Examine the Gothic Elements in the Novel Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses the setting of the English Moors, a setting she is familiar with, to place two manors, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The first symbolizes man's dark side while the latter symbolizes an artificial utopia. This 19th century setting allows the reader to see the destructive nature of love when one loves the wrong person.

Gothic literature has an incredibly vast and important history. It is based off of gothic architecture and became a genre in literature in the late 1700s. This genre was created by the rejection of predictability and this sent writers to the “murky past”, The Middle Ages, to write about (Snodgrass). Overall, this time period provided substantial inspiration for gothic literature because it was highly contrasting with its prominent improvements and horrible crimes. Later on, in the 18th century, gothic literature evolved from being about the Middle Ages to current problems with contemporary culture and social problems of the specific time era. Each time period and each different place in the world had different subjects that gothic literature

In the 1800s gothic literature made its waves across England with many authors popping up including Edgar Allan Poe, Ann Radcliffe, Emily Brontë, and Mary Shelley. These authors wrote books like The Raven, Wuthering Heights, and Frankenstein. Authors of gothic novels typically included characteristics with their stories and that happens to include extreme landscapes, supernatural manifestations, ruined buildings, horrifying events, and a passion-driven villain-hero, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, these characteristics persist in the story.

Gothic is termed in the dictionary with crude and barbaric, this definition coincides with gothic literature. Gothic literature was said to be born in 1764 when Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto, which is considered to be the first gothic novel ever written. Gothic literature explores the aggression between what we fear and what we lust. The setting of these gothic stories were usually in some kind of castle or old building that showed human decay and created an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. The words chosen in these novels and short stories were very descriptive they tended to "blend the idea of the exotic and the familiar" (The Balkans, 75).Supernatural and

Brontë has a dramatic tone as well as a lyrical style on every page throughout the novel. She writes all words with expression over nature. Brontë’s style changes from each point of view (Nelly and Lockwood).

Emily Bronte, one of six children from Yorkshire, England, wrote the critically acclaimed Wuthering Heights, a romance novel of social relevance with qualities of romanticism and gothicism to form the destructive journey of love. Brontë utilizes the setting of the English Moors, a setting she is familiar with, to place two manors Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange to mirror the mood of characters, their action, and the atmosphere of conflicts. The moors provide a place for Brontë to isolate and magnify the characters as a small community, then she uses the manor to explain each character individually. The 19th century setting allows the reader to view the destructive nature of love when one loves the wrong person. The Wuthering Heights

We understand Gothic literature as a combination of horror and romanticism. Having said that, it was in the hands of Edgar Allan Poe when gothic began its association with horror. However, Goth was originally defined “in the terms of Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary of 1775, as ‘one not civilized, one deficient in general knowledge, a barbarian,” which is due to its medieval background as “invaders and destroyers of the great Roman civilization.” Appropriate, considering how it unsettles the Victorian psyche. Gothic and Victorians go hand in hand, despite the first gothic text, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was published in 1764. Not to mention, its relationship with the supernatural world. Authors such as Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens and Ann Radcliffe made this genre

Knowledge is not only power, but also, the ability to distinguish one person from the rest of the people. Emily Brontë, author of Wuthering Heights, was a copy of her siblings and therefore used her extreme passion for learning and teaching to set herself apart from her siblings. In the novel, Wuthering Heights, Brontë creates many similar characters but differentiate between them solely on their mental capacity. Growing up in a household of writers and artists, Emily Brontë felt like a copy of her siblings and therefore used Gnosticism as a way to separate herself from her siblings; this is evident in the tension between closely related characters in Wuthering Heights.

I848, at the age of only 30, the sensational recognised Wuthering Heights made a monumental dramatic entrance for her career. She was a greedy woman, greedy for strong passionate words that will zap electrical shocks of emotion, irony and fear through your body. Words which both you and I cannot ever put together as she did, her name, Emily Brontë.

In Emily Brontё’s Wuthering Heights gothic elements such as recurring deaths, and the ruins of Wuthering Heights work together to further the plot and support the theme, nature vs. nurture.

man who can show no love "not kept for a pet" you also end up loving

Emily Bronte, a highly esteemed and imaginative writer, is the mastermind behind the novel Wuthering Heights. When Bronte was very young, her mother passed away from a serious, untreatable sickness. After her death, Branwell, Bronte’s older brother, took care of the children (Pettingell). Her brother, a poet and painter, turned to an alcoholic and drug abuser was responsible for the children as they all grew up together. He was irrational and never treated Emily and her sisters the way they deserved (King). The turmoil inside of the Bronte family led to a lot of chaos and misfortune. The decisions that her brother had to make caused a direct impact on Bronte and her sisters because he was their caretaker.

Romantic philosophers proposed that every person or entity had its own individual universe that only the person or entity itself could observe. This Romantic self was desperate to connect to others and yearned for love, a mutual connection between two understanding parties that could allow the lonely self to access a universe outside of its own. If the longing to love and connect with this other person was a legitimate desire from the person’s true energy, then Romantic philosopher William Blake would say that it was pure and correct and must be followed. Tragically, many people fail to understand their energies and chase after what they think they want but what will bring no real joy to them. To truly love and connect to another, one must

Wuthering Heights embodies the idea of a classical Romantic novel.   Written at a time when the novel was just becoming a popular form of entertainment/writing Wuthering Heights employs many of the typical elements of the Romantic writers.  There are elements of innovative experimentation in subject, form, and style, a mixing of genre's, use of powerful emotions, and several traits that could also classify Wuthering Heights as a "Dark" Romantic piece.  The "Dark" Romanticism is revealed within the strange/ non-normative story, super-natural elements, and the Gothic setting.

The Romantic Movement lasted from the second half of the eighteenth century to the first half of the nineteenth century. The Romantic Era has a great effect on people in all aspects, such as art, literature, and music. Romanticism began in Germany and France, and after that it spread through Europe, and finally America. However, romanticism is not about love and romance, it is about all the emotions and feelings a person feels throughout his or her whole life. People used it as a way of escapism from their tough lives. There are many authors of the Romantic Era and one of them is Emily Brontë; her greatest and well-known work is Wuthering Heights. The novel demonstrates characteristics of the Romantic Era and this important literary movement has affected the novel.