Jieyi Zhang Ms. Power ENG1D7 Monday, January 12, 2015 Wuthering Heights, a novel written by Emily Brontë, is true to its name. Wuthering, meaning a fierce wind, pertains to the wind stirring the souls of the two characters, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, and brings their emotions to extreme heights, which results in extreme behaviour and acting without thinking about the possible consequences. The main theme of this gothic romance novel is passion. The strong emotions such as love, hate, and desire that Catherine and Heathcliff feel for each other and the people around them controls their actions and makes their behaviour excessive, driving the story forward and generating action in the novel. The character depicted as most passionate is Heathcliff. His passion is dark and vengeful. Adopted into the Earnshaw family as a child, he grew up with Catherine. As they played together on the moors, unrestrained by responsibility and completely free, they developed feelings for each other. Heathcliff feels betrayed when Catherine decides to marry Edgar Linton instead of him. He had overheard Catherine’s conversation with Nelly, in which she’d said: “...did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars?” (pg 97) Heathcliff’s feelings for Catherine is more than just love. He states, after Catherine’s death, “Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can
Presently, society is constructed in such a way that the upper class and the lower class cannot work to change places unless they are extremely fortunate. The ladder of society has always existed in this manner, and many authors have chosen to explore what pushing the constraints of a set society will do. In Wuthering Heights, a novel by Emily Brontë, the social constraints of the community in which the characters live, are constantly being pushed as the characters change social classes, through marriage and hard work, and in the treatment of other characters. The actions are often motivated by a superficial impression; many interactions between the characters are based on the influence of social classes, and the changes that shift the characters from one social class to another which Brontë occurs as an overlaying theme in the story. Brontë illustrates the differences in the classes using the literary devices of imagery, symbols, dialogue, and irony. A change in the social class for a certain character leads to a change in the interactions with that character.
Wuthering Heights follows the Romantic Movement, a movement within literature during the late 18th century with captured intense emotion and passion within writing as opposed to rationalisation. Emily Bronte’s main focal point within the novel is the extreme emotion of love and whether it leads to the characters contentment or ultimate calamity. This confliction of love is portrayed mainly through Catherine Earnshaw, a contemptuous, spoiled beauty whose metaphysical love for the protagonist, Heathcliff, will be tested by her disillusion of Edgar Linton and the social and financial benefits he
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (1847) is a much darker depiction on love, nature, and even revenge than the tales by the other two Bronte sisters. A crucial role in the book is played primarily by the landscape throughout the novel, whether it be through the mystery of the moors or how each home represents a specific dichotomy. Areas categorized as elements of nature, civilization, or even the in-between play an integral role in the development of characters, who are also represented in those aspects, within the novel.
The gothic and often disturbing Wuthering Heights is Emily Bronte’s classic novel that contains undeniably powerful writing that created her timeless love story. Andrea Arnold transformed her masterpiece into a cinematic rendition to recreate the wild and passionate story of the deep and destructive love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff.
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
Brontë has a dramatic tone as well as a lyrical style on every page throughout the novel. She writes all words with expression over nature. Brontë’s style changes from each point of view (Nelly and Lockwood).
Vengeance at Wuthering Heights Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, includes character with vengeful motivations during two generations of conflict. The novel exhibits vengeance by Heathcliff towards several people, but his main motives are towards Edgar Linton, who married Catherine Linton, when Heathcliff loved Catherine. Mr. Heathcliff’s evolving vengeance started with Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine’s brother. Edgar Linton despised Heathcliff due to talking harsh to his wife and his daughter. While there are several conflicts in the story, the main conflict is the rivalry between Heathcliff and Edgar Linton.
