Amanda Aurigemma
Gill 5th Hour
AP Literature
24 February 2017
Nature’s Truth in Wuthering Heights The metaphors drawn from nature in Wuthering Heights drive the plot primarily through characterization. Rarely does the story venture outside, containing almost exclusively scenes leading up to a character’s departure and the response to his/her journey. The absence of tangible nature in a book so driven by its symbolism seems peculiar at first. Why does the author not provide the reader any detail of Heathcliff’s struggle against the storm after he departs in heartbreak? By narrating the storm in terms of how it is observed from inside, the reader loses the expected description of the storm’s intensity. Even Catherine’s diary, the most
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Heathcliff personifies nature combating the human attempt to confine it in his stark contrast to the civilized Lintons. Unlike any other character in the novel, Heathcliff remains authentic to nature and does not try to fully domesticate its furious beauty. Where most people are more prone to suppress their natural inclinations in favor of culture, Heathcliff is willing to defy societal standards, even if the results are destructive. His revenge is not rooted in the evils of man, but rather cataclysmic nature as driven by psychology. As Abraham Maslow argues in his “A Theory of Motivation,” any danger to our basic needs or the defenses that protect them impose a psychological threat, bringing about emergency reactions that could potentially be destructive. Heathcliff 's experiences align with the deprivation of these “basic needs,” and his revenge can therefore be seen as an entirely natural inclination. The five basic needs in order of primacy are physiological needs, safety needs, love/belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. The most pressing need will overtake and individual’s consciousness and organize their capacities. The less pressing needs are minimized, even forgotten or denied. However, when a need is satisfied, the next higher need emerges (Maslow -- find citation). In order to most effectively analyze Heathcliff’s revenge, it is important to study this hierarchy of needs in ascending order in relation to their
Wuthering Heights is a novel whose main character is said to have a double significance. He is said to be both the dispossessed and the dispossessor, victim of class hatred and arch – exploiter, he simultaneously occupies the roles of working class outsider and brutal capitalist. Heathcliff has all these characteristics because of his experiences. He is a character moulded by his past.
2. “Wuthering” is descriptive of the atmospheric tumult of the novel in that it describes the violent winds that blow during storms on the moors. Wuthering Heights is removed from society. The adjective not only describes the setting itself, but the inhabitants as well, who are fierce, strong, and fervent.
One big turning point marked by stormy weather in the book is the day Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights for the first time. After hearing Catherine say that she could never marry him, Heathcliff’s heart is broken and he creeps out of the house. When Catherine realizes his absence, she gets extremely agitated, pacing from the gate to the door of the house and wondering where he could be.
Brontë shows how cruelty passes through generations through Hindley’s mistreatment towards Heathcliff. From the moment Mr. Earnshaw adopts Heathcliff, Hindley enters a state of melancholy and loathes that his father clearly favors Heathcliff over him. Mr. Earnshaw’s adoption of Heathcliff upsets Hindley, his father clearly favors Heathcliff over him. Consequently, Hindley reciprocates this hatred when he meets Heathcliff, comparing him to satan and wishing for his death. Heathcliff, unable to act against these cruel words, silently absorbs them. This interaction reveals traits of each character: the maliciousness of Hindley’s character, who hates on the young Heathcliff without reason; and the timidity of Heathcliff, fostered by his inability to stand up for himself. Although timid at the moment, Heathcliff assimilates this cruelty so that he can inflict it upon others, just as Hindley does the same to him. This depicts how the victim of suffering develops into the bearer of cruelty. Soon after Mr. Earnshaw’s death, Hindley assumes control of his household and unleashes even more cruelty on Heathcliff. In a fit of
In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Heathcliff’s strong love for Catherine guides his transformation as a character. While Heathcliff enters the story as an innocent child, the abuse he receives at a young age and his heartbreak at Catherine’s choice to marry Edgar Linton bring about a change within him. Heathcliff’s adulthood is consequently marked by jealousy and greed due to his separation from Catherine, along with manipulation and a deep desire to seek revenge on Edgar. Although Heathcliff uses deceit and manipulation to his advantage throughout the novel, he is never entirely content in his current situation. As Heathcliff attempts to revenge Edgar Linton, he does not gain true fulfillment. Throughout Wuthering Heights, Brontë uses Heathcliff’s vengeful actions to convey the message that manipulative and revenge-seeking behaviors will not bring a person satisfaction.
