Emily Brontë only had one book published in her lifetime, and it has become a staple in classic literature. Wuthering Heights is classified as a destructive romance between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff who are in love, but cannot be with one another because of the many obstacles set by other characters and, more importantly, themselves. But there is also a very dark element to this tale of romance. Many characters face abandonment, neglect, and physical and emotional abuse. Violence and cruelty is a reoccurring theme throughout Wuthering Heights that is developed through the actions of characters. In the beginning of Nelly Dean’s story about the generations of characters living in the mansion of Wuthering Heights, she talks about Mr. Earnshaw. This man starts the story with taking in an orphan that he names Heathcliff (Brontë 24). Earnshaw only gives Heathcliff a first name and no last name to show that he will never …show more content…
Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw eventually grew very ill and passed away. Hindley is now in charge of Wuthering Heights, much to the chagrin of Heathcliff. Heathcliff becomes even more of an outcast through Hindley’s actions, constantly not referred to as a member of the family and treated poorly (“Wuthering”). At one point, Hindley locks Heathcliff out of the house and tries to shoot him with a pistol. As a result, Heathcliff beats up Hindley (Brontë 113-115). Hindley eventually drinks himself to death over his wife’s death due to childbirth, leaving Heathcliff with his son, Hareton. Heathcliff already has his son, Linton, who he refers to as his property, not his son. History repeats itself when Heathcliff brutalizes Hareton, denying him an education and isolating him from the rest of the world. There is a sense of irony as Heathcliff treats his own son like Mr. Earnshaw treated him and how he also treats Hareton as Hindley treated him
From the beginning of the novel and most likely from the beginning of Heathcliff's life, he has suffered pain and rejection. When Mr. Earnshaw brings him to Wuthering Heights, he is viewed as a thing rather than a child. Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out the doors, while Nelly put it on the landing of the stairs hoping that it would be gone the next day. Without having done anything to deserve rejection, Heathcliff is made to feel like an outsider. Following the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff suffers cruel mistreatment at the hands of Hindley. In these tender years, he is deprived of love, friendship, and education, while the treatment from jealous Hindley is barbaric and disrupts his mental balance. He is separated from the family, reduced to the status of a servant, undergoes regular beatings and forcibly separated from his soul mate, Catherine. The personality that Heathcliff develops in his adulthood has been formed in response to these hardships of his childhood.
Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Brontë distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Brontë perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.
The complicated nature surrounding Heathcliff’s motives again adds an additional degree of ambiguity to his character. This motivation is primarily driven by Catherine’s marriage to Edgar and past rejection of Heathcliff, since he was a servant whom Hindley disapproved of. Prior to storming out of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff overhears Catherine say, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now…” (Brontë 87). The obstacles that ultimately prevent Heathcliff from marrying Catherine provide insight into Heathcliff’s desire to bring harm to Edgar and Hindley. The two men play prominent roles in the debacle, Edgar as the new husband and Hindley as the head figure who refused Heathcliff access to Catherine. Following this incident, Catherine says, “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…” (Brontë 87). Catherine’s sentiment indicates she truly would rather be with Heathcliff, but the actions of others have influenced her monumental decision to marry Edgar. Furthermore, Heathcliff is motivated to not only ruin Edgar’s livelihood, but also gain ownership of his estate, Thrushcross Grange. This becomes clear when Heathcliff attempts to use Isabella
In the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Heathcliff is an orphan boy brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, who has two children of his own already - Catherine and Hindley. Heathcliff changes over the course of his life by the following; Heathcliff begins by getting along well with Catherine Earnshaw, however, Catherine Earnshaw is introduced to Edgar Linton and Heathcliff becomes jealous of their forming relationship, and once Catherine has passed away after delivering Edgar’s child, Heathcliff becomes haunted by her ghost, and wishes to only be united with her in death.
Catherine Earnshaw is the daughter of Mr. Earnshaw and his wife; Catherine falls powerfully in love with Heathcliff, the orphan Mr. Earnshaw brings home from Liverpool. She was born at Wuthering Heights and was raised with her brother Hindley. Catherine loves Heathcliff so intensely that she claims they are the same person but does not marry him because Hindley has degraded him after their father's death so her desire for social advancement motivates her to marry Edgar Linton instead, a neighbour from Thrushcross Grange and he is handsome and rich, another reason for Catherine marrying him. She is quite passionate about Heathcliff though, and does not want to give him up. She becomes ill when Heathcliff and Edgar fight, and dies in childbirth.
Wuthering Heights is not just a love story, it is a window into the human soul, where one sees the loss, suffering, self discovery, and triumph of the characters in this novel. Both the Image of the Book by Robert McKibben, and Control of Sympathy in Wuthering Heights by John Hagan, strive to prove that neither Catherine nor Heathcliff are to blame for their wrong doings. Catherine and Heathcliff’s passionate nature, intolerable frustration, and overwhelming loss have ruined them, and thus stripped them of their humanities.
Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is a novel about lives that cross paths and are intertwined with one another. Healthcliff, an orphan, is taken in by Mr. Earnshaw, the owner of Wuthering Heights. Mr. Earnshaw has two children named Catherine and Hindley. Jealousy between Hindley and Healthcliff was always a problem. Catherine loves Healthcliff, but Hindley hates the stranger for stealing his fathers affection away. Catherine meets Edgar Linton, a young gentleman who lives at Thrushcross Grange. Despite being in love with Healthcliff she marries Edgar elevating her social standing. The characters in this novel are commingled in their relationships with Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.
