliff as a ‘man’s shape animated by demon life – a ghoul” To what extent do you think this is an accurate assessment of the ways in which Heathcliff is presented in the novel? Heathcliff is presented in this novel in various different ways. He is a character that arguably shifts from having human qualities, to presenting traits of the Byronic hero and finally becoming a typical gothic villain. The doomed central character of Heathcliff in this gothic novel could be paralleled to that of Satan in John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ where Satan is cast out by God from Heaven into the terrible darkness of Hell. One could argue that Brontë does in fact present Heathcliff as “a ghoul” by making a connection between him and the exotic and describing him from the very start as “dark almost as if [he] came from the devil” showing that his striking physical appearance, just like the Byronic hero, makes him unable to integrate into a higher social class. In an attempt to confine and dehumanize Heathcliff, Hindley forces him into servitude; although Heathcliff endures it, he plots how he can “paint the house-front with Hindley’s blood”. His cruelty serves to conceal the heart of a romantic hero and the fact that Heathcliff is subject to xenophobia which was a common sentiment among the British people in the colonial days of the early nineteenth century leads him to become an outcast and makes him a “child of the storm”, someone product of circumstances and...
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...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 a form of mental anguish, a gothic trope. Not only this, but it also suggests that the greatest love story within Wuthering Heights is explored through acts of violence, another gothic trope. It is also...
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...‘The Gothic elements of Wuthering Heights are made credible by the novel’s setting and narrators.’ How far would you agree with this view? Wuthering Heights is Emily Bronte’s only novel and was published in December 1847 under the androgynous pseudonym Ellis Bell, due to having a, “vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice”. This initial perception demonstrates the lack of gender equality within the Victorian era, with autocratic male dominance being commonly viewed as an ideal within the restrictive patriarchal society; such varying social conventions resonate throughout the novel, perhaps providing a sense of stability, reality and authenticity among the primal passions, savage cruelty, and supernatural entities present within the boundaries of Wuthering Heights and the Yorkshire Moors. The juxtaposition provided by the arguably civilised, ornate Thrushcross Grange provides a rational foundation where societal norms are upheld, with the domestic, cultural setting providing a balance to the unruly natural passions; it is suggested further that cogency is gained not only through the historical and geographic settings, but also through the dual narration of Nelly Dean and Lockwood. Contrastingly, a deeper reading suggests that the societal beliefs and conservative, obstinate nature of the narrators would cause them to condemn individuals and demonise events that threatened the social balance, meaning the creditability can certainly be disputed...
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...Exploring ways in which relationships are shown in “Romeo and Juliet” and in Wuthering Heights”? In this essay I am going to compare the relationships in Romeo and Juliet and wuthering heights by discussing their similarities and how love is portrayed in them. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and 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...
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...Jade Li English Literature Childhood is Shown as to be a Bitter Experience in Wuthering Heights The experience of childhood is one that is extremely importantly in everyone’s lives. 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...
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