On the narrator Lockwood’s second visit to the dreary and cryptic Wuthering Heights, he is faced with the nonattendance of his landlord, Heathcliff, at his manor. While returning in dismay to his residency at the Grange, “two hairy monsters flew at [his] throat,” attacking him while the returning Heathcliff cynically laughs in amusement…
There are many aspects of setting displayed throughout the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. One of these many aspects, is that of the struggles women faced in Mid-19th Century England. During this time period, women were pushed into very gender-specific roles. Their jobs were to service their husbands, while doing the typical housewife chores of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. There was no equality for women, and they suffered through many hardships simply for being born a woman instead of a man.…
The violent love of Heathcliff and Catherine reflects how extremes of emotion can heavily affect both of these character’s behaviours. This is because Catherine faces a battle against her body or nature in going with Heathcliff particularly when ‘Skulker has bitten her’ suggesting that at their union, only violence will ever come from it and the natural order is in disarray. The symbolism of the dog ‘Skulker’ is also important because the ‘Skull’ symbolises the hard durable part of the body, and that much like the skull, they will have to endure a hard struggle in order for their love to survive. Conversely, it could also suggest that Catherine is going against her brain in loving Heathcliff, and in doing so goes against social norms, which for her is normality. Moreover, Heathcliff’s name can be deconstructed into ‘Heath’ and ‘cliff’ both symbolising nature and the ‘cliff’ in particular represent a barrier to the destructive power of…
Wuthering Heights was written in 1847; therefore it is accused of being uninteresting and hard to read, due to outdated language. The writing in Wuthering Heights is very beautiful. Modern writing lacks the poetic ring and flow of words that Emily Bronte is able to capture in the novel Wuthering Heights. In a beginning passage, Lockwood describes Heathcliff: “He is a dark-skinned gypsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose.” The description expresses puzzlement over Heathcliff as a character, with him being dark, untidy, and unhappy, while still being well dressed, well mannered, and somewhat tall and handsome. The sentence structure itself suggests Lockwood’s confusion in his appraisal of Heathcliff; it is an example of the artful language and vocabulary in Wuthering Heights. The first time I read this book, I sat down with a dictionary so I could look up every word I don’t know. After several pages of written definitions, it became clear all my word hunting was distracting from the story. I decided instead to rely on context clues, which expanded vocabulary and understanding. Learning is exciting and satisfying; learning is in itself a purpose to…
In 1801, Mr. Lockwood became a tenant at Thrushcross Grange, an old farm owned by a Mr. Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights. In the early days of his tenancy, he made two calls on his landlord. On his first visit, he met Heathcliff, an abrupt, unsocial man who was surrounded by a pack of snarling, barking dogs. When he went to Wuthering Heights a second time, he met the other members of the strange household: a rude, unkempt but handsome young man named Hareton Earnshaw and a pretty young woman who was the widow of Heathcliff 's…
When reading literature from different cultures around the world, most readers become familiar with certain aspects of each region's folklore. Every tribe or nation has heroes and villains, mythical or historical, which figure into its everyday conversation. As powerful as heroic men and women may be, often the more potent characters are the mysterious ones: the ghosts, the vampires, the banshees. These beasts are the visions dreamed in darkness, when people are less sensible of their surroundings and more emotionally anxious; they have a more supernatural feel about them. Charlotte Bronte plays off of these disturbing superstitions in her novel Jane Eyre. She creates a system so that each supernatural episode has certain elements and manifestations. These manifestations are interesting to observe, but Bronte uses them as much to emphasize the importance of events that do not follow the rules as to set the scene for the incidents that do. All of these episodes surround Jane Eyre, and each has some affect on her, influencing her either psychologically or in her decisions.…
In ‘The Bloody Chamber’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’, Carter and Bronte conform to the gothic conventions with desolate and alienating settings that are full of menace, but there are also elements that subvert this view and portray purity and entrapment; the need to escape the gothic mould.…
Wuthering Heights representing the storm, lodges fierce people. Wuthering Heights is a "perfect misanthropist's heaven" (p. 4). The best example is Heathcliff. He spends most of his life seeking revenge by ruining other people lives. Isabel asks "Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he the devil?"(p. 137). He is one of the causes of the death of Catherine, Hindley, Isabella and Linton. He is…
Emily Bronte incorporates various types of grief into her writing in Wuthering Heights. This may be due to the conditions of many of her own experiences, or it may not, we cannot know. Regardless, the grief that is exhibited by the many different characters, differs for various reasons. The intense feelings of grief demonstrated in Wuthering Heights are most often insinuated by death. The ways in which characters relate to one another vary greatly, and also play a great role in determining the intensity of the sorrow felt by a character. Also, one's personality and capabilities can affect how he/she may feel about another's death. All of these are connected to the conditions in which a character was brought up and how he/she was living at the time of the tragedy, which also bears a large impact on the feelings of grief displayed.…
In gothic literature, love can be presented as a transgressive emotion – one which crosses the boundaries of life itself, as exhibited in Wuthering Heights. There are however different interpretations of the presentation of love within this novel, whether it be love as an emotion provoking violence or love as an emotion which provokes tenderness. Although both presentations of love are arguably illustrated in Wuthering Heights, it may be fair to argue that Bronte portrays love more as an emotion which provokes tenderness rather than violence.…
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…
In all, this last section develops Heathcliff’s characterization from a misunderstood soul to a selfish and repulsive villain who Edwin P. Whipple’s accurate description portrays with a high degree of effectiveness and relevance to the novel's plot development. I agree with Edwin P. Whipple because Heathcliff’s character undergoes a drastic personality change, prompted by the death of his beloved Catherine. Following this he delves deeper into the worst of his personality and takes revenge not only on the people who wronged him but the people who he believed wronged Catherine. This leads to his ‘brute-demon’ personality, and disintegrates our wavering sympathy for his circumstances. Currently, in class, we’re reading Hamlet, one of Shakespeare’s…
In this passage of Wuthering Heights, two very important characters in the novel are reunited, but this time, unexpected things occurred. Everyone in the house believed everything would be the same as it was before, but little did they know that they were about to meet a transformed Catherine. In the passage, the meeting of Catherine and Heathcliff is much anticipated, as if a history among both characters existed.…
Wuthering Heights was written by Emile Bronte, one of the Bronte sisters. The author finished this novel in 1847. After that, Emily died soon in 1848 at the age of thirty. In the nineteenth century Wuthering Heights becomes as classical novel. The readers who were read this novel were shocked by the Violence. In this paper, I will discuss the theme of the violence in chapter seventeen of this classic novel.…
Heathcliff, the main character in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, has no heart. He is evil to the core - so savage that his lone purpose is to ruin others. Yet at the very moment at which the reader would be expected to feel the most antipathy towards the brute -after he has destroyed his wife, after he has degraded the life of a potentially great man, and after he has watched the death of his son occur with no care nor concern, the reader finds himself feeling strangely sympathetic towards this character. The answer to this oddity lies in the presentation of the character himself, which causes us to be more pitying of him than we otherwise might.…