The Thrill of Terror in Wuthering Heights

A horrific, unsettling, mysterious and perversely thrilling image haunts any thoughts I currently have of Wuthering Heights. A ghastly image of a gentleman, moved by terror to cruelty, bloodstained bed-sheets and the ghostly appearance of the face of a child at a window. Coming, as it does, in the opening stages of the novel, this image and remembrance of it, changed the way I read every succeeding word. It is surprising how little critical work I can find on the subject of this scene, being as it is, I think, very much key to the creation of the oft commented upon 'power' in the novel. Camille Paglia dedicates some thought to it in her Sexual Personae. She argues that 'we, as much as Lockwood are raped and lose our innocence here' (Paglia Sexual Personae p. 452), and I must confess I did feel somewhat violated the first time I read these passages as they come suddenly, violently out of the hazy uncertainty of Lockwood's 'Jabes Branderham dream'.

It is easy to see how the events of Lockwood's evening at Wuthering Heights have translated into this first dream. This establishes a comfortable sense of the reader understanding exactly what is afoot. The Jabes dream is often amusing in its absurdity, 'Jabes had a full and attentive congregation, and he preached - good God! What a sermon: divided into four hundred and ninety parts, and each discussing a separate sin!', which further lulls the reader into a false sense of security. The horrific spectre of Catherine Linton comes into sharp focus immediately after this convoluted, unclear dream and the 'little, cold hand' and 'child's face' are so startling because of this shock factor. It is this sense of the 'intense horror of nightmare' created by the appearance of Catherine's ghost and the depiction of the graphic violence perpetrated by Lockwood on a girl child, that pervade the novel from this point on.

The description of Lockwood's actions makes my blood run cold, and is akin to many modern Japanese horror films in its gory and grotesque violence. 'I pulled its wrist on the broken window pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down the bed-sheets' p36. It is made particularly chilling, I feel by the fact that this action is so out of character for Lockwood. He is a gentleman, and someone from civilised society. This causes me to wonder whether Emily Bronte wanted to suggest that the very walls of Wuthering Heights have absorbed something of the cruelty of it's history, causing inhabitants to become infected by it's brutal disease.