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Heathcliff - Hero or Villain

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Heathcliff - Hero or Villain
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Emily Bronte also convey’s aspects of the class system within Victorian society through the use of imagery. Bronte depicts two English households which both resemble slightly different classes but for which could not be further apart. The heights is described as “narrow windows being deeply set in the wall” and then Thrushcross Grange as “the large, half curtain windows allowing the sun to come in from the outside” - these two pictures painted by Bronte show the contrast between the two households. Thrushcross Grange is a place of pure sophistication, calmness and complete comfort and relaxation and the Heights is seen as a place of violence, despair and complete and utter chaos. Because the Grange’s occupants are of a higher class then of that of the Heights, Bronte suggests that higher classes lived in far more comfort and peace then the lower classes; this further suggesting that the idea of equal opportunities (especially that related to education) was complete rubbish and a false portrayal of what Victorian society actually was. The fact that the occupants of the Height’s are of a lower social standing and the connotations related to them are of that of dirt, hard work and chaos suggests that the Lower classes compared to the higher classes were less comfortable and found it much harder to succeed within a completely class ridden society. The fact that the two households are virtually parallel to each other further suggests that poverty and wealth lived so close beside one another, but the wealthy were reluctant (either out of ignorance or pure selfishness) to act and demand change, because it would have not been beneficial to them. This further suggests that the wealthy victorians who saw themselves as being religious, good human beings were actually people who lived off the fear and vulnerability of the poor and therefore were everything they so claimed to despise.

When Catherine returns from the Grange she has this sense or

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