Liam Cosgrove
AP Literature
Catherine’s Struggle
During the Victorian era, women were viewed as the very opposite of what a man ought to be. In the words of John Stuart Mill, who published a criticism of the way society differentiated between males and females “The female sex was brought up to believe that its ‘ideal of character’ was the very opposite to that of men’s ‘not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others…to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections.’” (171) basically, women were expected to be sweet, docile, and to be treated as more of a possession, than an actual human being, by their husbands. Contrary to that
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However, Catherine is torn between two worlds. On one hand, she longs to be with Heathcliff, her soul mate and childhood friend. Their life together, growing up and playing on the moors, represents the freedom and innocence of childhood that despite the class gap between them, allowed for them to continue their bond. On the other hand, she recognizes what a marriage to Edgar can do for her socially, and she enjoys those things that Edgar can provide for her. Ultimately, she is self-absorbed and self-centered, and although she claims to love both Heathcliff and Edgar, she loves herself more, and this selfish love ends up hurting everyone who cares for her. “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and [Edgar’s] is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” (63). Despite this quote, Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar Linton out of a desire to be “the greatest woman of the neighborhood” exemplifies the effect of social considerations on the characters’ actions. Catherine is also affected psychologically in her decision to marry Edgar Linton. “‘Don’t you see that face?’ She enquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror. And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl.” This quote shows that Catherine is unable to even recognize herself after her decision to marry Edgar, she is perhaps seeing a future version of herself, and Catherine is horrified upon seeing the face and on instinct assumes it to be a ghost. Perhaps this means that Catherine sees that by making the decision to marry Edgar, she has in turn, sealed her
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
By all means, the character of Edgar’s opinion can be justly supported by the writer of this paper. Edgar in his own rights may feel that Catherine uses her emotions to prove her point because he is her husband and he loves her. It is evident from the plot that he fears her, and readily
Which drew Catherine towards him; she describes him as “handsome”, “pleasant to be with,” and “cheerful,” and “rich”. Linton turns Catherine from a wild child to a well-mannered lady. They meet when Catherine got bit by a dog, and then the Lintons take her in while she is healing, this lasts for five weeks. Edgar tames her in a way, his overall persona clashes with hers in a perfect way. His love gives Catherine safety a security in the society. Heathcliff on the other hand is almost obsessed and can't give her the attributes she needs and wants; such as, commitment and how he won't sacrifice anything. However, those exact qualities attract Catherine to him. “She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us on his account.”(Brontë 41) According to Levy, “As a result of the Unlove that they were made to suffer, both Heathcliff and Catherine, by opposite means and in distinct circumstances, turn loneliness into a community of rejection over which they wield absolute control. Heathcliff does this by persecuting those he hates; Catherine, by persecuting those she loves.” Edgar and Heathcliff have a good angel bad angel complex, of course Heathcliff is the bad angel and Edgar is the good angel. The reasons behind this is simply the characteristics portrayed;Edgar
At a young age, she defies her father and brother “with bold saucy looks,” and “ready words.” Throughout her life, they were the ones who tried to control her to be what they want her to be. She becomes friends with Heathcliff and they go out and do things that they want. Her brother was “entirely negligent how they behaved.” Her brother did not approve that Catherine and Heathcliff spent a lot of time together; so he arranged for Katherine to marry Edgar. Katherine, even when she is married, goes out and pursues her freedom. Heathcliff returns after a few years and wants to see Katherine. Edgar disapproves and wants Heathcliff out. Edgar walked out the room and Katherine “slammed the door and locked it.” Katherine was upset that Edgar talked to Heathcliff in the way that he did and that he wasn’t as happy as she was when Heathcliff showed up. A few chapters’ later, Catherine and Heathcliff ran away together. By doing so, Katherine escaped the wicked demands from a man she did not love and freed herself from the submission of a male with a higher status. After Catherine dies, another female is put in her same position. Isabella, Edgar’s sister, arrives back with Heathcliff and wants to see her brother. He disowns her and her now husband, Heathcliff, is not the man she imagined he was. Heathcliff is more violent and that no dangerous animal can “not rouse terror” in her like Heathcliff. Edgar’s daughter, Catherine, is the third female to witness his demanding behavior. She wants to visit her cousin and he denies her of that. Like her mother, Catherine goes against Edgar by writing letters to her cousin, Linton. Linton falls ill, and begs Catherine to visits him. While she’s there, he states that Catherine harmed him, and that he’s worse because of it. She’s upset and thinks it’s her fault, and Linton uses that to his advantages.
