Wuthering Heights: Summary
Emily Bronte was born in Thorton, Yorkshire, in 1918. Wuthering Heights was
Bronte's only book; however, she died in 1848 and never knew of the book's success. It is said by many to be the finest novel in the English language.
Just before she dies, Catherine Earnshaw gives birth to a beautiful baby girl named Cathy. After Catherine married Edgar, heathcliff becomes jealous and marries Edgar's sister, Isabella. Isabella then gives birth to Heathcliff's son
Linton. Wuthering Heights, by Wmily Bronte, is a novel full of contrast between
Catherine and Cathy and Heathcliff and Linton.
While Cathy is growing up, the reader begins t see the contrast between cathy and her mother. Catherine is a typical Earnshaw, having dark hair, and dark eyes.
While her daughter's characteristics are the exact opposite. Cathy has blonde hair, fair skin, and irrestibly brilliant eyes.
Catherine and Cathy is emotional aspects also contrast a great deal. Young
Cathy's emotions are calm, while her mother's rage, and are as unpredictable as a storm. Catherine's emotions are so passionate that she is unable to control them. To the point of causing her own death. Before she dies, she says that she wants both Heathcliff and Edgar to suffer-Edgar, because he never understood heraffection for Heathcliff; and Heathcliff, because he never understood why she married Edgar. Cathy has a mind of her own and some of Catherine's willfullness. She is also capable of great sympathy towards Linton, whom she marries and finally Hareton Earnshaw.
Heathcliff is a strange mix-ture of the refined and incouth; slovently, yet dresses and acts like a g gentleman. While being dark with the look of a gypsy, he is quite handsome. His son, linton resembles his mother, Isabella, as he is blonde, pretty, feeble, adn effeminate. It is ironic thtat Heathcliff's son should be so weak and sickly that he dies at the age of seventeen.
Although Heathcliff is his father, Linton displays none of Heathcliff's characteristics. Heathcliff is a character full of brutality. Heathcliff shows this brutality on several occasions.
Any great novel seeks to explore human nature, our morality, our trust in each other, the delicate inner workings of our societies. A classic that does more than explore the ways of our world, it exposes them, down to the nitty-gritty bare bones. These books force us to look at the world around us and truly see everything that is happening around us, not just the outer layers.... ... middle of paper ... ...
The book could have been written by a wealthy politician or a poor farmer. The mystery of the author could easily drag everyone into the book and focus on the simple ideas behind it. Everyone could relate to the huge ideas in the book well, keeping a simple vocabulary. The book was a huge hit with everyone and is possibly one of the best books written of all time.
Over a long period of time, an individual’s social status has always had a great impact on relationships between others. Relationships such as friendship, romance and even family relationships are greatly influenced by one’s social status. When people value social status to the utmost importance, it often acts as a barrier to further solidify relations with others. “Wuthering Heights” is a classic novel written by Emily Bronte which illustrates how social status gets in the way of relationships. This story (set in eighteen hundreds) displays the true nature of the people at that time because they excessive had pride. Since they had excessive pride, they often judged people based on their social class; hence changing their relationship between each other. In this novel social class was measured by observing an individual’s wealth, appearance and manners. Heathcliff happens to be the male lead character of this story that lacks social class due to his rebellious relationship with Hindley. Afterwards, Hindley degrades Heathcliff’s status this affects his connections with Catherine and Nelly. Since Heathcliff’s status diminishes, Catherine becomes reluctant to continue her affair with Heathcliff. Nelly also becomes wary of Heathcliff because his personality changes after restoring his own status. Thus, it is clearly seen that social class has an impact on the story by altering Heathcliff’s relationship between Hindley, Catherine and Nelly.
...s of whether the criticism was negative or positive, it was being read, making it one of the most widely read novels in American history.
The best of the Thomas Tolman genealogies are these— (most have only a partial descendency of Thomas Tolman, b. 1608): Black, Harrison The Ancestry of Frances Maria Goodman (1829-1912) (hereafter Black) 1 , Mower, Lyman The Ancestry of Calvin Robinson Mower (hereafter Mower) 2 , Sumner, Edith Bartlett The Ancestry of Edward Wales Blake and Clarissa Matilda Glidden (hereafter Sumner) 3 , ‘Tolman Genealogy’ The Register, Vol. 14 (1860), pp. 240-260 (poorly sourced, hereafter The Register) 4 , Ackerman, Herbert S. Thomas Tolman (hereafter Ackerman) 5 , Tolman, Gerald Lee for the Thomas Tolman Family Genealogy Center The Descendants of Thomas Tolman (1608), 2006 edition, (no primary sources, hereafter TTFGC) 6 . All except TTFGC have the birthplace
Everyone goes through a time where they wish they were a different person. Many people believe that they can never change who they are. However, transformations occur every day. Emily Bronte proves this true in her novel Wuthering Heights. Throughout the entire plot, numerous characters changed, either in their appearance, their social status, or their personality. Bronte also proves that non-human things can change, such as the manner of Wuthering Heights. The idea that people and objects can transform is shown throughout the novel through many examples.
often ignores them for days at a time and beats them when they displease her.
classic, a novel must have one or more qualities that place it above the rest.
In the novel Wuthering Heights, author Emily Brontë portrays the morally ambiguous character of Heathcliff through his neglected upbringing, cruel motives, and vengeful actions.
There is two stereotypical types of families, one where the children learn from their parents behavior and do the same as they grow up, and the other where they dislike – and do the opposite. In Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the characters are quite intricate and engaging. The story takes place in northern England in an isolated, rural area. The main characters of the novel reside in two opposing households: Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights is a story of a dynamic love between two people. This love transcends all boundaries, including that over life and death. The author takes parallelism to great extends. Much of the events that happen in the first half of the story correspond to events in the second half; first generation of characters is comparable to the second generation. Many may argue that the characters are duplicates of each other and that they share many traits. Although Catherine Earnshaw and Cathy Linton are mother and daughter, their personalities and lifestyles are very different. This is a great example where the child is and behaves quite different than her mother.
Wuthering Heights is a classic in which Emily Bronte presents two opposite settings using the country setting. Country settings are often used as a place of virtue and peace or of ignorance and one of primitivism as believed by many city dwellers. But, in the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte has used Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights to depict isolation and separation. Wuthering Heights setting is wild, passionate, and strong and Thrushcross Grange and its inhabitants are calm, harshly strict, and refined and these two opposite forces struggle throughout the novel.
The thorough development of characters, the novel's structure and cohesion, and the portrayal of the social order are qualities that loom essential in my mind as I read Persuasion. These attributes are by no means exhaustive. But I focused on qualities that are necessary for the novel's success, that not only are present in the novel, but also distinguish it from other genres.
“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.
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.
It is a question that has baffled readers and critics alike through generations, a question that can be endlessly pondered upon and debated over, as to why Emily Bronte chose to name her first and only novel, after the house in which a sizable part of the action chronicled takes place, despite being armed with characters of such extra-ordinary strength and passion as Heathcliff or Catherine. But on close scrutiny, a reader can perhaps discern the reason behind her choice, the fact that Wuthering Heights is at once a motif, a setting and according to a few critics, even a ‘premonitory indication’ of the tempestuous nature of things soon to occur.