Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
CHARACTERISATION IN THE WUTHERING HEIGHTS
role of social class in wuthering heights
society in the victorian era
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: CHARACTERISATION IN THE WUTHERING HEIGHTS
The Character of Hareton in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights, written by Emile Bronte, is on of the most famous
Victorian novels in English literature. This novel was the only novel
written by her. The novel has the social and moral values in England
in the nineteenth century as the recurring theme. The adjective
‘wuthering’ is used in some parts of rural England to describe stormy
weather. Wuthering Heights is a farmhouse on top of a small hillock,
which is open to all the elements of wind and weather and hence is
synonymous with passion and violence. The other house nearby,
Thrushcross Grange contrasts sharply with Wuthering Heights. The two
groups of people residing here, the Earnshaws in the former and the
Lintons in the latter, are also people with opposing tendencies. Into
this world comes a man alien to both extremes, Heathcliff who is
adopted by the Earnshaws. The whole story revolves around these
characters.
Hareton Earnshaw, son of Frances and Hindley Earnshaw has a small but
important part in the novel. Belonging to the second generation of
characters, he personifies the passionate nature of the Earnshaws and
yet is warm and gentle. Hareton is of a warm and, considering his
situation, a very genial disposition. He owns his own share of the
wild passions that are so common to the Earnshaws, but is forced into
a life of subjugation. He is quite intelligent, but is made to lead a
life of an ignorant by Heathcliff, who after Hindley’s death denied
him any further education. Hareton as a child is wild and unruly,
having a mouthful of foul words. Hareton as young man is still very
rough, though subdued ...
... middle of paper ...
...riendship with
Cathy grows into a strong and mutual love culminating in a marriage.
His love for Cathy is also, like him, pure and innocent. He
transforms, from a shabbily clad ignoramus to a respectably dressed
gentleman. We do not see any of the common Victorian hypocrisy in his
nature. His good character and genial temperament makes him one of the
best characters in the novel.
Hareton’s presence cannot be felt throughout the novel, but he
effectually completes the story. He can be compared to a rough,
unpolished diamond whose shine was not so well perceivable until
another genial soul unearthed it from the mines of ignorance. He is a
shining example of the fact that no matter where the circumstances of
one’s life leads to, they will, sooner or later fall upon the track of
life on which they are supposed to be.
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.
Although certainly not as complex as the character of Heathcliff, Hareton Earnshaw from Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights, is a compelling character in his own right. He is a character who has been raised to be a massive fuck you to the family that he was born into, nonetheless, he seems to have no issue with this, because he loves the man, as a father, who made him this way. Yet, despite his feeling content with being uneducated and acting as a servant to his father figure, regardless of being born into a wealthy family, Hareton eventually makes an effort to effectively change who he is for love. With this in mind, the focus of this essay will be to evaluate how Hareton came to be who he is, and why him changing for love, even if
There is two stereotypical types of families, one where the children learn from their parents behavior and do the same as they grow up, and the other where they dislike – and do the opposite. In Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the characters are quite intricate and engaging. The story takes place in northern England in an isolated, rural area. The main characters of the novel reside in two opposing households: Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. Wuthering Heights is a story of a dynamic love between two people. This love transcends all boundaries, including that over life and death. The author takes parallelism to great extends. Much of the events that happen in the first half of the story correspond to events in the second half; first generation of characters is comparable to the second generation. Many may argue that the characters are duplicates of each other and that they share many traits. Although Catherine Earnshaw and Cathy Linton are mother and daughter, their personalities and lifestyles are very different. This is a great example where the child is and behaves quite different than her mother.
Heathcliff is associated with evil and darkness from the beginning of the novel. "I felt his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows." (1) When Lockwood sees Heathcliff's garden (perhaps a symbol for Heathcliff) "the earth was hard with a black frost the air made me shiver through every limb." (6)
Definitive criteria for judging the success or failure of a work of fiction are not easily agreed upon; individuals almost necessarily introduce bias into any such attempt. Only those who affect an exorbitantly refined artistic taste, however, would deny the importance of poignancy in literary pieces. To be sure, writings of dubious and fleeting merit frequently enchant the public, but there is too the occasional author who garners widespread acclaim and whose works remain deeply affecting despite the passage of time. The continued eminence of the fiction of Emily Bronte attests to her placement into such a category of authors: it is a recognition of her propensity to create poignant and, indeed, successful literature.
Hareton Earnshaw is the only male character in Wuthering Heights who can be called a hero.
The famous saying that from a true love to a great hatred is only a
the novel as a whole ends on a note of hope, peace, and joy, with
is alone and he had to stay in the farm because of the snow. He is
In the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Heathcliff is an orphan boy brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, who has two children of his own already - Catherine and Hindley. Heathcliff changes over the course of his life by the following; Heathcliff begins by getting along well with Catherine Earnshaw, however, Catherine Earnshaw is introduced to Edgar Linton and Heathcliff becomes jealous of their forming relationship, and once Catherine has passed away after delivering Edgar’s child, Heathcliff becomes haunted by her ghost, and wishes to only be united with her in death.
Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Bronte, has 323 pages. The genre of Wuthering Heights is realistic fiction, and it is a romantic novel. The book is available in the school library, but it was bought at Barnes and Nobles. The author’s purpose of writing Wuthering Heights is to describe a twisted and dark romance story. Thus, the author conveys the theme of one of life’s absolute truths: love is pain. In addition, the mood of the book is melancholy and tumultuous. Lastly, the single most important incident of the book is when Heathcliff arrives to Edgar Linton’s residence in the Granges unannounced to see Catherine’s state of health. Heathcliff’s single visit overwhelmed Catherine to the point of death.
First, Wuthering Heights is a contribution to the theme of the novel because it sets the mood for the scenes taken place inside the house. The house is first introduced to the reader during a storm. The house stands alone and the land around it is described as dreary and foreboding, which creates a mood of isolation. “On the bleak Yorkshire moors” describes the Yorkshire moors physical appearance. The estate has little vegetation and is more weathered, which moors are, as they are jutting, bare rocks towards the ocean. Wuthering Heights is an old stone house with gothic architecture and bleak interior. The people that live in Wuthering Heights are bitter and act violent. The characters of the story act wild when they are at Wuthering Heights, compared to other places in the novel. The setting of the house enforces the actions of the Earnshaws’, and Heathcliff. The name of the estate even sets a theme of gloom in the novel. Lockwood says Wuthering is, “a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather” (12).
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.
Often in literature, the fictional written word mimics or mirrors the non-fictional actions of the time. These reflections may be social, historical, biographical, or a combination of these. Through setting, characters, and story line, an author can recreate in linear form on paper some of the abstract concepts and ideas from the world s/he is living in. In the case of Emily Bronte, her novel Wuthering Heights very closely mirrors her own life and the lives of her family members. Bronte's own life emerges on the pages of this novel through the setting, characters, and story line of Wuthering Heights.
Emily Bront, author of Wuthering Heights, grew up in isolation on the desolate moors of Yorkshire, knowing very few people outside of her family. In the book, Bront contradicts the typical form of writing at the time (the romance) and instead composes a subtle attack on romanticism by having no real heroes or villains. She creates only perceivable characters, and adds a bit of a Gothic sense to the whole thing. Bront accomplishes this by presenting us with the anti-romantic personalities of Heathcliff and Edgar, main characters who are brutal and immoral monsters and eventually die in the end.