Wuthering Heights

1. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë

2. The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli, 1781

3. Wuthering Heights, August Holland, 1960-69

5. Man Writing a Letter, Gabriel Metsu, 1664-66

7. Background • Published in 1847, Victorian readers found it difficult to accept the violent characters and harsh realities of Wuthering Heights. • One critic wrote in 1848 that there was nothing else like it that presented ‘such shocking pictures of the worst forms of humanity.’ • Published initially under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, the audience also found it impossible to accept that it could’ve been written by a woman. • Although a reflection of the society of the time, it endures primarily because readers can relate to the central relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff.

8. Poetry masquerading as prose? • Two ordered pairs, two households, two generations, two pairs of children • Some critics dismiss the second-generation characters as simply being a re-telling of the first story, yet in doing so they are dismissing the second half of the book. • Second half is equal in length and arguably is not a re-telling at all, but a purposeful revision; a form of renewal and rebirth.

9. Contrasts and pairing • Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange • Male and female ‘siblings’; through each other, they recognise what the other is not or perhaps even, define themselves by it. • Frame narrative is paired between Lockwood and Nelly. Within this, chapters are narrated by the other characters, via Nelly. Instead of the author/reader presiding over the action, we are almost eavesdropping throughout. • The moors both link and separate the two households.

10. Interdependent divisions... • Good versus evil • Crime and punishment • Passion versus rationality • Selfishness, division and reconciliation • Chaos and order • Nature and culture • Health and sickness • Rebellion and conformity • The conflicting nature of love: it can destroy and rebuild.

11. Social novel about class structure? • Class mobility is fluid. • Social class plays a large part in Catherine’s choice of marriage to Edgar Linton; it is perhaps her undoing. • For Isabella Linton, the opposite is arguably true; she is drawn to Heathcliff’s wild mystery in spite of his lower social standing. • Revenge for Heathcliff equals domination and acting ‘Master’ as he ends up owning Thrushcross and Wuthering Heights.

12. Feminist novel? • Not so easily placed as Jane Eyre with its forward heroine and the implications of the mad woman in the attic as being symptomatic of female oppression of desire. • Emily Bronte herself was known as difficult and temperamental individual and her female characters are full of intensity and violent passion; arguably a ‘male’ view of female desire. • However, the depiction of Cathy’s desire and the polarised gender differences in the novel continue to fascinate Feminist critics. • Gilbert and Gubar’s major work ‘The Madwoman in the Attic’, picks upon Cathy’s lack of identity and the fact that she is the victim of a patriarchal society; she must punish herself to gain power. • Nelly as the female narrator shapes our perceptions.

13. Gothic novel? • The Gothic novel derives its name from the Gothic architectural style popular in Europe between the 12th and 16th centuries. Gothic structures were suggestive of a supernatural presence. • Exhibits many characteristics of the Gothic novel, which focuses on dark and mysterious events; particularly with the arrival of Heathcliff early on the story, the violent weather and exposed landscape. • Novel is not overtly Gothic though as it has a grounding in reality and some sense of credibility. Arguably it evolves into its temperamental opposite; a parable of innocence and loss, and childhood's necessary defeat.