“All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind, and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.” – Vida Winter, Tales of Change and Desperation (Setterfield). The two novels The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, and Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte were written decades apart, yet they have similar elements. Wuthering Heights is a work of gothic fiction with some Victorian elements as well. Being that the two novels are so similar is it plausible that The Thirteenth Tale could be considered gothic fiction. It seems to fall under that category. They both use techniques such as the supernatural, family curses, mystery, madness, secrets, confused identities, lies, and half-truths (Ryan). The techniques of narration and establishing setting are similar in The Thirteenth Tale and Wuthering Heights.
The tone in Wuthering Heights is dreary and melancholy. This style provides the dark atmosphere to the story. Most of the story is conveyed through the narration of Ellen Dean. Setterfield uses a similar style in her story. Most of the story in her book is told by Vida Winter. The technique of flashbacks is used in both books. In both novels the two characters Lockwood and Margaret start out the story from their perspective, later the narrator changes. Wuthering Heights’s Mr. Lockwood hears the story from Ellen Dean (Nelly) much like Margaret hears the story from Vida Winter in The Thirteenth Tale. The two stories are broken up into sections due to interruptions made by the storyteller and situations that arise. The story of Wuthering Heights is told through flashbacks recorde...
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...t runs into Aurelius on the moors. Soon after she tells him of a secret of which she discovered, that has to do with him. The moors bring people together.
Both novels end on a more cheerful note. There is hope for the future. Aurelius has found the family he always dreamed of having. Hareton and Cathy will live a life together; they will be married on New Years, which symbolizes a new beginning. Hareton and Cathy represent an improved version of Heathcliff and Catherine, showing what they could have become if their situations were different. Love triumphs over revenge. Miss Winter tried to leave her past behind her, but it had caught up with her and she felt compelled to share it. She can now be free from the ghosts of her past. Margaret conquers her own personal problems and comes to terms with herself. Mysteries are revealed, plots unwound, and ghosts released.
Virginia Woolf and Emily Bronte possess striking similarities in their works. Both works have inanimate objects as pivotal points of the story line. For Bronte, Wuthering Heights itself plays a key role in the story. The feel of the house changes as the characters are introduced to it. Before Heathcliff, the Heights was a place of discipline but also love. The children got on well with each other and though Nelly was not a member of the family she too played and ate with them. When old Mr. Earnshaw traveled to Liverpool he asked the children what they wished for him to bring them as gifts and also promised Nelly a “pocketful of apples and pears” (WH 28). Heathcliff’s presence changed the Heights, “So, from the beginning, he had bred bad feeling in the house” (WH 30). The Heights became a place to dream of for Catherine (1) when she married Linton and moved to the Grange. For her it held the memories of Heathcliff and their love. For her daughter, Cathy, it became a dungeon; trapped in a loveless marriage in a cold stone home far away from the opulence and luxury of the home she was used to. Then, upon the death of Heathcliff, I can almost see, in my minds eye, the Heights itself relax into the warm earth around in it the knowledge that it too is once again safe from the vengeance, bitterness, and hate that has housed itself within its walls for over twenty years.
In conclusion Emily Bronte employs the literary devices of repetition and anthesis to make closure for the wild love of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff with the union of Hareton and Cathy’s love.With the characters being so similar the reader can't help to tie these sets of doubles together making Catherine’s and Heathcliff's forbidden love acceptable with the peaceful relationship of Cathy’s and Haretons relationship.
In the novel Wuthering Heights, author Emily Brontë portrays the morally ambiguous character of Heathcliff through his neglected upbringing, cruel motives, and vengeful actions.
...e of joy and pain in Catherine’s life, as their love was so powerful that it can only be embraced by the extent of death. With many other important messages in the novel, the most important is the changes that occur in and between the characters. The numerous characteristic aspects, the characters in the story are enthralling. Although, Cathy Linton may be recognized as a duplicate of Catherine Earnshaw due to the parallelism of generations, their traits and personalities are entirely individual. Cathy is an innocent and fine young lady, and Catherine is a selfish evil monster. Throughout the progress of the story the reader can clearly appreciate the mismatched traist of the mother and daughter. And like, psychologists have said, “Often children avoid the ways their parents have gone”. Although Cathy doesn’t experience her mother ways, she lives the opposite way.
