Wuthering Heights And Frankenstein Analysis

Heathcliff and the creature: two outcast of the same kind

Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein are two novels with more in common with each other than it can be seen at first glance. Written during the Victorian Era by female authors, they were rather scandalous for the time they were first published. Wuthering Heights’ passionate and egoistical characters shocked the society of the time: such abusive characters and improper female lead had never been seen before. Frankenstein’s dark themes and the probability, in that time, of something similar happening were unsettling for the Victorian Society. Both gothic novels were first published either anonymously or under a pseudonym, and harshly criticized when it was revealed the sex of the authors.
Since both of them are motherless and fatherless, they lack of any past or any sense of identity. On one hand, Heathcliff, as Nelly recalls, was picked up in Liverpool: “(…) a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool; where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home at once (…)”. As we could see in the extract, he was no better than an object or an abandoned pup. Heathcliff has no past, and Hindley calls him a vagabond, and, once Mr. Earnshaw is death, forbids Catherine to play with him. Thus, Heathcliff grew up being an isolated child, with no identity and who received little kindness. On the other hand, the creature was created by Victor, who abandoned him immediately after being brought to life. The reality of the creature is even worse than the one of Heathcliff since he cannot even consider himself a human being: "And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as man." Aware of himself, the creature knows what he is, and he learns that he cannot wish for human connection, thus he asks his creator for a
Being isolated from the very beginning of their existence prevented them from developing a sense of belonging to any place in society. Moreover, due to their inherent nature they do not fit in society. For that reason, they are mistreated. Heathcliff, being an orphan and a gypsy who dresses like a gentleman and behaves like one, has no equal who he can identify with. Being rejected by everyone, he doesn’t belong to the white upper class neither to the lower classes. The creature is aware of himself and he knows what he is. Alone is all what he knows and he cannot wish to make connections because of his appearance and his unnatural life. They are both isolated by their own