Born in 1818, Emily Bronte, known as the Laureate of the Moors, feared that people would not read her novel because of her gender. When Bronte turned twenty-seven, she published Wuthering Heights. At approximately the same time, her two sisters, Charlotte and Anne, published their literary works. Looking at Emily Bronte’s Victorian novel, Wuthering Heights, this literary work seems to be yet another book about a grumpy man who tries to take revenge on everyone who hurts him throughout his life. Looking deeper into this novel, readers see that the story revolves around several complex characters who must endure indescribable pain and suffering in their quest for love. The Earnshaw family decides to make Heathcliff who is the primary character in Wuthering Heights, a family member, Mr. Eanshaw’s son, Hindley, starts to beat, to hurt, and to mistreat Heathcliff. However, as Heathcliff begins to spend time with Hindley’s sister, Catherine, their relationship grows, Heathcliff and Catherine develop feelings for each other, and in turn, fall in love. When Catherine decides to marry Edgar Linton, this new turn-of-events devastates Heathcliff. Even though Edgar is a member of a higher social class than Heathcliff, Catherine secretly remains in love with her beloved Heathcliff. To illustrate her love for Edgar and her true passion for Heathcliff, she states, “I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am” (63). The manner in which Catherine, Edgar, and...
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...k to him. Cathy does not like him. Once Heathcliff dies she is free to marry whoever she want s and live her own life. She no longer has to be trapped anymore. Bell states that, “Young Catherine and Hareton, who are led to beleive, eventually come to love with patience and understanding, but only after Heathcliff’s influence is removed”(Bell). No one is trapped anymore.
Heathcliff experiences much pain and suffering in his search for true love. Heathcliff endures derision and personal injury from Hindley, insults from Edgar, and profound rejection from his dear Catherine. All of these events contribute to the subsequent anguish that many of the second-generation characters, Cathy, Hareton, and Linton, share throughout the latter part of the novel. After Heathcliff’s demise, Cathy and Hareton are now free from the terror and the tragedy that haunt the moors.
...e revenge of thinking that your cruelty rises from your greater misery." (528) In defiance of Heathcliff, Cathy symbolically defies society in one sentence. Society's way of thinking has made Heathcliff miserable but it will not make Cathy miserable. Her life will go unscathed by these restrictions placed on the first generation. Cathy married Hareton for love and her social status was lowered because of this. Unlike her mother, Cathy broke through the constraints of society in order to be truly happy.
In "Wuthering Heights," we see tragedies follow one by one, most of which are focused around Heathcliff, the antihero of the novel. After the troubled childhood Heathcliff goes through, he becomes embittered towards the world and loses interest in everything but Catherine Earnshaw –his childhood sweetheart whom he had instantly fallen in love with.—and revenge upon anyone who had tried to keep them apart.
Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Brontë distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Brontë perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.
In the gothic novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the author hides motifs within the story.The novel contains two major love stories;The wild love of Catherine, and Heathcliff juxtaposing the serene love of Cathy,and Hareton. Catherine’s and Heathcliff's love is the center of Emily Bronte’s novel ,which readers still to this day seem to remember.The characters passion, and obsession for each other seems to not have been enough ,since their love didn't get to thrive. Hareton and Cathy’s love is what got to develop. Hareton’s and Cathy’s love got to workout ,because both characters contained a characteristic that both characters from the first generation lacked: The ability to change .Bronte employs literary devices such as antithesis of ideas, and the motif of repetition to reveal the destructiveness of wild love versus a domestic love.
In the novel Wuthering Heights, author Emily Brontë portrays the morally ambiguous character of Heathcliff through his neglected upbringing, cruel motives, and vengeful actions.
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...
Heathcliff and Cathy have a sadistic relationship. They are only truly in love when they are hurting each other. As Catherine lay dying, she wants Heathcliff, her love, to join her in death. She pleads to him:
...ctive. Catherine is pushed to death and Heathcliff to brutal revenge, bordering on the psychotic. Yet before Cathy’s death, the knowledge that the other loves them is strong enough to make Wuthering Heights such a classic love story, and “that old man by the kitchen fire affirming he has seen two of 'em looking out of his chamber window, on every rainy night since his death,” shows that as they walk together on the moors, their self destruction may have led them to death, but also to what they most desired-being together.
