Feminist' Ideas in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights"

Novels are often taken by the reader at face value, and are never looked into on a deeper level. It is important to search for more than what is seen in a literary work. Wuthering Heights is a great example of a book with its own hidden secrets that can surface with a little research. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights depicts the oppression of women from mentally unstable individuals.

In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, two seemingly contrasting worlds are created. In many ways, the two houses, Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, represent good or light and evil or dark, respectively. This contrast is noticed upon inspection of their appearance, location, and inhabitants. The two houses do, however, share an ability to attract people and a struggle for dominance.

Mental illness was viewed as being a self-inflicted disease during the time period Wuthering Heights was written in (Bloomfield 298). Many of the characters suffer from a form of mental illness, but not all of them can be seen as self-inflicted. Most of the illnesses are inflicted by the death of other characters. After Hindley’s wife dies in his arms, he becomes an alcoholic and foreshadows his own death due to his destructive behavior (Bloomfield 291). Hindley’s terminal alcoholism changes his personality, and gambling causes him to lose everything he possessed; including his son. He uses alcohol to suppress the sadness of losing his wife (Bloomfield 295). Hindley’s behavior and alcoholic

Harsh, wild and unforgiving; the Yorkshire moors on which Emily Brontë played, provided the backdrop and catalyst of turmoil in her most tragic book Wuthering Heights. Born in 1818 in rural England, Haworth she lived in the heart of these wild, desolate expanses which provided her an escape where she truly felt at home and where her imagination flourished. Along with her sisters and brother, the Brontë children in their pastimes would often create stories and poems largely based on their playful ramblings in this environment.

Among rights commonly considered important are control of property, suffrage, equality to men and having an opportunity in education. The women’s rights movement, also known as feminism and women’s suffrage, arose in Europe in the late 18th century, with the aim of expanding recognition to women’s suffrage. Today, women have made substantial gains along these lines in most parts of the world, but with remarkable exceptions, and they often do not have full political, economic, and social equality with men. The protest and fight for women’s rights influenced literature to become more optimistic and idealistic.

Feminism can be defined by three major components: social, political and economic equality of the sexes. Throughout history, women have battled to gain equality with men. Elizabeth Bennet and other women have been suppressed from opportunities merely because of their gender and have fought to be considered as equals to men. Women are far more than someone’s wife or daughter, they are more than just their counterparts, they are human beings. From a morality standpoint, Elizabeth and other women should not be married off based on the need of survival but for the need of wanting to be married for true love. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, displays feminism through the aspects of women’s dependence on men, class snobbery, and alienation.

     In "Wuthering Heights," we see tragedies follow one by one, most of which are focused around Heathcliff, the antihero of the novel. After the troubled childhood Heathcliff goes through, he becomes embittered towards the world and loses interest in everything but Catherine Earnshaw –his childhood sweetheart whom he had instantly fallen in love with.—and revenge upon anyone who had tried to keep them apart.

Throughout history, social issues have come and gone, but some issues are constant. Issues such as love, sin, and peer pressure are timeless. Many women often feel pressure from society to act and appear a certain way in order to be accepted and “fit in”. Generally, women have two options when confronting peer pressure: succumb to the expectations of society or fight to be their unique individual. In Emily Brontë’s, Wuthering Heights, the dynamic character Catherine both fights and succumbs to the pressures of societal norm, and as a result, she experiences changes in her behavior, as well as experiences internal conflict.

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.

she had never lived in this farm, so she didn't know how to get in and

Feminism can be defined by three major components: social, political and economic equality of the sexes. Throughout history, women have battled to gain equality with men. Elizabeth Bennet and other women have been suppressed from opportunities merely because of their gender and have fought to be considered as equals to men. Women are far more than someone’s wife or daughter, they are more than just their counterparts, they are human beings. From a morality standpoint, Elizabeth or other women should not be married off based on the need of survival but for the need of wanting to be married for true love. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, displays feminism through the aspects of women’s dependence on men, class snobbery, and alienation.

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

In today’s society, feminism has received a rather negative connotation and very often misused. If one is a feminist, she is considered an angry, man hating woman, but where has this idea stemmed from? Feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights to be equal in political, economic and social standings. In simplicity, feminism is the assertion of women’s equality. Many women believe in feminism and support it, including Jane Austen, the author of Pride and Prejudice. Feminism is a prevalent and recurring theme throughout Pride and Prejudice.

Emily Jane Brontë was an English poet and author who is most famous for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, one of the most well known classics in English literature.

The fight by feminists for gender equality started in the nineteenth century and has only continued to grow over the past decades. Countless authors have been voicing their concerns about this injustice through their written literature since this battle first began. Earlier in history a majority of known