Theme Of Childhood In Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë, in her novel, Wuthering Heights, suggests that children, in their very nature, exhibit traits from their parental influences. However, these traits are not always represented at the same time and can come out in different situations. For instance, as Cathy Linton grows up, her personality is a mixture of her calmer father, Edgar, and her more fiery mother, Catherine. She shows both these personalities, but she limits each to the correct time and circumstance. Also, the same goes for Linton Heathcliff, who has become a mixture of both his mother, Isabella, and his father, Heathcliff. Lastly, this is shown in Hareton Earnshaw, who, because he has little to no relationship with his biological parents, has turned into a man more

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.

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.

The Development of Heathcliff’s Character in Wuthering Heights Heathcliff is a character who is ever present in “Wuthering Heights” and throughout the novel his character changes. At first he is a poor, homeless child, then he becomes a loved and neglected victim, then he is a degraded lover, and finally he transforms into a vicious, lonely master. Heathcliff is introduced into the novel as a homeless child. He is a ‘“dirty, ragged, black-haired child”’ who Mr. Earnshaw brings to Wuthering Heights from Liverpool. He is constantly referred to as ‘it’ and a ‘gypsy’.

Wuthering Heights engages Gothic elements to strengthen the motif of entrapment, including a framed narrative, and the use of locks and closed doors. Emily Bronte’s application of a framed narrative in Wuthering Heights emphasizes the emotional and physical smothering that Catherine experiences. The usage of a story within a story, as told by multiple characters, creates confusion and chaos both internally and between characters. The internal conflicts of Catherine emphasize the power of her emotions and create a feeling of suffocation and claustrophobia. According to Catherine, her chamber, settled deep into the labyrinth of Thrushcross Grange, is a “shattered prison” (116). Confinement is partly induced by the framed narrative, however, other gothic devices also play a key role in Catherine’s deterioration.

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

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.

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.

However, despite changes, the literary world remained predominantly male, and women writers not encouraged, or taken seriously. Consequently, to counteract this Emily Bronte published her novel Wuthering Heights, under the male pseudonym of Ellis Bell. Wuthering Heights is the story of domesticity, obsession, and elemental divided passion between the intertwined homes of the Earnshaw’s residing at the rural farmhouse Wuthering Heights, and the Linton family of the more genteel Thrushcross Grange. This essay will discuss how the language and narrative voices established a structural pattern of the novel, and how these differing voices had a dramatic effect on the interpretation of the overall story.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte was published in 1847 and received many contradictory judgements. One main judgement that criticized the novel was how multiple characters can have a change in characterization depending on the reader. Many of the novel's characters, such as Heathcliff, possess positive values, but readers tend to focus on their negative qualities which allows these characters to change. Growing up poor and homeless, Heathcliff’s character changes many times throughout the novel as he grows older and possess negative qualities towards other characters. Later residing as an old, lonely master, Heathcliff’s change in character at the end of Wuthering Heights signifies that he has gone mad and leads to intentions that Heathcliff has not committed suicide, but lost all will after all he has been through.

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.

was to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day."

Heathcliff is introduced in Nelly's narration as a seven-year-old Liverpool foundling (probably an Irish famine immigrant) brought back to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw. His presence in Wuthering Heights overthrows the prevailing habits of the Earnshaw family, members of the family soon become involved in turmoil and fighting and family relationships become spiteful and hateful. Even on his first night, he is the reason Mr. Earnshaw breaks the toys he had bought for his children. "From the very beginning he bred bad feelings in the house". Heathcliff usurps the affections of Mr. Earnshaw to the exclusion of young Hindley-: "The young master had learnt to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a

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

The novel of Wuthering Heights involves passion, romance, and turmoil but most significantly carries cruelty as an overarching theme. Cruelty is apparent throughout the work most importantly when dealing with relationships between Heathcliff and Hindley, Heathcliff and Hareton, and even the emotional cruelty between Heathcliff and Catherine.