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Analysis of Bronte s Wuthering heights
Analysis of Bronte s Wuthering heights
Literary devises in wuthering heights by emily bronte
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The storyline of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights displays and supports the significance of conflict in the world. Based on the characters’ actions and their aftermaths, the reader can interpret the inevitability of conflict caused by human nature and selfishness.
Clearly, one of the central conflicts involves Heathcliff’s struggle against society. Due to Hindley’s torment and despicable treatment of Heathcliff and his strained relationship with Catherine, he develops a vengeful attitude starting from childhood. His childhood hatred has significance because children are considered innocent, but even then, Heathcliff faces troubles against society, as seen with the applesauce incident against Linton. After throwing a small fit against Linton from what he saw as scorn over his unusual tidiness, Heathcliff is harshly punished by Hindley for his misbehavior. One of key quotes that exemplifies the vengeance Heathcliff feels is: “The indignant actions against Heathcliff do not stop there – because of Edgar’s higher status, Catherine, the love-of-Heathcliff’s-life, decides to marry him rather than ruin her position through Heathcliff. This treatment highlights wealth, which, in turn, is the basis of Heathcliff’s goal in taking over the entire Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange for the sake of proving his higher social status over those people that have previously treated him as useless and trash. In his partake of this goal, Heathcliff shifts from a high-spirited boy to an avaricious and cruel man.
Although much of the conflict is emotional and internal, there is little doubt about how crucial the conflict between Heathcliff and Edgar is. Even the actions of Edgar, presumably the most considerate and refined character suggest ...
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...ed and Edgar and Isabella being more submissive, especially Edgar even at his death-bed.
Using the different types of conflict present in the novel, the reader can interpret the statement “conflict is inevitable” through the deeper representations of these three kinds of conflict present. The issue between Heathcliff and society represents how materialistic and shallow society can be, judging by possessions rather than character. The issue between Heathcliff and Edgar represents jealously and character flaws in every person, making there no such “perfect person”, which is quite true in general. Finally, the issue between Catherine and Heathcliff represents the limits of emotions in the face of social peace. Together, given any situation, there will probably be some clash, whether minor or major, and the world probably will not be at perfect peace in its entirety.
In a place where law and social rules do not seem to apply due to isolation from society, childish and primitive instincts begin to be unrepressed, with wilder acts of violence showing savage emotions and actions in order to fulfill desires. As McKinstry claims, the characters are living in a world where “fantasy and desire overcome adult laws of reality and order” (McKinstry 142). This isolated environment leads to many acts of socially intolerable violence, such as physical harming of others and the putting of more helpless lives in danger. Unacceptable cruelty is apparent from the very beginning of the novel, when Heathcliff is first brought to the Earnshaw manor and is treated as an inferior being by being called “it” by Nelly and…… One of the most absurd examples of this is when Hindley is retrieving Hareton from Nelly during one of his common drunken o...
Which drew Catherine towards him; she describes him as “handsome”, “pleasant to be with,” and “cheerful,” and “rich”. Linton turns Catherine from a wild child to a well-mannered lady. They meet when Catherine got bit by a dog, and then the Lintons take her in while she is healing, this lasts for five weeks. Edgar tames her in a way, his overall persona clashes with hers in a perfect way. His love gives Catherine safety a security in the society. Heathcliff on the other hand is almost obsessed and can't give her the attributes she needs and wants; such as, commitment and how he won't sacrifice anything. However, those exact qualities attract Catherine to him. “She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us on his account.”(Brontë 41) According to Levy, “As a result of the Unlove that they were made to suffer, both Heathcliff and Catherine, by opposite means and in distinct circumstances, turn loneliness into a community of rejection over which they wield absolute control. Heathcliff does this by persecuting those he hates; Catherine, by persecuting those she loves.” Edgar and Heathcliff have a good angel bad angel complex, of course Heathcliff is the bad angel and Edgar is the good angel. The reasons behind this is simply the characteristics portrayed;Edgar
Through the duration of Heathcliff's life, he encounters many tumultuous events that affects him as a person and transforms his rage deeper into his soul, for which he is unable to escape his nature.
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
...ance of Heathcliff’s feeling of being cheated out of his happiness, videlicet, loving and being loved by Catherine.
Heathcliff is a character who was abused in his childhood by Catherine’s brother, Hindley, because of his heritage as a “gypsy”, and Hindley was jealous of the love that Heathcliff got from Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley’s father. This is also selfishness upon Hindley’s part since he only wanted his father’s love for his sister and himself. So to reprimand Heathcl...
