How Does Bronte Present Prejudice In Wuthering Heights

Creating a haven from the cruel outside world, families ideally provide protection and support for each of their members. In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, however, bitterness grows between the Earnshaws and the Lintons. Within these two families, siblings rival for power and parents fail to fulfill their roles as caregivers. The intertwining relationships of the Earnshaws and the Lintons are marked by physical abuse, degradation, and emotional negligence. These reduce each of the family members’ life to a lonely and meaningless journey though the cold and misty moors.

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]

As a young orphan who is brought to Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is thrown into abuse as Hindley begins to treat Heathcliff as a servant in reaction to Mr. Earnshaw’s death. As a reaction to both this and Catherine discarding Heathcliff for Edgar, Heathcliff’s sense of misery and embarrassment causes him to change and spend the rest of his time seeking for justice. Throughout this time, Heathcliff leans on violence to express the revenge that he so seeks by threatening people and displaying villainous traits. However, Heathcliff’s first symptom of change in personality is when Heathcliff runs into Hareton after Cathy “tormented

This is seen as odd; one would usually assume that, in this situation, he would do his best to make their relationship flourish, to make up for his failed one, but instead, Heathcliff is too obsessed with revenge, making Catherine’s child suffer as much as possible, just as he had

At her age, Catherine should have felt the happiest she has even been after Edgar’s proposal, but her emotions toward Heathcliff changed all that. One way she states her love for Heathcliff by saying: “’My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath’” (Brontë 74), illustrating the everlastings of her emotions and that they will never fade no matter what happens. Yet on the other hand, her ambitions get the best of her in which she says to Nelly: “’I shall like to be the greatest woman in the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband [Edgar Linton]’” (Brontë 71). Instead of marrying for true love as seen throughout fairy tales, Catherine marries Edgar solely for reputation, following her mind instead of her heart. The conflict of her following her heart or her mind has led her into denial by imagining that by marrying Edgar she is doing the right thing and that she could raise Heathcliff, for at this time he is poor. Catherine is not the only one affected by denial, Isabella Linton is as well.

In the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the character Catherine portrays the action of injustice by being justice to her feelings. The reason for that is because she had to choose between two male figures in her life, Edgar Linton and Heathcliff. She is confused for a while, until she realized who she truly desires. Catherine was conflicted about whom to be with.

A recurring theme in Jane Eyre is that of the fortunate exhibiting prejudice against the less fortunate. Jane encounters many people throughout her life who hold positions of power and wealth and consistently mistreat those who they view as inferiors. First, she is brought up as a “dependant” in a household where everyone looks down on her. When Jane is sent away to boarding school, she finds that she and the other misfortunate girls there are held to impossibly strict standards of piety and neglected while the headmaster enjoys his own wealth. After leaving Lowood School to become a governess, Jane discovers that once again she is in a position apparently undeserving of respect. The wealthy people around her make it clear that they do not

Meyer asserts that upon Heathcliff first meeting with the Linton family he is ‘subjected to a visual scrutiny’ assigning him to his expected position in social order, as a result of his racial ambiguity (p.97). Myer claims that when Mr Earnshaw takes Heathcliff into his home and gives him the name of a son, he is attempting to give Heathcliff a favourable social status. However, when the Linton’s gaze and inspect Heathcliff they describe him as ‘an American and Spanish castaway’ and an ‘acquisition’ ultimately returning him to the power of the empire and fix him into the role of the subordinate racial outsider (p.99). This encounter in the novel for Meyer demonstrates Brontë critique of the British desire to control and contain the ‘dark races’ (p.102). Reinforcing her main argument that the novel does not so much concern its self with the injustice of domestic class systems but, the economic injustice that was forced upon the racial other by British

Heathcliff most aptly suits as an example of how treachery and deceit are powerful tools for rising up above one’s class status. As a child Heathcliff receives an education on par with Catherine as old Earnshaw ensures that he studies as much as his daughter, but upon his passing Heathcliff no longer has a teacher to instruct him. At sixteen we see him struggle “to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies” and eventually yields with a strong regret to give

In the first generation of Earnshaws and Lintons, Catherine Earnshaw is the root suffering for Edgar Linton and Heathcliff. Catherine’s rebelliousness shows the feminist writing to Brontë in such a patriarchal society. Catherine is torn between her love for Heathcliff and also social acceptance. She realized that if she were to marry Heathcliff, they would be beggars and she would not live a first class

Catherine Earnshaw grows very fond of Heathcliff as the years pass. She eventually falls passionately in love with him, but because of Heathcliff's poor financial status and character, she chooses to marry Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange. Her reasoning becomes evident in dialogue with Ellen Dean, the housekeeper. In response to Ellen asking why Catherine wants to marry Edgar, Catherine replies, " 'he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband' " (106). After marrying Edgar, she refuses to let go of her longings for Heathcliff. This total disregard for others and admiration of herself leads to extreme pain for Edgar, Heathcliff, and herself. This pain is such that it remains with each person until they are laid to rest.

While at Thrushcross Grange, she grows infatuated with Edgar, despite her love for Heathcliff. Edgar came from an upper class family as well and took care of her when she was in a dog accident. This leads to her acceptance of Edgar Linton’s marriage proposal despite her statements regarding her love for Heathcliff. Heathcliff overhears unfortunate passages of Catherine's discourse and disappears for a period during which he mysteriously makes his fortune and changes irrevocably from the person he was. Vengeance consumes him, and Heathcliff attempts to destroy the lives of those who wronged him, (as well as their children). Ultimately, Heathcliff’s bitterly executed vengeance is effaced by a love between Hareton and Cathy that mirrors Heathcliff’s own love for Catherine. Hareton is Catherine’s nephew and Cathy is Catherine’s daughter, which makes the two first cousins.

Catherine is blunt in her criticism of Heathcliff's company. "You might be dumb or a baby for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you do, either!" In contrast to the wilderness she shares with Heathcliff, Catherine has a cultured side that is brought out by the Lintons. This side of her nature is attracted to Edgar, but she does not cease to love Heathcliff. Catherine's marriage to Edgar is not simply a marriage of convenience.

One area in which a critic might have been hostile on is how social classes are depicted in the novel. Victorian England was a time where there were sharply defined class differences, and there was often prejudice and distrust between different groups. Brontë hints at some of these differences, and it is most clearly seen between Catherine, a well educated middle class lady and Heathcliff, an orphaned dark skinned gypsy found on the streets. Catherine openly admits this difference as to why she married Edgar, stating that she would, “become the greatest woman of the neighborhood” later says, “if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars” (Brontë 73-76). Heathcliff’s low social standing is one of the main reasons Catherine chose the wealthy and well to do Edgar over him. He does not have the