The gothic novel “Wuthering Heights” narrates the story of love and passion between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw. Love is one of the main themes that the novel basis’s around, and how this opposed passion between the two main characters ultimately demolishes themselves and all that are around them. Here we are shown the extremities of the emotions that are tied up within the characters presented with contrasts in behaviour. These extremities and contrasts can be suggested by the name of the novel itself, as “Wuthering” which defines as blustery and stormy implies that occasionally,
Love is a strong attachment between two lovers and revenge is a strong conflict between two rivals. In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses setting to establish contrast, to intensify conflict, and to develop character. The people and events of Wuthering Heights share a dramatic conflict. Thus, Bronte focuses on the evil eye of Heathcliff's obsessive and perpetual love with Catherine, and his enduring revenge to those who forced him and Catherine apart. The author expresses the conflict of Wuthering Heights with great intensity. Hence, she portrays a combination of crucial issues of romance and money, hate and power, and lastly
In order for the reader to understand the workings of Wuthering Heights, Charlotte Bronte clarified in the preface to her sister Emily’s novel that they had to understand the time and who Emily was. Wuthering Heights is regarded as Emily’s main success and became most popular after her death 1848. The novel basis itself off of many forms of narration, which can in turn become intriguing or confusing. It is agreeable that there are two representative narrators in Wuthering Heights; however, both Nelly Dean and Lockwood give there own opinions of interest to the story, which creates for the audience a highly biased account of the story and its characters.
The novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë contains many theme and one of them is violence. As an example of that, I will use two excerpts of Wuthering Heights, the first one from Chapter 4, “’See here wife! […] though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble” (Brontë, P. 25 – 27), the second one from Chapter 20, “‘Hallo, Nelly!’ cried Mr Hethcliff, when he saw me. […] und what wer gooid enough fur him’s gooid enough fur yah, Aw’s rather think!’“ (Brontë, P. 150 – 152). Both times, the protagonist Heathcliff plays an important role in the presented violence. However, it is a contrasting role in each of the passages. Additional to that, the theme of violence in the two extracts is executed primarily in the form of verbal
Written in 1847 by Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights follows the life of Heathcliff, the family that raised him and those who impacted his life. It is a novel that goes from present day to past events to explain why Heathcliff is the way he is and how the story has formed throughout his life and the lives of those around him. Emily Bronte used imagery and diction to create the physical, verbal, and animalistic violence that was displayed in Wuthering Heights.
In the haunting book Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, love, rejection, and revenge are the main topic points of this composition. Rejection is a very large factor in this book: Catherine rejects Heathcliff because he is poor, to marry Edgar for money, and she ends up rejecting him as well. But all that is on Heathcliff’s mind is Catherine’s rejection of him and the revenge he wants to get on Edgar and Hindley. Throughout the book, Heathcliff’s want for the love of Catherine and his feel of rejection with her get stronger and stronger as well when Catherine’s ghost ignores him. Though rejection is the theme and revenge is a large portion of Wuthering Heights, a main key point is love. The love Catherine has for Heathcliff, the love Catherine has for Edgar’s money, Edgar’s love for Catherine, and Heathcliff’s love for Catherine. Heathcliff’s entire existence is wildly obsessed with Catherine and her ghost after she passes. Although Wuthering Heights does have some lighthearted moments, rejection and a dark love, revenge, and the psychology behind it all are not happy-go-lucky. The characters in this novel all experience rejection, love, and revenge in different ways but Heathcliff and Catherine, whose passion for one another is an over abundance, are the characters who experience the most somber feelings of love and rejection which later cause the need for revenge.
Edgar Linton is a character in the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. From early life to death, he resides at the cultivated Thrushcross Grange with his family. He becomes entangled with the affairs of the Earnshaws and eventually a target of Heathcliff. His spoiled and comfortable childhood allows his cowardice to continue to adulthood, proving him an ineffective character whose passiveness warrants Heathcliff’s vengeance.
Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights display of cultural and physical features of an environment affecting one’s character and moral traits is showcased through the first Catherine’s development throughout the novel. Catherine is forced to “adopt a double character”, as she lives as a rebellious, passionate woman on the turbulent Wuthering Heights, while behaving politely and courtly on the elegant Thrushcross Grange(Bronte, 48). Each of these environments also contains a love interest of Catherine’s, each man parallel with the characteristics of their environments: Heathcliff, the passionate and destructive, residing in Wuthering Heights, while the civilized and gentle Edgar inhabits Thrushcross Grange. Catherine’s development in character due to her setting significantly contributes to the theme that pursuing passionate love is dangerous, such as the love shared by Heathcliff and Catherine.