The basic conflict of the novel that drives Heathcliff and Catherine apart is social. Written after the Industrial Revolution, Wuthering Heights is influenced by the rise of new fortunes and the middle class in England. Money becomes a new criterion to challenge the traditional criterias of class and family in judging a gentleman’s background. Just as Walpole who portrays the tyrannies of the father figure Manfred and the struggles of the Matilda who wants to marry the peasant Theodore, as depicted in the quote “(…) improbability that either father would consent to bestow his heiress on so poor a man, though nobly born”(p. 89), Brontë depicts a brutal bully Hindley who torments Heathcliff and separates Catherine from him. Heathcliff, a gypsy outcast picked u...
Despite it’s slightly unnerving plot line, Wuthering Heights is a story of intrigue and ardor and what happens when you step step over the line between both. It is oddly realistic as it brings focus too many aspects of human thought. Because of it’s wild and relatable storyline, Wuthering Heights has proved to be a spectacularly unique novel on not only the faults of society , but also on the puzzling human mind. Emily Bronte brought to life a world with Wuthering Heights that was so raw and vivid, it became impossible to forget. The conflicts of society and it’s twisted love triangle resulted in a book almost as unpredictable as the moors it was set in.
Wuthering Heights is a novel which deviates from the standard of Victorian literature. The novels of the Victorian Era were often works of social criticism. They generally had a moral purpose and promoted ideals of love and brotherhood. Wuthering Heights is more of a Victorian Gothic novel; it contains passion, violence, and supernatural elements (Mitchell 119). The world of Wuthering Heights seems to be a world without morals. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë does not idealize love; she presents it realistically, with all its faults and merits. She shows that love is a powerful force which can be destructive or redemptive. Heathcliff has an all-consuming passion for Catherine. When she chooses to marry Edgar, his spurned love turns into a destructive force, motivating him to enact revenge and wreak misery. The power of Heathcliff’s destructive love is conquered by the influence of another kind of love. Young Cathy’s love for Hareton is a redemptive force. It is her love that brings an end to the reign of Heathcliff.
Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Bronte, has 323 pages. The genre of Wuthering Heights is realistic fiction, and it is a romantic novel. The book is available in the school library, but it was bought at Barnes and Nobles. The author’s purpose of writing Wuthering Heights is to describe a twisted and dark romance story. Thus, the author conveys the theme of one of life’s absolute truths: love is pain. In addition, the mood of the book is melancholy and tumultuous. Lastly, the single most important incident of the book is when Heathcliff arrives to Edgar Linton’s residence in the Granges unannounced to see Catherine’s state of health. Heathcliff’s single visit overwhelmed Catherine to the point of death.
Emily Bronte, on the surface, appeared to be a very withdrawn woman and is said to be reclusive throughout her entire life. She was even incredibly embarrassed when her sister, Charlotte Bronte, found her book of poetry, even though Charlotte was incredibly impressed by it. Beneath the surface lies a woman full of passion and capable of powerful emotions, though she had never felt such emotions, to write a novel that is still discussed today and is regarded as a literary classic. Novels are often regarded as a window to the souls of the authors, and Wuthering Heights is no exception. Wuthering Heights is often seen as a type of construct of Emily’s life and personality, because of the similarity of characters to people in Emily’s life, and how the events that occur at Wuthering Heights are secluded in their own right, much like Emily’s own life.
Hindley, being the only biological son of Mr Earnshaw was envious of the relationship shared between Mr Earnshaw and Heathcliff and burned with fury. He made no effort to hide his resentment toward Heathcliff. Hindley despised Heathcliff to such an extent that when Mr Earnshaw died, he treated Heathcliff more like a servant and for bided him to talk to Catherine. Life then became miserable for Heathcliff and then became revenge driven. Hindley’s abusive and arrogant attitude toward Heathcliff, resulted in the chain of revengeful events that occurred in the novel. Hindley was instrumental in moulding Heathcliff into the destructive character he became.
When Hindley is drunk, Heathcliff “cheat[s] Mr. Hindley”(63) at cards. This is part of Heathcliff’s revenge on Hindley. Eventually, Hindley has to mortgage Wuthering Heights in order to pay his debts, and Heathcliff is able to gain possession of Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff tells Cathy, Catherine and Edgar’s daughter, that Linton, his son, “is on his deathbed”(255) and that she should come visit him. Cathy feels obligated to go help Linton, so she and Nelly go to Wuthering Heights. Once they arrive, Heathcliff locks them in and tells them “you shall not quit this place till it is fulfilled”(261); implying that they will not be able to leave until Cathy marries Linton. Heathcliff wants them to marry so that he can get the inheritance. While Heathcliff gains money from his connections, d Cathy and Hindley loses their inheritance, money, and
At first, the children of Wuthering Heights (Hindley, Cathy, Nelly) all rejected him for his appearance as a gypsy- they thought of him as knavish, grimy, and uneducated. Despite this, Mr. Earnshaw treated with a certain respect by letting him live as with the Earnshaws while still being an outsider to the family. Yet the spectrum of hostility didn’t end with the children. Mrs. Earnshaw questions her husband’s insight, “asking how [Mr. Earnshaw] could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house” when he added another mouth for her to feed at the dinner table. (Chapter 4). Mr. Earnshaw’s attempt to integrate Heathcliff fails once Hindley takes over Wuthering Heights. Despite basically being middle class under Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley takes it on his own to oppress and torture him. Before this, Heathcliff was on a level playing field class wise compared to the Earnshaws. Heathcliff now finds himself as a servant, a laborer working the fields. By subjugating Heathcliff, Hindley drew the line in the sand. Hindley has effectively forced Heathcliff into a lower class, Hindley has colonized