. The reader sees an extraordinary inwardness in Emily Bronte’s book Wuthering Heights. Emily has a gloomy and isolated childhood. . Says Charlotte Bronte, “ my sister’s disposition was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favored and fostered her tendency to seclusion; except to go to church, or to take a walk on the hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home.”(Everit,24) That inwardness, that remarkable sense of the privacy of human experience, is clearly the essential vision of Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte saw the principal human conflict as one between the individual and the dark, questioning universe, a universe symbolized, in her novel, both by man’s threatening and hardly-to-be-controlled inner nature, and by nature in its more impersonal sense, the wild lonesome mystery of the moors. The love of Heathcliff and Catherine, in its purest form, expresses itself absolutely in its own terms. These terms may seem to a typical mind, violent, and even disgusting. But having been generated by that particular love, they are the proper expressions of it. The passionately private relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine makes no reference to any social convention or situation. Only when Cathy begins to be attracted to the well-mannered ways of Thrushcross Grange, she is led, through them, to abandon her true nature.
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.
Conflict is apart of the model of society. It is a very common component of reality and also in stories and other forms literature. In stories, it adds sensation and stimulates the minds the people who are reading it. Characters can be in conflict with another character, an object, or themselves. When characters are having conflicts however it is more than just a mere disagreement but it is a situation in which the characters detect a threat to their physical, emotional, power and status well-being.
On the face of it, it would seem that the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff is self-destructive to an extreme. Due to the lovers’ precarious circumstances, passionate personalities and class divisions, it seems that fate transpires to keep them apart and therefore the hopelessness of their situation drives them to self destruction. However, although the relationship is undeniably self-destructive, there are elements within it that suggest the pain Heathcliff and Catherine put each other through is atoned for to an extent when they share their brief moments of harmony.
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights can be considered a Gothic romance or an essay on the human relationship. The reader may regard the novel as a serious study of human problems such as love and hate, or revenge and jealousy. One may even consider the novel Bronte's personal interpretation of the universe. However, when all is said and done, Heathcliff and Catherine are the story. Their powerful presence permeates throughout the novel, as well as their complex personalities. Their climatic feelings towards each other and often selfish behavior often exaggerates or possibly encapsulates certain universal psychological truths humans are too afraid to express. Heathcliff and Catherine's stark backgrounds evolve respectively into dark personalities and mistaken life paths, but in the end their actions determine the course of their own relationships and lives. Their misfortunes, recklessness, willpower, and destructive passion are unable to penetrate the eternal love they share.
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.
Heathcliff never finds peace through his revenge. In fact, the only time he truly finds happiness is when he gives up his plan for retaliation. Austin O’Malley states “Revenge is like biting a dog that bit you” (O’malley 1). O’Malley’s quote reflects Heathcliff’s immature need to propagate agony in those who have offended him. Heathcliff’s plan for revenge on Edgar and Catherine is to marry Isabella, who is ignorant of love and of men because she has never experienced either. He wants to hurt Edgar because of his marriage to Catherine, and he wants to get revenge on Catherine by making her jealous. Catherine’s death proves that this flawed plan of repayment helps nothing. Heathcliff, haunted by the ghost of Catherine because he is her “murderer,” still is motivated by the need for revenge and tries to get young Cathy away from Edgar by having her marry his son, Linton. Heathcliff never finds peace until he gives up his plan for revenge just before he dies. When Heathcliff gives up his plan for revenge, he meets Catherine in death and truly becomes happy once more.
Heathcliff is characterized “as dark almost as if it [Heathcliff] came from the devil.” (45) Throughout Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is treated poorly and is mainly a product of a troubled childhood. This man then manifests into a person that is hardly capable of holding back his impetuous actions, and, therefore, exemplifies the capacity of the most powerful emotions. Although he may not be the ideal protagonist, it is ultimately not his fault and in the end is defined by the events in the story. Due to the extreme emotional and physical pain endured throughout his life, Heathcliff exhibits the strongest love and hate towards others through passion and revenge.
...his is impossible to prevent. This leads to Mr. Heathcliff self destruction, because all of his life he has been looking for strategies to get revenge on those he hates. He does not want Wuthering Heights to be a haven, rather a purgatory. To his dismay he realizes his years of revenge, will not last all generations. Seeing how both families, the Linton and the Earnshaw's stand up for one another, Heathcliff understands that the one thing that kept him alive has now been defeated. Therefore his life has no purpose, and he has lost.