Catherine and Heathcliff reveal their fervent devotion and affection for each other when the former is lying on her deathbed, and in those tender, moribund moments earnest and ardent confessions are made that signify their mutual adoration and are harbingers of Heathcliff’s adumbrative vengeance. Heathcliff suffers to see Catherine in such a ghostly state, and weeps at the idea of being without her, crying, ““Would you (Catherine) like to live with your soul in the grave?”” (151) In saying this he demonstrates not only his own pain at her imminent fate, but also their metaphorically entwined lives. He does so by connecting the departure of her soul to his own, claiming that when she dies, so too will he. Additionally, by mere fact that the normally stoic Heathcliff was found in a state of grievance over the unfortunate circumstances is indicative of the gravity and desperation that with her passing he regards. Nelly points out as much by her matter-of-fact remark, “...it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this.” (151) Therefore, Heathcliff’s anguish befo...
In a failed attempt to discourage Isabella Linton’s budding desire for Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean does not hesitate in standing behind Catherine’s assertion that he would destroy Isabella if she were to pursue him romantically: “She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides,” Nelly warns, “and she would never represent him as worse than he is” (103). While Nelly’s plea falls upon deaf ears, her admission rings true—if there is anyone in Wuthering Heights with more insight on Heathcliff’s actions and motives, it is Catherine Earnshaw. Had Brontë aimed to interrogate Heathcliff’s individual growth and regression in Wuthering Heights, Catherine may have narrated the tale, but as the original
Inwardness is also the key to the structure of the novel. The book begins in the year 1801, on the very rim of the tale, long after the principal incidents of the story have taken place. Mr. Lockwood, our guide, is very far removed from the central experiences of the narrative. Under Lockwood’s sadly unperceptive direction, the reader slowly begins to understand what is happening at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Gradually we move toward the center of the novel. In a few chapters, Nelly Dean, takes over from Lockwood, and the reader is a little closer to the truth. Still Nelly is herself unperceptive and the reader must struggle hard till reaching the center of the novel; the passionate last meeting of Heathcliff and Cathy in Chapter 15.
Throughout the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë effectively utilizes weather and setting as methods of conveying insight to the reader of the personal feeling of the characters. While staying at Thrushcross Grange, Mr. Lockwood made a visit to meet Mr. Heathcliff for a second time, and the horrible snow storm that he encounters is the first piece of evidence that he should have perceived about Heathcliff's personality. The setting of the moors is one that makes them a very special place for Catherine and Heathcliff, and they are thus very symbolic of their friendship and spirts. The weather and setting are very effective tools used throughout the end of the novel as well, for when the weather becomes nice it is not only symbolic of the changing times, and the changing people, but also a new beginning. During his stay at Thrushcross Grange Mr. Lockwood made the perilous journey to Wuthering Heights only a few times. On the occasion of his second visit, "the snow began to drive thickly"(7) during his walk, and this horrible weather should have been foreshadowing to Lockwood about Heathcliff's, and the other member's of the household's true personalities. Upon arriving he was forced to bang continually upon the door before someone would take the care to let him in out of the cold. The dinner that Lockwood was permitted to have with the ‘family' was anything but hospitable. Lockwood was treated not unlike an ignorant and unworthy guest, and hence the visit was in no way enjoyable for him. Upon desiring to leave the destitute home, Lockwood finds the weather too intolerable for him to even consider venturing out on his own, and upon being attacked by one of the dogs, "he was pulled into the kitchen"(15) and allowed, however ungraciously, to stay the night at Wuthering Heights. Once his walk home commenced the following day, Lockwood found himself being escorted by Heathcliff himself. The path that is used as a means of connection between the two houses does well to exemplify the feeling contained within each. The path that is nearest to the Heights is long and winding, with "many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries . . . blotted from the chart"(28). This description is a disheartening one, and causes the reader to associate this kind of representation with the Heights...
