Looking Oppositely By Sandra M. Gilbert

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights share similarities in many aspects, perhaps most plainly seen in the plots: just as Clarissa marries Richard rather than Peter Walsh in order to secure a comfortable life for herself, Catherine chooses Edgar Linton over Heathcliff in an attempt to wrest both herself and Heathcliff from the squalid lifestyle of Wuthering Heights. However, these two novels also overlap in thematic elements in that both are concerned with the opposing forces of civilization or order and chaos or madness. The recurring image of the house is an important symbol used to illustrate both authors’ order versus chaos

Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Brontë distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights   to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Brontë perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.

As Lockwood lays to rest in the third chapter of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, he is wrought with a dream of a fictional Reverend Jabez Branderham and his surplus of sins. The dream almost reads as incomprehensible at first glance, especially when wedged between Lockwood’s visions of Catherine Earnshaw, but the dream holds clout in the overarching tale of Wuthering Heights, especially when taking its moral implications into consideration. To implement a biblical allusion in one’s text requires the understanding that, no matter what one intends to do with the material, it will remain morally-charged nonetheless. The material can be contorted or figured into a new message altogether, but some moral proposition will certainly remain. In the case of Lockwood’s dream, Brontë’s allusion to Peter and his interest in forgiveness are contorted to address what happens when the threshold of forgiveness is surpassed. Furthermore, the dream does not grapple with the power of forgiveness, but with the level of desperate exasperation one reaches after prolonged anguish. It is through the contortion of such a biblical allusion that Lockwood is met with what is essentially a warning against staying at either Thrushcross Grange or Wuthering Heights—a warning which he ultimately disregards, thus leading to his exposure to the litany of terrors which exist in the story of Wuthering Heights.

Upon hindsight following the two novels, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, one would label the monster and Heathcliff to be nothing short of villainous characters. Throughout each individual novel the two leads perform heinous actions that should leave readers feeling repulsed, and with no ounce of sympathy towards the principal characters; nonetheless, it is impossible not to. Heathcliff and the monster are not evil but rather characters to sympathize, both are the products of their environment and correspondingly, although for divergent reasons, are motivated by the supereminent emotions—love and hate.

The novel Wuthering Heights and the poem “Remembrance”, both written by Emily Brontë, feature protagonists who must cope with the death of their lovers, and in many ways, the two characters are similarly affected by this. The actions and feelings of Heathcliff in the last chapter in Wuthering Heights, however, stand in sharp contrast to the last stanza of “Remembrance”. This contrast demonstrates the personal differences of the characters and how they were affected differently by their losses. Heathcliff, the protagonist of Wuthering Heights, and the speaker of “Remembrance” have different views on love (both before and after death). Consequently, while Heathcliff embraces death in the final chapter to be with his love, the speaker of “Remembrances” learns to stop dwelling in the past.

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.

Obsession acts like a drug; it consumes one’s mind, until one eventually overdoses. Letting go or holding on to these dominating attachments decides the outcome of one’s end. In conversations of Emily Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights, questions about the book’s meaning inevitably arise. On one hand, many argue that the book centers around the idea of revenge. On the other hand, some assert that the nature of redemption lies at the heart of the book’s meaning.

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.

Martha Nussbaum describes the romantic ascent of various characters in Wuthering Heights through a philosophical Christian view. She begins by describing Catherine as a lost soul searching for heaven, while in reality she longs for the love of Heathcliff. Nussbaum continues by comparing Heathcliff as the opposition of the ascent from which the Linton’s hold sacred within their Christian beliefs. Nussbaum makes use of the notion that the Christian belief in Wuthering Heights is both degenerate and way to exclude social classes.

The gothic and often disturbing Wuthering Heights is Emily Bronte’s classic novel that contains undeniably powerful writing that created her timeless love story. Andrea Arnold transformed her masterpiece into a cinematic rendition to recreate the wild and passionate story of the deep and destructive love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff.

Wuthering Heights is a novel which deviates from the standard of Victorian literature. The novels of the Victorian Era were often works of social criticism. They generally had a moral purpose and promoted ideals of love and brotherhood. Wuthering Heights is more of a Victorian Gothic novel; it contains passion, violence, and supernatural elements (Mitchell 119). The world of Wuthering Heights seems to be a world without morals. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë does not idealize love; she presents it realistically, with all its faults and merits. She shows that love is a powerful force which can be destructive or redemptive. Heathcliff has an all-consuming passion for Catherine. When she chooses to marry Edgar, his spurned love turns into a

Love is a strong attachment between two lovers and revenge is a strong conflict between two rivals. In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses setting to establish contrast, to intensify conflict, and to develop character. The people and events of Wuthering Heights share a dramatic conflict. Thus, Bronte focuses on the evil eye of Heathcliff's obsessive and perpetual love with Catherine, and his enduring revenge to those who forced him and Catherine apart. The author expresses the conflict of Wuthering Heights with great intensity. Hence, she portrays a combination of crucial issues of romance and money, hate and power, and lastly

The two main settings, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, hold striking differences. When visiting, Heathcliff and Catherine describe Thrushcross Grange to be a “beautiful, splendid place” (Page 23). Statements such as this show us the elegance that the Thrushcross Grange holds over something compared to it such as the Wuthering Heights. Thrushcross

Wuthering Heights, published by Emily Brontë in 1847, tells a story of the history of Wuthering Heights and the tragic love story that precedes it. The two central settings of the work, Thrushcross Grange, and Wuthering Heights represent Freud’s structural model of the human psyche: the id and the superego. Because Freud’s structural model presents the notion that internal conflict is inevitable, the two settings illustrate the complexities of the human subconscious and the characters' difficulty in navigating them.

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights display of cultural and physical features of an environment affecting one’s character and moral traits is showcased through the first Catherine’s development throughout the novel. Catherine is forced to “adopt a double character”, as she lives as a rebellious, passionate woman on the turbulent Wuthering Heights, while behaving politely and courtly on the elegant Thrushcross Grange(Bronte, 48). Each of these environments also contains a love interest of Catherine’s, each man parallel with the characteristics of their environments: Heathcliff, the passionate and destructive, residing in Wuthering Heights, while the civilized and gentle Edgar inhabits Thrushcross Grange. Catherine’s development in character due to her setting significantly contributes to the theme that pursuing passionate love is dangerous, such as the love shared by Heathcliff and Catherine.