Motifs In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

In this passage, Edgar is described as a ‘sleepless guardian’ of Catherine’s body, and stays with her until the point of exhaustion, when he finally leaves for a few hours to sleep. During this time, Heathcliff lingers outside and waits for Edgar to leave; when he finally does, Heathcliff sneaks inside to say goodbye to Catherine. This directly shows the contrast between the two men.Similarly, Edgar grieves by isolating himself in his library, while Heathcliff grieves by taking out his anger on

Isabella is a representation of the calm due to her naivety as she willingly goes to Heathcliff. This causes her to be hurt following his soon betrayal and she is left with no friends or family to help her with her upcoming baby. Isabella had truly believed that Heathcliff had feelings for as she was willing to give up her family to be with him. Isabella was hurt because of her own foolishness which resulted in herself being destroyed by Heathcliff as he was able to use her to his own advantages only to leave her pregnant with no one. This makes the text effective as Appeals to audience as it is a more realistic view on one sided love Edgar became hurt during the text due to his relationship with Cathy in which her feelings for him were not nearly as strong as his for her.

To begin, Heathcliff uses Isabella as a means of exacting revenge on Edgar Linton, whom he despises. When Heathcliff finds out Isabella is in love with him, he is delighted. His pleasure comes not from a mutual like for Isabella, but rather a vision for revenging Edgar. After Catherine lets slip that Isabella is in love with him, Heathcliff says to her, “...and if you fancy I’ll suffer unrevenged, I’ll convince you of the contrary, in a very little while! Meantime, thank you for telling me your sister-in-law’s secret: I swear I’ll make the most of it. And stand you aside!”(112). Heathcliff’s comment

Cathy and Hindley alter him into a vicious, lonely master: ‘“The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him, they crush those beneath them”’. This shows that Heathcliff will not take revenge on Cathy directly, but will hurt those who are close to her. This is because Cathy married Edgar Linton and said that it would degrade her if Heathcliff was her husband. In addition, he will take

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 consequence of Heathcliff's visit to the Grange, Edgar's sister Isabella falls in love with him, and her feelings seem to be sincere. In this one-sided love affair Heathcliff takes advantage of the innocent girl's infatuation to foster his obsession for revenge. (Isabella is her brother's heir). Catherine's reaction is very hard to interpret. It is natural that she is jealous, if she still feels the same for him as before, and that may be the reason why she dissuades Isabella from marrying Heathcliff. But the words she uses, telling her what an abominable creature Heathcliff is, are not the sort you expect to hear from someone talking of a sweetheart. Later on when her husband and Heathcliff are having a quarrel, she stops Edgar from hurting her friend . There is an excess of emotion, and her explanation to this behaviour is that she wants them both, Edgar and Heathcliff: "Well, if I cannot keep Heathcliff for my friend - if Edgar will be mean and jealous, I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own" (109).Her love for Heathcliff has not cooled down, instead it seems to be a stronger obsession than ever considering the torments she goes through, when she becomes seriously ill.The last time Catherine and Heathcliff see each other is a very heart-rending meeting. Their love for each other is as strong as ever, and Heathcliff

While Wuthering Heights was a symbol of darkness and winter, Thrushcross Grange could only be described as its opposite. Thrushcross Grange can be seen as a happy place that is light and summery. Its inhabitants are blissful and naive. They did not worry or have to fend for themselves because there is always money and servants to wait on them. The inhabitants of the house are ignorant of the cruelties and injustices of the outside world. When Isabella, Edgar's sister, marries Heathcliff and is taken to the Heights, she too learns these realities and is destroyed by them. She is imprisoned in the Heights by her husband. Isabella writes Nelly and describes her depression;

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

Catherine determines that it will be more practical to marry Edgar. She explains her reasoning to Nelly, and Heathcliff overhears part of the conversation. He is heartbroken and leaves Wuthering Heights. Catherine goes into a fit, demanding that everyone search for Heathcliff and bring him home. She is quite upset and angry (even beating her young nephew, Hareton).

In chapter 27, Edgar’s health continues to deteriorate and he lay on his deathbed leading Cathy and Mrs. Dean to pay a visit to Linton at Wuthering Heights. This quote is said in response to Cathy, who fights with Heathcliff after she realizes that he has the imprisoned her and Nelly both inside his home, with a plan to not release her until after she and Linton are married. After Cathy is locked inside, Linton reveals to her Heathcliff's plans, and the readers feel a sense of inescapable doom start to exist. This quote is emblematic to the action within this novel because it reveals Heathcliff’s master plan to the readers: to marry off Linton and Cathy so that he may lay claim to Thrushcross Grange. The kidnapping of Cathy and Mrs. Dean is

This leads to him running away from the heights entirely, leaving Catherine to marry Edgar. “He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him.” (81). Upon his return (two years later), Heathcliff marries Isabella to get back at Catherine, and her speech about how marrying him would degrade her. Isabella is also taken against her and her family’s will. Heathcliff kidnaps her and locks her away at the heights. In a letter written to Nelly, Isabella confirms that it was truly against her will for her leaving, and that she cannot return in the time of crisis in her brother’s life. “… an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding offended him: asserting that she could not help it then, and being done, no power to repeal it.” (140). In the act of kidnapping Isabella, Heathcliff’s intent is to hurt Catherine. Catherine would develop almost a jealous-like temper towards the whole situation, as Heathcliff knew it would. Even on Catherine’s deathbed, there is a constant push and pull (in almost a literal sense) of the cruelty that goes on between the two of them. Between the crying, the vexing, and the constant apologies, comes the brutal cruelty of the words Catherine speaks to Heathcliff. “I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me – and thriven on it, I think.” (164)

Heathcliff overhears this conversation between Nelly and Catherine and leaves Wuthering Heights after hearing Catherine say that it would degrade her to marry him. Heathcliff tries to make himself more presentable to Catherine by moving up the social system. However, he does this by cheating and taking advantage of people. Heathcliff takes advantage of Hindley's state of alcoholism and takes over Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff also takes advantage of Edgar Linton's will my making young Catherine (the daughter of Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton) marry Linton (the son of Heathcliff and Isabella Linton)

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.

The novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847) by Emily Brontë and the film adaptation ‘Wuthering Heights’ (2011) by Andrea Arnold each convey respective values and perspectives reflective of the contrasting contexts and forms of each text. The novel, set in the Romantic period, is centred around two families living on the isolated, Yorkshire moors, and the explosive interactions between them. The concept of confinement contrasts against the freedom of nature throughout the novel. Nature is another key theme and a fundamental aspect of the Romantic period, used to present ideas such as rebellion and freedom. Finally, passion within human relationships is thoroughly explored through Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship within the novel. However, as the film adaptation is a product of a contemporary post-feminist, post-colonial time period, these themes can now be explored through lenses such as racial discrimination, feminism, and human connection.

The extract I am going to analyse belongs to the novel Wuthering Heights, the only novel written by Emily Brontë and considered to be a classic of the English Literature. Emily Brontë (1818-1848) was an English writer and poet, and member of the Brontë family, in which some of them were also writers such Charlotte Brontë or Anne Brontë.