More handpicked essays just for you.
Characterization in wuthering heights by emily bronte
Gathering heights emily bronte analysis
Characterization in wuthering heights by emily bronte
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
When people are first born into this world, the first thing they do is cry, which is an emotion. Notice that crying is an emotional usually used to gain attentions. In the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, one of the characters named Catherine uses her emotional responses to get what she wants. With Catherine always acting up yet getting her way, this leaves Nelly wondering what is really going on. Nelly and Edgar both have their own different beliefs on Catherine’s reasons for her actions. While Nelly is used to Catherine’s emotional tantrums, Edgar thinks she does this to manipulate others. While Nelly thinks Catherine is a spoiled child, Edgar believes she is an innocent little girl who just tricks her way to be personally satisfied. …show more content…
In Nelly’s case, she thinks Catherine is more of a tantrum throwing and because of that, she is extremely used to it now. For example, Nelly confessed saying “I own I did not like her, after her infancy was past; and I vexed he frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance; she never took an aversion to me though” (Bronte 58). By Nelly saying this, she is implying that Catherine has always been extremely rude to her but she is used to it. Nelly explains how she has never taken orders from her without an attitude or a problem. For Edgar, he and Catherine have an intimate relationship in the story. Catherine surprisingly dominates the relationship and bosses Edgar around. Their relationship is mostly one sided and based off abuse. Edgar speaks to Catherine saying, “You’ve made me afraid and ashamed of you” (Bronte 53). Edgar saying this shows that he thinks Catherine does the things she does just to hurt him. Thus, making this the reason for him thinking Catherine is up to nothing but to manipulate others. By the way Nelly and Edgar think about Catherine are both different which is why they both hold different relationships with
Catherine manipulates,her own self even. Who does she really love,and want to be with? “My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.” Cathy is also referring to herself as Heathcliff,basically stating that she knows him and loves him as well as she does herself. Catherine may have been in love with Linton but she feels like that's going to change. Her love for Heathcliff maybe too strong and she does want to be with Linton. He has only manipulated herself. Yes, as such wondrous creatures, women even manipulate themselves
Nelly opinions come from that of an outsider, whose strong personality did not fear Catherine, but easily called her out for her miserable nature. Nelly sees Catherine as a vindictive person who readily gets what she wants and does evil things to overpower people. Nelly has come to face Catherine’s wrath first hand; as evident by her pinches and the stinging blow she delivers to Nelly when she refuses to leave the room as Edgar visits, and Catherine wants to be alone with Edgar as he visits the Heights. In Nelly’s eyes, Catherine is spoiled, and she does not matter who gets hurt or betray in the process to accomplish her goals.
In the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the character Catherine Earnshaw is used to deliver the powerful theme of civility at war with passion. In the story, Bronte portrays the two clashing forces as a major storm that causes turmoil in the novel’s setting. While Heathcliff represents passion, Edgar displays the attributes of civility. *2*However, Catherine Earnshaw becomes the living symbol of the antithesis. She becomes the eye of the hurricane where all the turmoil and conflicts of the characters meet. Catherine finds herself tangled in an imbalance between Edgar and Heathcliff, or between civility and passion, which eventually tears her apart emotionally and physically.
Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Brontë distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Brontë perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.
Catherine Earnshaw appears to be a woman who is free spirited. However, Catherine is also quite self-centered. She clearly states that her love for Edgar Linton does not match how much she loves Heathcliff. She is saying that she does love both, and she is unwilling to give one up for the other; she wants “Heathcliff for her friend”. Catherine admits that her love for Linton is “like the foliage in the woods”; however, her love for Heathcliff “resembles the eternal rocks beneath”. She loves Heathcliff and yet she gives him up and marries Linton instead, Catherine believes that if she marries Heathcliff it would degrade and humiliate her socially.
Catherine is free-spirited, wild, impetuous, and arrogant as a child, she grows up getting everything she wants as Nelly describes in chapter 5, ‘A wild, wicked slip she was’. She is given to fits of temper, and she is torn between her wild passion for Heathcliff and her social ambition. She brings misery to both of the men who love her, ultimately; Catherine’s selfishness ends up hurting everyone she loves, including herself.
McKibben and Hagan take different approaches to Wuthering Heights, but both approaches work together to form one unified concept. McKibben speaks of Wuthering Heights as a whole, while Hagan concentrates on only sympathies role in the novel. McKibben and Hagan both touch on the topic of Catherine and Heathcliff’s passionate nature. To this, McKibben recalls the scene in the book when Catherine is "in the throes of her self-induced illness" (p38). When asking for her husband, she is told by Nelly Dean that Edgar is "among his books," and she cries, "What in the name of all that feels has he to do with books when I am dying." McKibben shows that while Catherine is making a scene and crying, Edgar is in the library handling Catherine’s death in the only way he knows how, in a mild mannered approach. He lacks the passionate ways in which Catherine and Heathcliff handle ordeals. During this scene Catherine’s mind strays back to childhood and she comes to realize that "the Linton’s are alien to her and exemplify a completely foreign mode of perception" (p38). Catherine discovers that she would never belong in Edgar’s society. On her journey of self-discovery, she realized that she attempted the impossible, which was to live in a world in which she did not belong. This, in the end, lead to her death. Unlike her mother, when Cathy enters The Heights, "those images of unreal security found in her books and Thrushhold Grange are confiscated, thus leading her to scream, "I feel like death!" With the help of Hareton, Cathy learns not to place her love within a self created environment, but in a real life where she will be truly happy. The character’s then reappear as reconciled, and stability and peace once more return to The Heights.