Sir Walter Raleigh was said to have been born into a gentry family “at Hayes Barton in Devon in around 1552”(BBC Walter Raleigh). In 1578 he sailed to to America with his explorer half brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert. The first “English colony in America on Roanoke Island (now North Carolina)”(BBC Walter Raleigh), was sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1585. This was the first of 2 failed attempts to colonize the second being in 1587. He is credited with bringing “potatoes and tobacco back to Britain” (BBC Walter Raleigh). He is also known for going to Ireland to help in the suppression of an uprising (in Munster). This action is what first brought him to the attention of the Queen (Elizabeth 1). He soon gained her favoritism and was knighted
Through self-centered and narcissistic characters, Emily Bronte’s classic novel, “Wuthering Heights” illustrates a deliberate and poetic understanding of what greed is. Encouraged by love, fear, and revenge, Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and Linton Heathcliff all commit a sin called selfishness.
When Heathcliff returns three years later, his love for Catherine motivates him to enact revenge upon all those who separated him from her. Since he last saw Catherine, he has “fought through a bitter life”; he “struggled only for [her]” (Brontë 71). Nelly observes a “half-civilized ferocity” in Heathcliff’s brows (Brontë 70); she views him as “an evil beast…waiting his time to spring and destroy” (Brontë 79). Heathcliff’s obsessive love for Catherine becomes a menacing threat. Heathcliff reproaches Catherine because she “treated [him]
When Heathcliff ran off, Bronte describes that evening as “a very dark evening for summer: the clouds appear[ing] inclined to thunder” (Bronte, 84). The impending thunderstorm introduces that chaos that is about to ensue when Heathcliff cannot be found that evening. The storm finally arrives and all hell is about to break loose. The “violent wind, as well as thunder,…split a tree off” of a building just as Catherine was getting more and more anxious about her split from Heathcliff (Bronte, 85). The symbolism that weather represents in Wuthering Heights carries on throughout the first volume of the
In Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë crafts a harrowing death for Catherine as well as a funeral scene that serves to communicate her true love; all things natural. Heathcliff is frequently described as an extension of nature throughout the novel due to his strength, impulsivity, and the manner in which he confronts his problems. By handling his issues directly and forcefully, Heathcliff is a force to be reckoned with, just like nature itself. However, on the day of Catherine’s funeral, he handles his emotions passively like the civilized families. Heathcliff suppresses his nature with the aid of alcohol, “[swallowing] gin…by the tumblerfuls,” a stark contrast to many of his past decisions where he adamantly refuted to succumb to societal normalcies, content with his rough demeanor (Brontë 169).
This later Heathcliff is characterized by a coldness, by an incapacity to love and ultimately by consuming passion for revenge against those who have abused him. Just as he begins life, he ends life as an unloved, lonely outsider.
As soon as Hindley’s father dies, Heathcliff is taught the true meaning of hate by Hindley. As Heathcliff ages, his hate for Hindley grows inside of him, along with a need for revenge. Heathcliff’s need for revenge allows him to formulate his diabolical plan for taking over both the Grange and the Heights, upon return from his three year sojourn. Heathcliff’s ability to gamble the Heights away from Hindley foreshadows the unyielding power of Heithcliff’s hate when fueled by revenge. Thus establishing hate as the source of Heathcliff’s revenge.
The novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847) by Emily Brontë and the film adaptation ‘Wuthering Heights’ (2011) by Andrea Arnold each convey respective values and perspectives reflective of the contrasting contexts and forms of each text. The novel, set in the Romantic period, is centred around two families living on the isolated, Yorkshire moors, and the explosive interactions between them. The concept of confinement contrasts against the freedom of nature throughout the novel. Nature is another key theme and a fundamental aspect of the Romantic period, used to present ideas such as rebellion and freedom. Finally, passion within human relationships is thoroughly explored through Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship within the novel. However, as the film adaptation is a product of a contemporary post-feminist, post-colonial time period, these themes can now be explored through lenses such as racial discrimination, feminism, and human connection.
Unlike Lord Byron, Emily Brontë hasn’t met an overnight success after publishing her only novel, Wuthering Heights. As a matter of fact, in the beginning, it was said to be “excessively morbid and violent” (138). It wasn’t until later that Ward was “praising Emily's masterly fusion of romance and realism” (138). Although Wuthering Heights was Emily Brontë’s only novel, it allowed her not to be forgotten even after so many years. The novel was written during the Romanticism, a time mostly concerned with the conflict between nature and society, usually about how society corrupts the nature. Heathcliff most certainly is a representative of nature rather than society, even his name is connected to nature. Heathcliff could be considered a savage, as he wasn’t touched by