During the first half of the book, Catherine showed different types of love for two different people. Her love for Heathcliff was her everything, it was her identity to love and live for Heathcliff but as soon as she found out how society views Heathcliff, she sacrificed their love and married Edgar Linton in the hopes of saving Heathcliff from Hindley and protecting him from the eyes of society. In her conversation with Nelly, Cathy who professed her love for Heathcliff quoted “My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself.” Catherine proved Nelly Dean that the only person who can make her feel pain and sorrow is Heathcliff. The extent of her love was uncovered when she sang her praise of “I am Heathcliff” because this was the turning point in the book that allowed the readers to truly understand and see the depth of Cathy's love for Heathcliff. On the other hand, Catherine's love for Edgar wasn't natural because it was a love that she taught herself to feel. It might have come unknowingly to Cathy but she did love Edgar as she said “My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees.” Cathy knew that it was not impossible to love Edgar for he was a sweet and kind gentleman who showed her the world but unlike ...
From the beginning of the novel and most likely from the beginning of Heathcliff's life, he has suffered pain and rejection. When Mr. Earnshaw brings him to Wuthering Heights, he is viewed as a thing rather than a child. Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out the doors, while Nelly put it on the landing of the stairs hoping that it would be gone the next day. Without having done anything to deserve rejection, Heathcliff is made to feel like an outsider. Following the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff suffers cruel mistreatment at the hands of Hindley. In these tender years, he is deprived of love, friendship, and education, while the treatment from jealous Hindley is barbaric and disrupts his mental balance. He is separated from the family, reduced to the status of a servant, undergoes regular beatings and forcibly separated from his soul mate, Catherine. The personality that Heathcliff develops in his adulthood has been formed in response to these hardships of his childhood.
The sympathetic part of Heathcliff shows through when he sees Catherine in the beginning stages of her sickness after childbirth. “He neither spoke, nor loosed his hold, for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I dare say…” (159). The sympathetic part of Heathcliff kicks in when he sees the woman he loves dying right before him. Heathcliff began to ask Catherine the questions he had not been able to ask her before, whether it had been due to his pride or to his absence - was insignificant., “‘...You loved me - then what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton?” (162). When the novel begins, it is mentioned that Heathcliff is shouting, “‘Come in! Come in!’ he sobbed. ‘Cathy, do come. Oh do - once more! Oh! My heart’s darling, hear me this time - Catherine, at last!’” (28). Heathcliff attempts to get Catherine’s ghost to speak to him, because his main goal is to be united with her in death. Heathcliff’s character changes relatively fast when he sees Catherine dying in her bed. There is a sympathetic side shown that has not been quite expressed before, and also the feelings that Heathcliff kept bottled
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.
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.
The basic conflict of the novel that drives Heathcliff and Catherine apart is social. Written after the Industrial Revolution, Wuthering Heights is influenced by the rise of new fortunes and the middle class in England. Money becomes a new criterion to challenge the traditional criterias of class and family in judging a gentleman’s background. Just as Walpole who portrays the tyrannies of the father figure Manfred and the struggles of the Matilda who wants to marry the peasant Theodore, as depicted in the quote “(…) improbability that either father would consent to bestow his heiress on so poor a man, though nobly born”(p. 89), Brontë depicts a brutal bully Hindley who torments Heathcliff and separates Catherine from him. Heathcliff, a gypsy outcast picked u...
In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte strongly emphasizes the dynamic and increasingly complex relationship of Mr. Heathcliff and Catherine. Heathcliff, the abandoned gypsy boy is brought to Wuthering Height by Mr. Earnshaw to be raised with his family. After Mr. Earnshaw's death, he suffers harsh abuses from his "brother" Hindley and from Catherine, whom he dearly loves. This abuse will pave the way for revenge. The evolving and elaborate plans for revenge Mr. Heathcliff masterminds for those who he feels had hurt him and betray him is what makes Wuthering Heights a classic in English literature. The sudden change in feelings and emotions in Mr. Heathcliff are powerful scenes. Revenge becomes the only reason to live for him. Revenge is the main theme in Wuthering Heights because it highlights important events, personality flaws, and the path of destruction.