Gothicism means something much more than wearing dark clothes and dark eyeliners. The book Wuthering Heights has an enormous number of literary movements. There seems to be no one exact literary movement in this piece of writing. In my opinion, I believe that Gothicism influenced Bronte’s writing the most. Gothic novels have many defining characteristics in them. The aspects needed to define what type of book Wuthering Heights should be characterized are plot, setting, and characterization (Vore, Domenic, Kwan, Reidy). What truly makes Wuthering Heights a gothic novel are juxtaposing scenes and characters, the use of supernatural beings, and settings with dark environments.
One example of Wuthering Heights having elements of Gothicism is the characterization of Heathcliff. At first, Heathcliff was a very mysterious character. He was found on the streets of Liverpool and did not have a name to himself. The only people who truly liked him were Mr. Earnshaw and Catherine. When he grows older and returns after three years, he seems to have a sense of hatred in him. The new Heathcliff is an example of a Byronic Hero. He has a sense of mysterious because no one knows where he has been for the past three years. Byronic Heroes are a kind of hero who seem entirely perfect, however have a hidden flaw. According to Lady Caroline Lamb, the lover of Byron, Byronic Heroes are stated as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” (Heath, Boreham 121). For example when Heathcliff is reintroduced in the novel:
His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton’s; it looked intelligent and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilize...
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Gregory, Elizabeth. "Gothic in Bronte's Wuthering Heights: Mystery and Supernatural in Bronte's Great Romance | Suite101.com." Elizabeth Gregory | Suite101.com. 3 Jan. 2009. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. .
Heath, Duncan, and Jud Boreham. Introducing Romanticism. Cambridge: Icon, 2002. Print.
"Heathcliff The Revenger." Eircom.com. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. .
Vore, David De, Anne Domenic, Alexandra Kwan, and Nicol Reidy. "The Gothic Novel." Redirect to Teaching Writing with Computers. Web. 15 Oct. 2011. .
"Wuthering Heights Setting." Shmoop: Homework Help, Teacher Resources, Test Prep. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. .
From the beginning of the novel, the main character, Jane encounters the supernatural. Charlotte Bronte uses both supernatural and gothic themes to enhance situations for the reader and to develop the characters. In particular natural imageries have been used to convey a human connection with the natural world and human nature (Franklin, 1995). Eyre portrays the intrinsic struggle between supernatural and the effects of nature. Branflinger and Thesing (2002) argue that Bronte used Gothic and the supernatural to explore and portray the darkest alleys of her own psyche which Bronte was deeply disturbed by (p309).
Virginia Woolf and Emily Bronte possess striking similarities in their works. Both works have inanimate objects as pivotal points of the story line. For Bronte, Wuthering Heights itself plays a key role in the story. The feel of the house changes as the characters are introduced to it. Before Heathcliff, the Heights was a place of discipline but also love. The children got on well with each other and though Nelly was not a member of the family she too played and ate with them. When old Mr. Earnshaw traveled to Liverpool he asked the children what they wished for him to bring them as gifts and also promised Nelly a “pocketful of apples and pears” (WH 28). Heathcliff’s presence changed the Heights, “So, from the beginning, he had bred bad feeling in the house” (WH 30). The Heights became a place to dream of for Catherine (1) when she married Linton and moved to the Grange. For her it held the memories of Heathcliff and their love. For her daughter, Cathy, it became a dungeon; trapped in a loveless marriage in a cold stone home far away from the opulence and luxury of the home she was used to. Then, upon the death of Heathcliff, I can almost see, in my minds eye, the Heights itself relax into the warm earth around in it the knowledge that it too is once again safe from the vengeance, bitterness, and hate that has housed itself within its walls for over twenty years.
Older Gothic literature was in castles and deserted buildings. Modern Gothic novels were written in more populated areas. Another text that can be classed as ‘Gothic’ is the novel ‘Frankenstein’. The reason for it being a ‘Gothic’ novel is the way it has a mutant character. Frankenstein is a mutant and is made by a crazy scientist ‘I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of.
In the novel Wuthering Heights, author Emily Brontë portrays the morally ambiguous character of Heathcliff through his neglected upbringing, cruel motives, and vengeful actions.
Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, set in the countryside of England’s 1700’s, features a character named Heathcliff, who is brought into the Earnshaw family as a young boy and quickly falls into a passionate, blinding romance with the Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine. However, Heathcliff is soon crushed by this affection when his beloved chooses the company of another man rather than his own. For the remainder of the novel he exudes a harsh, aversive attitude that remains perduring until his demise that is induced by the loss of his soulmate, and in turn the bereavement of the person to whom the entirety of his being and his very own self were bound.
