The Presentation of Childhood in "Wuthering Heights"

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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 nature, as seen in chapter 17, “in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity” there is hyperbole and melodrama as the cruelty that stemmed from his abuse in childhood has been passed onto Isabella in adulthood.

In chapter three, Lockwood opens a window to Catherine Earnshaws childhood through perusing through her books “Catherine’s library was select…scarcely one chapter had escaped a pen-and-ink commentary…scrawled in an unformed childish hand” we can see that her collection of books was limited but nevertheless well used. Two voices also come to the fore one being Lockwood’s and the other the autobiographical elements of Emily Brontë’s voice, ‘pen-and-ink commentary’ and ‘unformed childish’ the pre-modifiers reveal that the Brontë sisters also wrote in the margins of the novels they owned as paper was a scarce material.

However, Heathcliff as a child was a complete opposite to Cathy “Rough as a saw-edge…hard as whinstone” these similes show a hardened Heathcliff through a lifetime of abuse...

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...he power to depart, as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten” a window motif can be seen here, as Edgar has been pushed on the outside of Wuthering Heights while Cathy remains inside her home. A change is signalled in that Edgar is likely to ask Cathy to marry him, for her cannot take his eyes off her or leave her side for one second. The plosives ‘possessed…power’ emphasise the choice that Edgar has to go back to the Grange or stay with the girl he loves, and the simile ‘as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed’ shows Brontë making a comparison to emphasise that Edgar would rather stay with Cathy even though she has just hit him moments early in a flurry of passion, this also shows that Edgar is easily swayed to make decisions without much persistence or effort from anyone.

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