WUTHERING HEIGHTS

1. WUTHERING HEIGHTS TRUSHCROSS GRANGE

2. Key events Part One: First generation • The foundling Heathcliff is brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw. • Oppression and exploitation of Heathcliff by Hindley, Mr Earnshaw’s son. • Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff become twin souls. • Cathy Earnshaw’s transformation from ‘savage’ to ‘proper lady’ during her stay at Thrushcross Grange. The bill for the 1992 film version

3. One night Heathcliff overhears Cathy speaking to Nelly…. “ It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now…….so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

4. “ My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.—”

5. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.

7. Other important key points: • Heathcliff’s departure • Cathy’s betrayal of her ‘soul mate’ Heathcliff. • Cathy’s marriage to Edgar Linton. • Heathcliff’s return as a ‘gentleman’ intent on revenge after two years. • property gained by marriage to Isabella Linton • Cathy’s insanity and illness

8. She dies giving birth to a daughter: Cathy

9. Part Two: Second generation • Degradation of Hareton, Hindley’s • and Francis’s son.. • Marriage Cathy and Linton • BUT……The love story between • Cathy and Heathcliff is repeated • by Hareton and Cathy • but in a less passionate and morally acceptable way • Their relationship starts when Cathy teaches Hareton to read • This is an attempt to reconcile the passionate world of Wuthering Heights with the ordered world of Thrushcross Grange

10. Heathcliff loses interest in revenge. • Heathcliff and Cathy together in death roaming the moors • Marriage of Cathy II and Hareton: property restored to rightful owner

11. Narrative structure Non-linear narrative structure Use of flashback Binary structure Elicits curiosity in the reader Invites comparison between the two stories Implies anactive reader where the Brontë family lived in Haworth

12. Narrative point of view • Two frame narrators: Lockwood (as external narrator) and Nelly Dean (as internal narrator). • Chinese box structure: stories within stories. • Two interpreters; two auditors (readerandLockwood closely identified). Lockwood’s dream in an etching by Rosalind Whitman

13. Narrative point of view Nelly Dean’s perspective • Conventional  based on morality, religion and superstition. • She thinks Cathy is “wayward”, “ill-tempered”. • “I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance”(Part I, Ch. VIII). • “She was too much fond of Heathcliff” (Part I Ch. V).

14. Narrative point of view Lockwood’s perspective • The voice of conventional society. • An unreliable narrator because he does not know all the details of the story.

15. Narrative point of view Implications of the multiple narrators • ‘Otherness’ preserved. • Multiple interpretations: no single ‘truth’. • Unique Interpretation becomes impossible  modern aspect of the novel.

16. Main characters Catherine • Wild,difficult, rebellious, • spirited&‘unfeminine’. • “her spirits were always at high water-mark, her • tongue always going... A wild, wick slip she • was but she had the bonniest eye, and sweetest • smile in the parish” (Part I, Ch. V) • “heaven did not seem to be my home” (Part I, Ch. IX) Charlotte Riley as Catherine and Tom Hardy as Heathcliff in Coky Giedroyc’s 2009 film version

17. Main characters Heathcliff • Unknown origins, absence of social connection • Persistent ambiguity: man or beast?. • Deteriorates into brute state. • Violent and extremelanguage. • A Byronic hero. Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version

18. Heathcliff / Catherine relationship • Vitality, authenticity, freedom. • Rejection of class values. • Heathcliff and Cathy symbolise the instinctual, unconscious forces. • Contrasted with ‘civilised’ characters: Edgar, Lockwood, Nelly Dean. Robert Brook, Heathcliff and Cathy, from the novel Wuthering Heights, 20th century, Private Collection.

19. There is no place for such dangerous, irrational passion in a civilised society and they both die as outsiders. “They may bury me twelve feet deep and throw the church down over me; but I won’t rest till you are with me… I never will!” (Part I, Ch. XII) “If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger….Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” (Part I, Ch. IX)

20. They are bound together by destructive passions they can’t control • « Il mio amore per Linton è come il fogliame nei boschi: il tempo lo cambierà, ne sono consapevole, come l'inverno cambia gli alberi. Il mio amore per Heathcliff somiglia alle rocce eterne che stanno sotto quegli alberi: una fonte di piacere ben poco visibile, ma necessaria. Nelly, io sono Heathcliff! » • « In ogni nuvola, in ogni albero, nell'aria della notte e nell'aspetto di ogni oggetto durante il giorno, io sono circondato dalla sua immagine! I più comuni visi di donna o uomo, i miei stessi lineamenti, si fanno gioco di me con il loro ricordarla. Il mondo intero è per me una terribile collezione di cimeli che mi ricordano che lei è esistita e che io l'ho persa! » (Heathcliff )

21. SETTING • The setting is almost as important as the characters themselves. • The violent emotional relationships at the centre of the Novel are ideally suited to the dark , hostile landscape of the Yorkshire moors.

22. The Moors as symbol The Moors represent the Romantic rejection of society and the desire to transcend its rules Attempttoescape English Moors English Moors

23. The Moors as symbol Cathy tries to reconcile self & class society through her marriage to Edgar and her relationship with Heathcliff Escapeisimpossible English Moors Heath + cliff

24. Gothic elements • Heathcliff as a Gothic villain in his inhuman treatment of his wife and his son. • The sinister atmosphere of Wuthering Heights surrounded by the wilderness. • Catherine’s ghost.

25. Gothic elements • The dreams and superstitions often mentioned. These are not used to frighten the reader, but to convey the struggle between the two opposed principles of love and hate, of orderand chaos.

26. The home of the Earnshaws the Romantic world of destructive passions and intense feelings Firmly rooted in local tradition and custom. Severe, gloomy atmosphere. The background for the life of primitive passion led by its owner. The home of the Lintons. Reflects a Victorian conception of life. Symbolises stability,kindness and respectability. Opposite principles Wuthering Heights Thrushcross Grange principle of storm and energy principle of calm

27. Blake’s influences • The idea of “ Divine energy” and the “ unity of contraries”, the “ complementary opposites” • The union of Cathy and Heathcliff is both possible and necessary. They are like two halves, male and female, that have to be united • Cathy at the same time negates and affirms her identity by saying “ I am Heathcliff “

28. A FREUDIAN INTERPRETATION • the most primitive drives: sex • seeks pleasure • not affected by time and remains in the unconscious Heathcliff ES • relates to other people and society • tests the impulses of the ES against reality • controls the ES until there is a reasonable chance of its urges being fulfilled Cathy EGO • represents the rules of proper behavior and morality inculcated by teachers, family, and society • he is civilized and cultured • As conscience, he compels Catherine to choose between Heathcliff and himself. SUPER EGO Edgar

29. In Freud's analysis, • The ego must be male to deal successfully with the world; to survive, a female ego would have to live through males. • She expects Edgar to accept Heathcliff in their household and to raise him from his degraded state; this would result in the integration of the disparate parts of her personality – es, ego, and superego– into one unified personality. • Confronted by the hopelessness of psychological integration and agonized by her fragmentation, she dies. • The second Cathy has assimilated and consolidated the es /Heathcliff and the superego/Edgar through marriages with Hareton and Linton.