Comparing Hate in The Jewel in the Crown and Wuthering Heights

Hate in The Jewel in the Crown and Wuthering Heights

While reading the two works, The Jewel in the Crown and Wuthering Heights, it was impossible to miss the blatant prejudice. The terms used to describe other races were offensive, I also noticed the treatment of many of the characters because of their skin color. One of the novels was set in 1801 and the other in 1942 still they both illustrate horrid prejudices.

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is a classic novel from the 1800's. It was shocking at first to read about the Gypsy boy that Mr. Earnshaw brought home referred to as." a gift of God, though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil." (Pg 28. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Norton Critical ed. 3rd ed. Ed William M. Sale, jr., and Richard J. Dunn. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990) Not once in the first meeting of this child did they call him a child or even as him they referred to him as "it" (Pg 28,29. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Norton Critical ed. 3rd ed. Ed William M. Sale, jr., and Richard J. Dunn. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990) When Mr. Earnshaw was explaining why he brought the boy home he used phrases like "seeing it starving" "inquired for its owner" and "whom it belonged". (Pg 29. Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Norton Critical ed. 3rd ed. Ed William M. Sale, jr., and Richard J. Dunn. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990)

The horrible way the people thought about the Gypsy child Heathcliff offended me at first and then I remembered the period of the novel. That was unfortunately, standard practice for the era although despicable normal for the era.

The trend continued for one hundred years because the novel The Jewel in the Crown had the same tones about the Indian people in the novel. Lady Chatterjee was not allowed in a club because she was an Indian. (Pg 106 Scott, Paul. The Jewel in the Crown. [1996.] Vol. 1 of the Raj Quartet. Rpt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.) Many times in this novel, as well there are blatant prejudices. Sister Ludmila felt it "an unnatural context the attraction of white to black, the attraction of an opposite" of a white woman and an Indian (black) man. (Pg 150 Scott, Paul. The Jewel in the Crown.