She uses the knowledge that she gathers from each character to control the situation at hand, gaining a unique power over her masters. Nelly makes a fatal error while exercising this power during Cathy’s illness when she elects to withhold crucial information from Edgar. Cathy’s death acts as a catalyst for two other tragic events; Heathcliff’s revilement of Isabella and the kidnapping of Cathy’s daughter. The careful reader of Brontë’s novel should hold Mrs. Dean accountable for Catherine’s death and the subsequent tragedies that directly result because Nelly instigates unnecessary conflict by deliberately using her position in the household to manipulate communication. In this exploration of Nelly’s accountability, her critical role in conflict creation reveals that the power of knowledge transcends the power of class in Wuthering
The basic conflict of the novel that drives Heathcliff and Catherine apart is social. Written after the Industrial Revolution, Wuthering Heights is influenced by the rise of new fortunes and the middle class in England. Money becomes a new criterion to challenge the traditional criterias of class and family in judging a gentleman’s background. Just as Walpole who portrays the tyrannies of the father figure Manfred and the struggles of the Matilda who wants to marry the peasant Theodore, as depicted in the quote “(…) improbability that either father would consent to bestow his heiress on so poor a man, though nobly born”(p. 89), Brontë depicts a brutal bully Hindley who torments Heathcliff and separates Catherine from him. Heathcliff, a gypsy outcast picked u...
As soon as Edgar is introduced into the novel, the two boys are set against each other not only in fighting for Catherine’s love, but also in taking separate sides of the underlying battle between civility and savagery. Throughout the novel, Edgar is presented with civil and reformed characteristics, while Heathcliff is often given the characteristics of savagery━rough, raw. and often animalistic. During times of heightened emotion, he is described as “not like a man, but like a savage beast” (Brontë 163). The night that Catherine gets into a fiery argument with Heathcliff and then becomes engaged to Edgar, there is a distinct moment that captures this stark difference, as Heathcliff is exiting the room, and Edgar is entering. Edgar is described with positive connotations, as a “beautiful fertile valley”, while Heathcliff is a “bleak, hilly, coal country” (Brontë 67). In this way, the narrator characterizes them from her perspective. Heathcliff represents the dark and coarse, while Edgar represents aesthetic
Catherine is trapped between her love of Heathcliff and her love for Edgar, setting the two men down a path of destruction, a whirlwind of anger and resentment that Catherine gets caught in the middle of. Catherine is drawn to Heathcliff because of his fiery personality, their raw attraction and one certainly gets the sense that they are drawn together on a deeper level, that perhaps they are soulmates. C. Day Lewis thought so, when he declared that Heathcliff and Catherine "represent the essential isolation of the soul...two halves of a single soul–forever sundered and struggling to unite." This certainly seems to be backed up in the novel when Catherine exclaims “Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being...” This shows clearly the struggle Catherine feels as she is drawn spiritually to Heathcliff, but also to Edgar for very different reasons. Edgar attracts Catherine predominantly because he is of the right social class. Catherine finds him "handsome, and pleasant to be with," but her feelings for him seem petty when compared to the ones she harbours...
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 destructive force, motivating him to enact revenge and wreak misery. The power of Heathcliff’s destructive love is conquered by the influence of another kind of love. Young Cathy’s love for Hareton is a redemptive force. It is her love that brings an end to the reign of Heathcliff.
(4) Wuthering Heights’s mood is melancholy and tumultuous. As a result, the book gives off a feeling of sorrow and chaos. For example, Catherine’s marriage with Edgar Linton made Heathcliff jealous and angry. In retaliation, Heathcliff married Edgar’s sister, Isabella, to provoke Catherine and Edgar. Heathcliff and Isabella’s marriage ignited a chaotic uproar with Edgar and Catherine because Linton disapproved of Heathcliff’s character, and Catherine loved Heathcliff in spite of being married to Edgar. Inside, Catherine wanted to selfishly keep Heathcliff to herself. Their relationships all had tragic endings because Catherine died giving birth to Edgar’s child. Isabella also died, leaving behind her young son. Heathcliff and Edgar resented each other because of misery they experienced together. The transition of the mood in the story is from chaotic to somber.
During the first half of the book, Catherine showed different types of love for two different people. Her love for Heathcliff was her everything, it was her identity to love and live for Heathcliff but as soon as she found out how society views Heathcliff, she sacrificed their love and married Edgar Linton in the hopes of saving Heathcliff from Hindley and protecting him from the eyes of society. In her conversation with Nelly, Cathy who professed her love for Heathcliff quoted “My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself.” Catherine proved Nelly Dean that the only person who can make her feel pain and sorrow is Heathcliff. The extent of her love was uncovered when she sang her praise of “I am Heathcliff” because this was the turning point in the book that allowed the readers to truly understand and see the depth of Cathy's love for Heathcliff. On the other hand, Catherine's love for Edgar wasn't natural because it was a love that she taught herself to feel. It might have come unknowingly to Cathy but she did love Edgar as she said “My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees.” Cathy knew that it was not impossible to love Edgar for he was a sweet and kind gentleman who showed her the world but unlike ...
Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights, demonstrates a social criticism on women’s power to control their own fate and the ideal women in the nineteenth century. Specifically in Lyn Pykett’s, Changing the Names: The Two Catherines, a strong feminist perspective is explored. In her criticism she goes through many different analyses of Catherine Earnshaw-Linton and her daughter Cathy and what they represent in regard to a women’s power and social expectations in the nineteenth century. Pykett says that the two Catherines represent women’s true nature according to Brontë. Catherine Earnshaw-Linton is faced with the choice between two men but chooses based on what is accepted in her society, the man that can provide her economically, not the man whom she loves. This marriage to Edgar instead of Heathcliff is the source of Catherine’s problems and ultimately her demise. It causes one to question whether it is right to marry for the social aspect or for true love. Young Cathy seems to face the problem her mother has as well but she finds a way to be true to her nature and fight the tyrann...