The Everlasting Child : Wuthering Heights

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

A variety of narrative devices can be utilized by an author to enhance a story. One such device that uses ambiguity to create powerful effects is the supernatural, which is “[divided] into three categories [...one of them being the uncanny,] in which [a] rational explanation of the supernatural phenomena is possible” (Lodge 212). In order to make a rational explanation of a supernatural event more believable, typically a classic rhetoric of the uncanny will use first person narration and discourse in a documentary form to make the story seem predictable, and therefore more believable (Lodge 214). Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” uses the uncanny to create a double interpretation of the ghost scene in chapter three where the reader can accept either a rational or supernatural explanation to the events that occurred.

Cruelty compels one to inflict cruelty upon others. In her novel, Wuthering Heights, Brontë illustrates the rough life of Heathcliff, conflicted with whether he should focus his life on loving Catherine Earnshaw or inflicting revenge on those who tortured him as a child. Mr. Earnshaw adopts Heathcliff into the Earnshaw family as an orphan gypsy, a social class that most of the Earnshaw did not care for. The eldest child of Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley, abuses Heathcliff horribly, shaping the way Heathcliff perceives the world around him. Catherine Earnshaw, Hindley’s younger sister, motivates Heathcliff to endure this pain through their affectionate relationship. With his heart focused on revenge, Heathcliff devises a cruel plan to retaliate those who hurt him; he returns to Wuthering Heights as a refined, powerful man. He takes some of his anger out on Hareton Earnshaw, Hindley’s son; this parallels Hindley’s abuse towards Heathcliff. Through Hindley’s and Heathcliff’s abusiveness in Wuthering Heights, Brontë asserts that cruelty cycles from its perpetrators to its victims.

Human beings can be truly deranged creatures. Often times they are seen as elevating and putting themselves on a pedestal. They will treat people who are not the same as them as they are garbage and worthless. Although it is not their fault to simply put it, it is human nature. More specifically the ugliness of human nature. The complex characters in Wuthering Heights are guilty of this. Their circumstances drive them to do unthinkable things which unfortunately have drastic outcomes. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is a beautifully written novel that shows the ugliness of human nature as seen through the depiction of toxic relationships, displaying revenge and vengeance in the differentiation of social class.

Wuthering Heights’s Catherine Earnshaw is infamous for her complex character, some arguing that she is egocentric and manipulative, others sympathizing with the difficult choices she is faced with. However, there is no doubt that she is innately childish. As Catherine grows older, her character is not changed; she remains juvenile and selfish, making everything a game that revolves around her and not empathizing with other characters and their needs - subconsciously or not. In a sense, her mindset never progresses past one of a child. As Sigmund Freud wrote in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, “What makes an infant characteristically different from every other stage of human life is that the child is polymorphously perverse” - an attribute which Catherine exemplifies throughout her lifetime. Her selfishness goes beyond the "ordinary self-centeredness" (Thormahlen 5) one might encounter in a regular adult - rather, Catherine directly affects her relationships with people through her "perverse" actions, and still does not recognize the harm in doing so. She exists in an irresponsible state, not perceiving that "she cannot have, and be, everything she wants whenever she wants it” (5) - and this is reflected in every single relationship she experiences. It is Catherine’s intrinsic immaturity and inability to progress from her childhood mindset that is the main catalyst not only in her in the other character’s

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

In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Catherine’s actions as a child and her temper portray her as immoral, but a further examination of Catherine’s life paints her in a sympathetic light. Catherine’s childhood full of abuse, inability to marry for love, and early death creates a feeling of sadness for how her life never improved. Filled with abuse and hatred, Catherine’s childhood helped worsen her already fiery temper.

Like Heathcliff, she was also a wild spirit, intrinsically inclined toward Wuthering Heights, yet capable of adapting to high-society living. However, she could not continue to ignore her inherent affinity for both Heathcliff and the natural world. Only as she approached death did she finally admit that she “[didn’t] want…Edgar” or Thrushcross Grange to be her home (Brontë 127). Catherine’s frantic love for Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights manifested as the “brain fever” that led to her death, symbolizing the conflict between her effort to fit into society and her longing for a life free of constraints with Heathcliff (Brontë 132). Despite his newfound suffering, Heathcliff continues to love Catherine, even after her

Characters in Wuthering Heights exemplify the effect of dual natures and the destructive impact such internal struggles can have on filial relations. The motives that drive the characters are inextricably linked to the warring forces inside them that are the impetus for the rash and ruinous actions that are common to both major households in the novel. Consequently, the prevalence of duality throughout the novel signifies the importance of a double nature in characterizing humanity. Catherine is the most relevant example of contradictory natures as they define her personality throughout her life. Therefore; in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the recurring

In her novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë uses a formal style of writing to portray the language of those used during the early 1800s. Throughout the majority of the novel, Nelly Dean is telling the story of how Wuthering Heights came to be the place that it currently is. Throughout Dean’s narration, characters are voiced differently due to their role in society. An example of this is shown when Brontë would use fragments of words to represent the speech of Hareton, one of the servants of Wuthering Heights. In contrast, Catherine, being well educated, would use sophisticated grammar and an extensive vocabulary whenever she spoke. Heathcliff was revealed as a two-sided character in this reading. On one hand, the author would use negative

Emily Bronte includes a variety of themes in Wuthering Heights that are prominently strengthened by the use of symbolic figures. A specific theme that sticks with the reader is the theme of love, and a symbol that strengthens this theme is the 'ghost' of Catherine that appears a few times in this novel. Love drives the plot in this story and is the reason that everything unfolds the way that it does.

The presentation of childhood is a theme that runs through two generations with the novel beginning to reveal the childhood of Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, and with the arrival of the young Liverpudlian orphan, Heathcliff. In chapter four, Brontë presents Heathcliff’s bulling and abuse at the hands of Hindley as he grows increasingly jealous of Heathcliff for Mr. Earnshaw, his father, has favoured Heathcliff over his own son, “my arm, which is black to the shoulder” the pejorative modifier ‘black’ portrays dark and gothic associations but also shows the extent of the abuse that Heathcliff as a child suffered from his adopted brother. It is this abuse in childhood that shapes Heathcliff’s attitudes towards Hindley and his sadistic

Throughout Wuthering Heights, Catherine is a very complex character that solicits plenty of different emotions from the readers and other characters. While most of the conflict that Catherine has to overcome is self-inflicted, it is still a very humane situation to be in that demands our sympathy. Catherine’s struggle is a that of a familial and relational skirmish, that nearly every person can realistically see themselves partaking in, and thus it begs for attention and sympathy. Catherine’s story is told from her former caretaker, Nelly, so the story that we hear may be very biased, and paints Catherine in a negative picture, but from independently analyzing the situation we can feel very sorry for Catherine and her situation.

Whether negative or positive, the nurturing a character receives as a child can greatly affect that character’s actions as an adult. In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Heathcliff and Catherine didn’t have positive role models to learn from nor were they in an environment where they were positively nurtured throughout the majority of their lives. Heathcliff was raised largely in a hostile environment and Catherine was let run wild and never taught better. Whether it was intentional not, it is evident that these characters were nurtured into becoming immensely vindictive characters. The experiences Heathcliff and Catherine had during their childhood greatly influenced the ways they would act as adults.