Throughout the history of literature, there have always been many tragic lovers: Daisy and Jay from The Great Gatsby and Hamlet and Ophelia from Hamlet are only two examples. However, they may be no other couple as tragic as Heathcliff and Catherine of Wuthering Heights. The two lovers' souls are one and the same, yet they were born worlds apart. Heathcliff, a servant at Wuthering Heights, can never have Catherine, his mistress. The hopelessness of his situation drives Heathcliff from anger and frustration, to tyranny, and finally to madness. The 1939 release of the film version of Wuthering Heights demonstrates this theme exceptionally. The mise-en-scène of the 1939 release of Wuthering Heights demonstrates the theme of the novel, the unfairness of the social caste system, even better than the novel does.
The first scene in the movie that demonstrates the difference between the world Cathy wants and the world she has with Heathcliff is when the two go to spy on Thrushcross Grange, home of the Linton family. The two peer into the window of the manor while their neighbours are enjoying a ball. Catherine sighs and asks Heathcliff, "Isn't it wonderful? ...That's the kind of dress I'll wear. And you'll wear a red velvet coat with silver buckles on your shoes. Oh, Heathcliff, will we? Will we ever?" (Wuthering Heights).
Heathcliff and Catherine spy on the Linton's ball.
Heathcliff only remains silent in response; he knows he cannot grant her wish with what he has now. This scene shows how powerless Heathcliff at that moment: he wants nothing more than for Catherine to be happy, yet he knows he cannot give her that happiness. What Catherine wants is the life of a gentlewoman, like the ladies dancing at the Lintons' ball. Being a ...
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...rld as the Lintons.
While both the movie and the novel demonstrate the theme of the injustice of the social caste system, the movie uses mise-en-scène to portray the theme very forcibly and clearly. In each scene, Heathcliff always falls short of being able to grant Catherine’s wishes, a feat that Linton accomplishes easily. She is from a different social class; she is so far from him, she may as well be in a different world. They both have the same fiery, passionate soul, but fate has torn them away from each other. No matter how hard Heathcliff struggles, he can neither attain his happiness, nor grant Catherine hers. It is the unfairness of the social caste system that make these two characters such tragic lovers.
Works Cited
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. London: Bantam Books, 1981. Print.
Wuthering Heights. Dir. Wyler William. United Artists, 1939. Film.
In "Wuthering Heights," we see tragedies follow one by one, most of which are focused around Heathcliff, the antihero of the novel. After the troubled childhood Heathcliff goes through, he becomes embittered towards the world and loses interest in everything but Catherine Earnshaw –his childhood sweetheart whom he had instantly fallen in love with.—and revenge upon anyone who had tried to keep them apart.
In Wuthering Heights, it described vividly the goal of Heathcliff and Catherine, who wanted to be with one and another. However, when Catherine rejected Heathcliff, he turned his potential of dream of good into evil. It also reflected the Heathcliff was prejudged by Mrs. Earnshaw, Hindley, Edgar, Mr. and Mrs. Linton. It also showed that love and hate between Heathcliff and Catherine made their relationships quite intense.
In the gothic novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the author hides motifs within the story.The novel contains two major love stories;The wild love of Catherine, and Heathcliff juxtaposing the serene love of Cathy,and Hareton. Catherine’s and Heathcliff's love is the center of Emily Bronte’s novel ,which readers still to this day seem to remember.The characters passion, and obsession for each other seems to not have been enough ,since their love didn't get to thrive. Hareton and Cathy’s love is what got to develop. Hareton’s and Cathy’s love got to workout ,because both characters contained a characteristic that both characters from the first generation lacked: The ability to change .Bronte employs literary devices such as antithesis of ideas, and the motif of repetition to reveal the destructiveness of wild love versus a domestic love.
