How Does Bronte Use Violence In Wuthering Heights

Bronte’s use of violence forces the reader to understand the strength of feeling in her characters’. Using Wuthering Heights page 118 as your starting point, from ‘She rung the bell till it broke with a twang:’ to the end of the chapter, explore the use and portrayal of violence.

Violence is an essential theme in this novel and is vital to the character’s personalities, that they use it to express their feelings. From reading this section it is evident that Bronte particularly focuses on punctuation, imagery and tenses to create a certain mood. The use of imagery is very apparent from the beginning. Cathy is first introduced as “dashing her head” and “grinding her teeth”. The two present participles, give the reader a sense of immediacy
and the idea of a continuous motion. This is used for the purpose of drama; however, there is some dramatic irony to the situation in the fact that she was dashing her head on a sofa, showing that she has no intention what-so-ever of hurting herself but was doing in to get a reaction- some might even call it attention seeking!
Cathy gets jealous because Isabella likes Heathcliff; she becomes overly animated. This chapter is a great example of Cathy’s character “she rang the bell till it broke like a twang (…)” is a prime example of how impatient and childlike she is. When she doesn’t get what she wants to has a massive tantrum and is melodramatic to the point of even rejecting food. Ellen tries to give her some water “but she would not drink” and she locks herself in her room.
In this section of the chapter we see Cathy’s strength in making people around her act a certain way, for example Linton is compelled by fear at her rage and is described as “shuddering”- another use of present participle-and we see Nelly running around after her getting water to sprinkle over her. She is very calm – described as entering “leisurely”. This goes to show that Nelly was used to these outbursts, having known her since birth. Nonetheless, she snaps at Edgar when he says that she is bleeding and told him how she had dealt with her “exhibition of a fit of frenzy” “previous to his coming”. Her role throughout the book is to bring the two houses: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together, however, we don’t see much of this happening in this chapter.
Edgar is seen as powerless as he clearly has no control over Cathy; in addition, his fear presents him as a feeble character. This is unlike how men were supposed to act; they were supposed to be the rulers of the family and to control their wives. Cathy’s emotions are scattered, reminding the reader of the similarities between Heathcliff and herself and the differences between herself and her husband. A huge contrast between their personalities is that Edgar is seen as weak compared to Cathy. The only sign on assertiveness from Edgar’s side is when warns Isabella if she were to end up with Heathcliff he would “dissolve all bonds of relationship” between the siblings. Cathy’s behaviour is seen as highly inappropriate for a woman in the 1800s -she doesn’t act with proper decorum. Some might even call her behaviour animalistic; especially when she “glared about, for an instant, and rushed from the room”. This brings to mind the idea of a dog or wild animal perhaps. Moreover the imagery of “blood on her lips”, the “flashing eyes”, the stiffness and “aspect of death” gives the reader an imagery of a vampire. This then makes the reader recall of when Nelly suspected Heathcliff of being a vampire. There are other similarities between Cathy and Heathcliff’s behaviour for example the dog-like behaviour, particularly, on Cathy’s death bed. Heathcliff is said to have “foamed like a mad dog” – an expression of his grief. Catherine’s last encounter with Heathcliff on her deathbed reveals a frenzy of wild and raw passion in a violent, animalistic excess of passion.
Violence is first introduced in the book in the very first chapter.
Lockwood gets a bad introduction to Wuthering Heights when Gnasher –Heathcliff’s dog- attacks him. Heathcliff himself doesn’t get a great introduction to Wuthering Heights, firstly Cathy spat in his face and Hindley constantly hit him and insulted him calling him a “vagabond” and a “gypsy” on several occasions. A prime example of violence upon Heathcliff is in chapter four Heathcliff threatens to tell on Hindley for hitting him -“if I speak of these blows, you will get them again with interest”-so Hindley hits him again. It almost seems as if Heathcliff wants Hindley to hit him so that he has something to hold over him. This is a great example of rising action as this harassment leads to his craving for revenge for the rest of the novel. As with relationships in Wuthering Heights violence and desire go hand in hand. Cathy hits Edgar in chapter eight but he is so besotted with her that he ignores the incident thus refusing to heed the warnings of her troubled behaviour and instead he proposes to her. His desire makes him similar to Heathcliff who has a masochistic attraction to drama – which is the reason he married Isabella to cause friction between the two Lintons and to make Cathy jealous of
course.
The second volume of the novel concentrates on the youngest generations of Lintons, Earnshaws and Heathcliffs. The images of violence and brutality are not as visible as with the elder Catherine, Hindley and Heathcliff. They are, however, just as disturbing. Heathcliff continues to inflict suffering upon others: Hareton, Linton, young Cathy and Edgar. Cathy torments Hareton by establishing superiority over him via books and reading. Cathy can be seen as a driving force for Hareton’s want to be better educated. Cathy shows Heathcliff that she has more power and influence in Hareton than he did. The difference between violence in the first half and this is that it is not in a negative nature, but instead in a positive light of love. Even though Cathy humiliated and mocked Hareton for being illiterate, this hatred turned to be love. Cathy didn’t let herself be restricted by society like her mother did, she ended up with Hareton by following her heart not her head or what the society thought was the norm.