Although these two films have very different ideas and structure, while Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is dealing with a supernatural beast along with an intertwining love story, and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is dealing with a plot of passion and love shown through the multiple love triangles throughout the film. It can be said that both share many of the same elements which are all part of the gothic genre. These elements include Byronic hero characters and traits, the use of camera techniques, and metonymy. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is comparable, and in the end similar to, the archetype for the gothic genre; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
. The reader sees an extraordinary inwardness in Emily Bronte’s book Wuthering Heights. Emily has a gloomy and isolated childhood. . Says Charlotte Bronte, “ my sister’s disposition was not naturally gregarious; circumstances favored and fostered her tendency to seclusion; except to go to church, or to take a walk on the hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home.”(Everit,24) That inwardness, that remarkable sense of the privacy of human experience, is clearly the essential vision of Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte saw the principal human conflict as one between the individual and the dark, questioning universe, a universe symbolized, in her novel, both by man’s threatening and hardly-to-be-controlled inner nature, and by nature in its more impersonal sense, the wild lonesome mystery of the moors. The love of Heathcliff and Catherine, in its purest form, expresses itself absolutely in its own terms. These terms may seem to a typical mind, violent, and even disgusting. But having been generated by that particular love, they are the proper expressions of it. The passionately private relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine makes no reference to any social convention or situation. Only when Cathy begins to be attracted to the well-mannered ways of Thrushcross Grange, she is led, through them, to abandon her true nature.
Wuthering Heights is not just a love story, it is a window into the human soul, where one sees the loss, suffering, self discovery, and triumph of the characters in this novel. Both the Image of the Book by Robert McKibben, and Control of Sympathy in Wuthering Heights by John Hagan, strive to prove that neither Catherine nor Heathcliff are to blame for their wrong doings. Catherine and Heathcliff’s passionate nature, intolerable frustration, and overwhelming loss have ruined them, and thus stripped them of their humanities.
However, there are parts where Bronte has changed the typical 'Gothic novel' around. For example, at the meeting of Jane and Mr Rochester. Here it seems that Jane is the hero, and Mr Rochester is the heroine. This adds contrast and makes it seem more interesting for the reader, as they would it expect Jane to be the heroine, and Mr Rochester the hero.
“Wuthering Heights is a strange, inartistic story”(Atlas, WH p. 299). “Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book” (Douglas, WH p.301). “This is a strange book” (Examiner, WH p.302). “His work [Wuthering Heights] is strangely original” (Britannia, WH p.305). These brief quotes show that early critics of Emily Bronte’s first edition of Wuthering Heights, found the novel baffling in its meaning - they each agreed separately, that no moral existed within the story therefore it was deemed to have no real literary value. The original critical reviews had very little in the way of praise for the unknown author or the novel. The critics begrudgingly acknowledged elements of Wuthering Heights that could be considered strengths – such as, “rugged power” and “unconscious strength” (Atlas, WH p.299), “purposeless power” (Douglas, WH p.301), “evidences of considerable power” (Examiner), “power and originality” (Britannia, WH p.305). Strange and Powerful are two recurring critical interpretations of the novel. The critics did not attempt to provide in depth analysis of the work, simply because they felt that the meaning or moral of the story was either entirely absent or seriously confused.
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights can be considered a Gothic romance or an essay on the human relationship. The reader may regard the novel as a serious study of human problems such as love and hate, or revenge and jealousy. One may even consider the novel Bronte's personal interpretation of the universe. However, when all is said and done, Heathcliff and Catherine are the story. Their powerful presence permeates throughout the novel, as well as their complex personalities. Their climatic feelings towards each other and often selfish behavior often exaggerates or possibly encapsulates certain universal psychological truths humans are too afraid to express. Heathcliff and Catherine's stark backgrounds evolve respectively into dark personalities and mistaken life paths, but in the end their actions determine the course of their own relationships and lives. Their misfortunes, recklessness, willpower, and destructive passion are unable to penetrate the eternal love they share.
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.
Wuthering Heights is immensely filled with nature imagery. Mathison believes that Wuthering Heights is a “wild novel” because of its illustration of the wild nature (18). From the moors to the barren landscape, Bronte brings together these images to depict a dreary and desolate setting. Bronte also uses the elements of nature to convey characteristics of characters. Bronte uses the imagery of nature to reflect the personalities of the characters in Wuthering Heights.
Bronte's Use of Language and Setting in Wuthering Heights Between pages 15 and 18 there are identifiable ways in which 'Bronte' uses 'language and setting' to establish the characters and create a distinguishable atmosphere. In this essay, themes, genres and styles will be discussed to show how 'Bronte' establishes the characters; there will also be a discussion of the 'gothic' elements which Wuthering Heights contains. Many people would argue that the style of 'Wuthering Heights' is peculiar and complex, the power of Wuthering Heights owes much to its complex narrative structure and to the device of having two conventional people relate a very unconventional tale. Bronte importantly introduces the element of 'the supernatural' into chapter 3 which is an important technique as it grips the reader. Lockwood has come into contact with the ghost of Cathy, who died 18 years before, Some might argue that she is a product of Lockwood's imagination, and it is clear that Bronte has presented these facts in this way so that the reader can make up their own mind on the subject.
Wuthering Heights is filled with different examples of the Romantic Movements. Heathcliff is an exceptionally difficult character to analyze because he displays numerous altered personalities. This raises the question: which Romantic Movement was most common in Wuthering Heights? An analysis of Wuthering Heights reveals the most common Romantic Movement in the text: Romanticism. Romanticism is based upon the ideas of subjectivity, inspiration and the primacy of the individual. Various examples of these from the text are when Heathcliff has Catherine’s grave excavated, the repeated possibility of supernatural beings, and the love from the past that is seen from Heathcliff and Catherine.