Motiffs in The Novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

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.

At the center of Wuthering Heights lies a tragic vision of decay and detachment which depends completely on the severances Emily Bronte has created between characters, estates, and social statuses. Bronte reveals societal flaws that had never before been recognized during her time and creates a raw vision of Victorian life; one in which the differences between characters and their social standings outweigh their true beliefs and desires when it comes to who they choose to be, who they choose to surround themselves with, and how they choose to treat those around them. In its most distinct form, Wuthering Heights is a love story that chronicles the lives of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, regardless of the distance between them. It is

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]

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.

In this passage, Bronte uses recurring patterns in the book to show how mistreatment can last through generations. When Heathcliff first came to Wuthering Heights, he was treated like a prince; respected, loved, and favored by all but Hindley, who was jealous of the affection given to Heathcliff. When Mr. Earnshaw passes and Hindley is left in charge, Heathcliff is forced to quit his studies and is constantly degraded to a servant position. The reader can infer that his upbringing halted his emotional maturity in a major way. He was damaged by Hindley bringing him down and when Catherine admitted to Nelly she would never marry Heathcliff because of his social position. He of course left to remedy his ruggedness, but it didn’t heal the emotional

Vivien Zheng Carvalho English Ⅱ K-1 01 May 2018 Wuthering Heights Motif Essay: Gates, Doors, Locks & Keys The ominous history of a petulant landlord, Heathcliff, unravels to the keen curiosity of the new tenant, Mr. Lockwood. Narrated by Nelly Dean, a servant of the household, an unpleasant love triangle between Heathcliff, Catherine Earnshaw, and Edgar Linton presents itself as the force that intertwines the two families through love, betrayal, and revenge. Heathcliff’s unrequited love with Catherine prompts his intention for vengeance at his rival, Edgar, even until the last seconds of their lives.

    Critics analyze and examine Wuthering Heights to obtain a deeper understanding of the message that Emily Bronte wants to convey. By focusing on the different literary elements of fiction used in the novel, readers are better able to understand how the author successfully uses theme, characters, and setting to create a very controversial novel in which the reader is torn between opposite conditions of love and hate, good and evil, revenge and forgiveness in  Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. There is no doubt that the use of conflictive characters such as Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and Edgar, with their interactions in the two different settings creates an

Heathcliff, born dark-skinned and an orphan, was already considered to be of a lower class than everybody else. He was adopted by Mr. Earnshaw, where his status was elevated and was eventually favored more than Mr. Earnshaw’s son, Hindley. Because of this elevated position, Hindley, after Mr. Earnshaw’s death, reduced Heathcliff back to his previous low status by treating him as a servant. Through the abuses and sufferings that Heathcliff experiences by those who see him as lower class, he ultimately turns into this ultra aggressive as well as hostile person that will never escape the reality of the restrictive hierarchy that the Victorian Era put in place despite his best efforts to infringe these norms. Likewise, Hareton, son of Hindley, also faces the same events as Heathcliff. Abused and essentially deprived of all his childhood by Hindley and Heathcliff, he is illiterate and quick-tempered and is treated like a lower class individual. Heathcliff and Hareton are mirroring characters that share the same experiences and Bronte utilizes their

This rampage against his own counterpart displays how furious Heathcliff really is over this relationship. The relationship between Cathy and Hareton is more distinctive than the relationship Heathcliff and Catherine. The nature of the love between Hareton and Cathy is symbolized by the kindness and serenity between each other, not the abuse and drama that Heathcliff and Catherine pressured on each other. As mentioned before, Arnold Kettle notes in his critique “He becomes aware that in the feeling between Cathy and Hareton there is something

Have you ever been in love, but was unable to be with that person because of things like social status or rules, family feuds, money issues or distance? If not, you have probably lived it out vicariously through literature. This theme has recurred in many different works like Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story, and The Great Gatsby. However, these are not the only literary works that showcase this theme. Written by Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights is a prime example of how societal customs and reasoning can cause love to become a mere flaw in human nature. This is especially seen in both Catherine and her daughter, Cathy and their loved ones. In turn, the skewed perspectives of the characters caused tremendous turmoil in the rest of the character’s lives. Because of classism, love in Wuthering Heights is often clouded as seen throughout the Earnshaw family

With this unusually leading statement, Catherine Earnshaw is able to profess her love for Heathcliff, the outcast and rugged villain of the novel Wuthering Heights. Being separated from Heathcliff, deadens Catherine’s soul. Since they both experience many things together in their childhood, they have become so related to each other, that even their thoughts and souls have been shaped in the same way and they have become a fussed oneness now. When she compares her love for Heathcliff with that for Edgar she externalizes her love for Heathcliff when she claims that her love towards him resembles ‘the rocks beneath’, whereas her love for Edgar is like ‘the foliage in the wood, that time will change it’. Here Catherine speaks not of soul, but of

Bronte, The author of the Wuthering Heights, expresses many themes and morals in her book. The one most important in the Wuthering Heights is the theme of love and cruelty. The main characters, Catherine and Heathcliff, show these actions time and time again. They occur because of the other, much like the yin and the yang. Love leads to cruelty and cruelty leads to love. In Wuthering Heights, there are two different types of love shown: platonic and passionate. Both of these types of love lead to cruelty to other characters. As Heathcliff states boldly within the first few chapters of the novel, love’s cruelty survives even beyond death. “Cathy, do come. Oh do – once more! Oh! My heart’s darling; hear me this time, Catherine, at last!”

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

Nelly: is the narrator of the story and an important character throughout the whole story

The search for love is a paramount aspect of the human experience. Though it is tempting to idealize love and strive for a “perfect” relationship, the power of love is that it is a unique emotion capable of profoundly affecting the human experience, whether ultimately positively or negatively. Love manifests in multitudinous varieties; no two loves are identical and one person can even love different people in radically different ways. In her Gothic novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë offers disparate depictions of love and its effects through Catherine’s affections for Heathcliff and Edgar.