Wuthering Heights Thesis

Undeniably, there is truth in Rebecca West’s declaration that, “It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.” Indeed, it is common knowledge that people often find themselves buried in misery when they deny themselves their passions. For example, should a person passionate about writing deny himself the opportunity to write, he inevitably would be miserable. His misery would prevent his progressing and thriving as he might otherwise have done. However, one cannot ignore that indulgence in passion can bring destruction. That destruction is evident within in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, whose plot Professor Patricia Spacks describes, “Passion, that ambiguously valued state of feeling,
dictates.” More specifically, the plot is dictated by the story of characters’ passions becoming toxic to their environment and to themselves. This destructive nature of passion is not necessarily a startling revelation, especially since passion is arguably the keystone of humanity and therefore reflects humanity’s imperfections. Charlotte Bronte utilizes ambiguous nature of passion, manifested within the grotesque characters and relationships of those characters, to address human complexity.
Passion first establishes itself within the situation of the narrator, Mr. Lockwood, who has the rather comical tendency to visualize himself as Romantic, brooding man. However, the reality is that he is simply a social man who fears the commitment to his passions. This is clear through his pitiful telling of how he came to Threshold Grange after having “gained the reputation of heartlessness” after having dissuaded a girl of his affections when he began to shrink “icily into myself [himself], like a snail” as an act of cowardice when she began to reciprocate those affections (Brontë 6). Similarly, although he harbored affectionate feelings towards the idea of Cathy, he never acts upon them. In this way, although Lockwood is a more comical figure within the novel, he is one instrument Bronte uses to paint passion as an ambiguous force, because it both gives Lockwood a flare of intrigue within his existence while simultaneously plaguing him, since he cannot bring himself to act. Because of this apparently inevitable inaction, he instead resorts to being a gossip, taking great pleasure in hearing
the story of his neighbor and landlord, Heathcliff. In this way, Lockwood becomes the medium through which Bronte narrates the story. However, because Lockwood has the tendency to “commits [commit] one blunder after another,” the reader is pushed to doubt his understanding of the story for which he plays audience. Yet, he is the lens through which we must see the world of Wuthering Heights; consequently, “Lockwood's initial experience is our own” (Knoepflmacher). Because the reader knows that Lockwood is not a trustworthy narrator, the reader is cast into a world of doubt throughout the novel. Bronte never “tells you what to think, or how to interpret the material which comes filtered through so many people's inset dreams, anecdotes, letters, hieroglyphs, diaries, snatches of song, reminiscences, inscriptions on houses and signposts” (Davies). With this obscure storytelling, Bronte douses the reader with the ambiguous nature of passion. Not only does Lockwood exemplify a grotesque reality of those people who are stuck in inaction despite their passions, but also his narration is used to ladle his feelings of the story t the reader. Essentially, we feel as he feels about the story. Yet, we cannot trust those feelings to be the truth. Thus, Bronte reminds the reader that passion is not necessarily the only reality.
To explicate further upon the obscured story that Lockwood narrates, one must explore the character Catherine Earnshaw, later called Catherine Linton.
As a girl, she is described as a “wild, wick slip” (Brontë 42). In this way, Catherine defies the stereotypes of female subordination and silence. Indeed, she commands a power over all that she knows. In part, such is because of her class, and her beauty. In part, it is because of her boldness and her intellect. Throughout her story, Catherine is constantly delving forth into new experiences and demanding what she wants from the world. As she does so, she finds herself leaving her suitors, whom English Professor Regina Barreca argues “can barely articulate their simplest thoughts” in comparison to Catherine, behind and giving them no option but to constantly strive to match her. Such is evident when she abandons the sole disposition of wildness; she learns to be a lady, and leaves Heathcliff to be degraded with a feral and ignorant nature until he choses to elevate himself because of her. Even then, however, his nature is one so fierce that even she describes him as a “fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.” In this way, despite his eventual social elevation, Heathcliff is left to try to catch up to Catherine. Similarly, this same tendency is evident when one considers Catherine’s tendency, during her marriage with Edgar Linton, to refuse to trace back her steps with regret. On the contrary, she would accept no other course of action
than Linton’s approaching her and meeting her standards. One must concede that Catherine’s command of herself in this way is admirable and arguably feministic. However, one cannot ignore that there is something tyrannical in her nature; she refuses to see wrong. She feels strongly, and she feels thoroughly; she embodies passion, and she is imperfect.