The initial downward spiral of Heathcliff’s life was predominantly caused by harsh influences in the environment in which he was raised. Heathcliff, an adopted child, grew up in Wuthering Heights, a desolate and dystopian estate when compared to the beauty of the neighboring Thrushcross Grange. In childhood, Heathcliff displayed evidence of a sympathetic personality through his emotional attachment to Catherine and kind attitude towards Nelly. At the time of Mr. Earnshaw’s death, Nelly describes a scene where, “Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she
Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is a novel about lives that cross paths and are intertwined with one another. Healthcliff, an orphan, is taken in by Mr. Earnshaw, the owner of Wuthering Heights. Mr. Earnshaw has two children named Catherine and Hindley. Jealousy between Hindley and Healthcliff was always a problem. Catherine loves Healthcliff, but Hindley hates the stranger for stealing his fathers affection away. Catherine meets Edgar Linton, a young gentleman who lives at Thrushcross Grange. Despite being in love with Healthcliff she marries Edgar elevating her social standing. The characters in this novel are commingled in their relationships with Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.
Her selfishness lies within the reality that she married Linton for the things he could have provided for her. Nothing parted Catherine and Heathcliff. Not God, nor Satan, it was Catherine herself – Catherine was the cause of her broken heart. Along with breaking her heart, she also broke Heathcliff’s, which led him to loathe and yearn for vengeance against what Heathcliff thought was the cause of Catherine’s death – her daughter.
Heathcliff and Cathy have a sadistic relationship. They are only truly in love when they are hurting each other. As Catherine lay dying, she wants Heathcliff, her love, to join her in death. She pleads to him:
...ctive. Catherine is pushed to death and Heathcliff to brutal revenge, bordering on the psychotic. Yet before Cathy’s death, the knowledge that the other loves them is strong enough to make Wuthering Heights such a classic love story, and “that old man by the kitchen fire affirming he has seen two of 'em looking out of his chamber window, on every rainy night since his death,” shows that as they walk together on the moors, their self destruction may have led them to death, but also to what they most desired-being together.
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 ...
The sympathetic part of Heathcliff shows through when he sees Catherine in the beginning stages of her sickness after childbirth. “He neither spoke, nor loosed his hold, for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I dare say…” (159). The sympathetic part of Heathcliff kicks in when he sees the woman he loves dying right before him. Heathcliff began to ask Catherine the questions he had not been able to ask her before, whether it had been due to his pride or to his absence - was insignificant., “‘...You loved me - then what right had you to leave me? What right - answer me - for the poor fancy you felt for Linton?” (162). When the novel begins, it is mentioned that Heathcliff is shouting, “‘Come in! Come in!’ he sobbed. ‘Cathy, do come. Oh do - once more! Oh! My heart’s darling, hear me this time - Catherine, at last!’” (28). Heathcliff attempts to get Catherine’s ghost to speak to him, because his main goal is to be united with her in death. Heathcliff’s character changes relatively fast when he sees Catherine dying in her bed. There is a sympathetic side shown that has not been quite expressed before, and also the feelings that Heathcliff kept bottled
(2) Emily Bronte’s purpose in writing Wuthering Heights is to depict unfulfilled love in a tragic romance novel and hence the theme of Wuthering Heights is love is pain. Emily Bronte reveals an important life lesson that love is not sufficient for happiness and if anything, stirs up more agony. This message is important because, although it is difficult to accept, the message is devastatingly honest. In Wuthering Heights, two characters named Heathcliff and Catherine loved each other immensely. However, their pride and adamance disabled them from making any progress on their romantic relationship. In fact, Heathcliff and Catherine purposely hurt each another through reckless and cruel actions. The author is exemplifying a recurring theme in history that love is associated with pain. The message allows readers to be aware that love is not constant perfection and happiness.
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.
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.
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.
In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte strongly emphasizes the dynamic and increasingly complex relationship of Mr. Heathcliff and Catherine. Heathcliff, the abandoned gypsy boy is brought to Wuthering Height by Mr. Earnshaw to be raised with his family. After Mr. Earnshaw's death, he suffers harsh abuses from his "brother" Hindley and from Catherine, whom he dearly loves. This abuse will pave the way for revenge. The evolving and elaborate plans for revenge Mr. Heathcliff masterminds for those who he feels had hurt him and betray him is what makes Wuthering Heights a classic in English literature. The sudden change in feelings and emotions in Mr. Heathcliff are powerful scenes. Revenge becomes the only reason to live for him. Revenge is the main theme in Wuthering Heights because it highlights important events, personality flaws, and the path of destruction.