The calamities between the Lintons and the Earnshaws provide the readers with the bleak and austere aura of the Gothic era and, thus, explain the various themes expressed in the novel Wuthering Heights written by Emily Brontë. The two families are similar by their aristocracy, but the conflicts between the characters provide insight into many underlying meanings throughout the novel. Heathcliff’s arrival at Wuthering Heights carries on the plot of the story, allowing the readers to interpret the themes about social class, love, and suffering.
the novel as a whole ends on a note of hope, peace, and joy, with
“Wuthering Heights is a strange, inartistic story”(Atlas, WH p. 299). “Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book” (Douglas, WH p.301). “This is a strange book” (Examiner, WH p.302). “His work [Wuthering Heights] is strangely original” (Britannia, WH p.305). These brief quotes show that early critics of Emily Bronte’s first edition of Wuthering Heights, found the novel baffling in its meaning - they each agreed separately, that no moral existed within the story therefore it was deemed to have no real literary value. The original critical reviews had very little in the way of praise for the unknown author or the novel. The critics begrudgingly acknowledged elements of Wuthering Heights that could be considered strengths – such as, “rugged power” and “unconscious strength” (Atlas, WH p.299), “purposeless power” (Douglas, WH p.301), “evidences of considerable power” (Examiner), “power and originality” (Britannia, WH p.305). Strange and Powerful are two recurring critical interpretations of the novel. The critics did not attempt to provide in depth analysis of the work, simply because they felt that the meaning or moral of the story was either entirely absent or seriously confused.
(4) Wuthering Heights’s mood is melancholy and tumultuous. As a result, the book gives off a feeling of sorrow and chaos. For example, Catherine’s marriage with Edgar Linton made Heathcliff jealous and angry. In retaliation, Heathcliff married Edgar’s sister, Isabella, to provoke Catherine and Edgar. Heathcliff and Isabella’s marriage ignited a chaotic uproar with Edgar and Catherine because Linton disapproved of Heathcliff’s character, and Catherine loved Heathcliff in spite of being married to Edgar. Inside, Catherine wanted to selfishly keep Heathcliff to herself. Their relationships all had tragic endings because Catherine died giving birth to Edgar’s child. Isabella also died, leaving behind her young son. Heathcliff and Edgar resented each other because of misery they experienced together. The transition of the mood in the story is from chaotic to somber.
First, Wuthering Heights is a contribution to the theme of the novel because it sets the mood for the scenes taken place inside the house. The house is first introduced to the reader during a storm. The house stands alone and the land around it is described as dreary and foreboding, which creates a mood of isolation. “On the bleak Yorkshire moors” describes the Yorkshire moors physical appearance. The estate has little vegetation and is more weathered, which moors are, as they are jutting, bare rocks towards the ocean. Wuthering Heights is an old stone house with gothic architecture and bleak interior. The people that live in Wuthering Heights are bitter and act violent. The characters of the story act wild when they are at Wuthering Heights, compared to other places in the novel. The setting of the house enforces the actions of the Earnshaws’, and Heathcliff. The name of the estate even sets a theme of gloom in the novel. Lockwood says Wuthering is, “a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather” (12).
Wuthering Heights is a reflection of Emily Bronte's life in many ways. Through fictional setting, characters, and story line she mirrors her own and her family's real life. It is too bad that Emily Bronte died at the young age of thirty-one. She produced this great novel in a short life span and the world will never know what other great works could have come from her life and her pen.
Emily Bronte's master piece, Wuthering Heights, is a timeless story of love, deception, betrayal and revenge. It recognizes that life in the world is not a utopia. Revenge is the main theme in the book because it highlights important events, personality flaws, and the path to self-destruction. Bronte presents this loud and clear.