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Literary theory wuthering heights
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Literary Criticism of Wuthering Heights
According to the editor Currer Bell, the novel Wuthering Heights may seem rather
crude and unintelligible to those who know nothing of the author. Strangers who are
unacquainted with the setting where the story takes place, or who are unfamiliar with the customs
of the time may also look at Wuthering Heights with a critical eye. "To all such Wuthering
Heights must appear a rude and strange production" (Bell 5).
Readers may feel that the manners, language, and the very dwellings of the characters
are somewhat "repulsive" (Bell 5). People who are perhaps calm and collected will "have no idea
what to make of the rough, strong utterance, the harshly manifested passions, the unbridled
aversions, and headlong partialities" (Bell 5). Many people have been taught carefully to observe
the evenness of language and manner, and it is these people whom the roughness will shock .
The entire novel is regarded for its rusticity. "It is moorish, and wild, and knotty as the
root of heath" (Bell 5). However, Currer Bell insists that this is exactly the way the novel should
be. The author was a product of these wild and rustic moors, and it is quite natural that she writes
about what she lived in. "Her descriptions, then, if natural scenery, are what they should be, and
all that they should be" (Bell 6).
The author herself was not a very social person. She looked upon most
people with benevolence, but there were very few instances where she interacted with them on a
.
personal level. However, this did not stop her from accurately identifying the ways, language, and
family history of most people. "She could hear of them with interest, and talk of them with detail,
minute, graphic,and accurate; but with them she barely exchanged a word" (Bell 6-7). Her
imagination was dismal yet powerful.
Still, there are certain examples in Wuthering Heights that bring a sort of brightness to
the other dreary aspects of the novel. The character of Nelly Dean is an example of tenderness
and compassion. In the character of Edgar Linton one can see a sense of constancy and
In comparing The Song of Roland to Ywain, the society for which each derives its story becomes clear. Likewise, when keeping in mind the changing thoughts, concepts, and feelings of the twelfth century the shift from epic to romance also becomes apparent. Southern's chapter detailed the journey that the people of the period took that made this shift possible. It is these thoughts, found within the romantic literature, which forever differentiates the high Middle Ages for the earlier ages.
Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights share similarities in many aspects, perhaps most plainly seen in the plots: just as Clarissa marries Richard rather than Peter Walsh in order to secure a comfortable life for herself, Catherine chooses Edgar Linton over Heathcliff in an attempt to wrest both herself and Heathcliff from the squalid lifestyle of Wuthering Heights. However, these two novels also overlap in thematic elements in that both are concerned with the opposing forces of civilization or order and chaos or madness. The recurring image of the house is an important symbol used to illustrate both authors’ order versus chaos themes. Though Woolf and Bronte use the house as a symbol in very different ways, the existing similarities create striking resonances between the two novels at certain critical scenes.
Wuthering Heights seems to be a series of destructive decisions. Heathcliff and Catherine never achieve a life of happiness together; their actions cannot lead to a blissful ending. The other characters are guilty of creating their own strife, whether from personal faults or lack of wisdom. In a way, Emily Bronte’s ability to weave flaws into each person’s character lends a sense of reality or humanness to the novel; no one is seen as entirely good or bad. Without lecturing her readers, Bronte demonstrates just how regrettable succumbing to impulses can be. I realized while reading that even though their lives have an aspect of romance, I would never want to live the way that they did.
The initial downward spiral of Heathcliff’s life was predominantly caused by harsh influences in the environment in which he was raised. Heathcliff, an adopted child, grew up in Wuthering Heights, a desolate and dystopian estate when compared to the beauty of the neighboring Thrushcross Grange. In childhood, Heathcliff displayed evidence of a sympathetic personality through his emotional attachment to Catherine and kind attitude towards Nelly. At the time of Mr. Earnshaw’s death, Nelly describes a scene where, “Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she
. 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.
The setting used throughout the novel Wuthering Heights, helps to set the mood to describe the characters. We find two households separated by the cold, muddy, and barren moors, one by the name of Wuthering Heights, and the other Thrushcross Grange. Each house stands alone, in the mist of the dreary land, and the atmosphere creates a mood of isolation. These two places, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange differ greatly in appearance and mood. These differences reflect the universal conflict between storm and calm that Emily Bronte develops as the theme.
Wuthering Heights is a symbol of the distinctive commotion, which is the overriding force in Bronte’s novel. A force that will damage, twist and harm anyone that comes across it. The actual meaning of the word ‘wuthering’ is a wind blowing strongly with a roaring sound. This picture serves as a metaphor that people, money, emotions, love etc… will be in jeopardy if not hold tight. Above all, this novel is obviously about love, a different and odd love. Emotions and love in this novel turn out to be very violent, brutal and ruthless just like wuthering.
strong magnetism representing savagery and Thrushcross grange with its refinement and pleasant appearance representing civility. Wuthering heights has the characteristics of being very strong. prominent structure and is described by Mr Lockwood as being a misanthropists in heaven and beyond. It is a very desolate and lonely place up on a hill exposed to stormy weather with no real beauty and can be seen as an uncivilised place to live. Thrushcross Grange is a very classy, civilised estate and a lovely home.
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, 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.
The presentation of childhood is a theme that runs through two generations with the novel beginning to reveal the childhood of Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, and with the arrival of the young Liverpudlian orphan, Heathcliff. In chapter four, Brontë presents Heathcliff’s bulling and abuse at the hands of Hindley as he grows increasingly jealous of Heathcliff for Mr. Earnshaw, his father, has favoured Heathcliff over his own son, “my arm, which is black to the shoulder” the pejorative modifier ‘black’ portrays dark and gothic associations but also shows the extent of the abuse that Heathcliff as a child suffered from his adopted brother. It is this abuse in childhood that shapes Heathcliff’s attitudes towards Hindley and his sadistic nature, as seen in chapter 17, “in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity” there is hyperbole and melodrama as the cruelty that stemmed from his abuse in childhood has been passed onto Isabella in adulthood.
The setting used throughout the novel Wuthering Heights helps to set the mood to describe the characters. We find two households separated by the cold, muddy, and barren moors, one by the name of Wuthering Heights, and the other by the name of Thrushcross Grange. Each house stands alone, in the mist of the dreary land, and the atmosphere creates a mood of isolation. In the novel, there are two places where virtually all of the action takes place. These two places, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, differ greatly from each other in appearance and mood. These differences reflect the universal conflict between storm and calm that Emily Bronte develops as the theme in her novel Wuthering Heights.
...a woman trying to find an identity through her heritage. All of these stories give us examples and show us what life in this period would be like for the characters. They give details that show the readers the world around them.
In conclusion, Bronte uses the supernatural and ghosts in Wuthering Heights to emphasise the power of love between Cathy and Heathcliff and proving that love exists beyond the grave and that the quality of love is unending. Furthermore, ghosts are used to assist in the storytelling, to help in enhancing the setting and develop characterisation, particularly in the character of Heathcliff, Nelly and Lockwood. The use of the supernatural enables the reader to be intrigued by the confusing use of extraordinary beings.
According to him, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is not only just a romance, but it is about class origins, and how industrialization in Britain had an impact on the culture of the English and found its way to the far reaches of the wild English countryside, that is. Heathcliff was not a Romeo, he was a dark-skinned outsider who reminded the reader of the dramatic social change that happened at that time.