The story of social class in Wuthering Heights is no less paramount and essential to the novel. There are two high class families in the novel, The Lintons and the Earnshaws. Both families are of the aristocracy, and they make it apparent from their manners and action towards the people of the lower class. Both families, like many rich people today and of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century, believe that the only people good enough to associate with them or on a romantic level are those of noble birth. This becomes an issue in the novel when Heathcliff comes to live with Catherine and Hindley. While Catherine isn’t particularly fond of Heathcliff at first, she becomes emotionally attached to him, and he becomes a great source of happiness for her. This leads into a problematic issue and a love triangle between Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff. The feelings that Catherine faces lead into love and a difficult question she must conclude with. Should she hold true to family values and forget the romantic fondness with Heathcliff? Or follow in her true instinct of love and neglect the option of tradition? Although immediately after Catherine’s decision of doing what is “rational” and marries Edgar, she clarifies to Nelly, the housekeeper, that her reason for doing this is because, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff…” (81). These previous
Catherine first becomes exposed to the opposing forces as she experiments with her desires for love and a better quality of life. *6* Because she constantly shifts priorities from one man to the other, her love for Heathcliff and Edgar results in a destructive disequilibrium. *1*In the novel, Cathy is portrayed as a lady with untamable emotions. *7* In her childhood she learns to l...
“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods; time will change it… My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath... Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” This quote from Catherine explains her love for both men, even though one is stronger than the other. Her love for Edgar is superficial. Edgar Linton is made to feel helpless when Catherine falls into a catatonic depression, after she is alerted that Heathcliff and Isabella eloped. He was gullible to Catherine's love, even if it was not a full devotion to him. She needed to keep up her responsibility as Edgar's wife, and not let herself fall for Heathcliff. Similarly to what Eleanor Roosevelt said, “And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility”
The complicated nature surrounding Heathcliff’s motives again adds an additional degree of ambiguity to his character. This motivation is primarily driven by Catherine’s marriage to Edgar and past rejection of Heathcliff, since he was a servant whom Hindley disapproved of. Prior to storming out of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff overhears Catherine say, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now…” (Brontë 87). The obstacles that ultimately prevent Heathcliff from marrying Catherine provide insight into Heathcliff’s desire to bring harm to Edgar and Hindley. The two men play prominent roles in the debacle, Edgar as the new husband and Hindley as the head figure who refused Heathcliff access to Catherine. Following this incident, Catherine says, “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…” (Brontë 87). Catherine’s sentiment indicates she truly would rather be with Heathcliff, but the actions of others have influenced her monumental decision to marry Edgar. Furthermore, Heathcliff is motivated to not only ruin Edgar’s livelihood, but also gain ownership of his estate, Thrushcross Grange. This becomes clear when Heathcliff attempts to use Isabella
The situation is terrible: Catherine is married to a man she does not love and she is more than happy to fix the problem by cheating on her husband with Heathcliff. The situation worsens when she refuses to attempt to conceal this from her husband. As Edgar, her husband, is arriving and Heathcliff, her lover, is leaving, she tells Heathcliff “‘You must not go!” (Bronte 103). Then, acting as the voice of reason, Catherine’s servant asks Heathcliff: “‘Will you ruin her, because she has not wit to help herself?’” (Bronte 103). When Heathcliff stays, it shows a lack of empathy and just how blatantly they do not care about the effects of their immoral actions. This will irreparably “ruin” Catherine’s reputation, yet they do not have the foresight to cease or at least conceal their actions. Their blatant disregard for how their actions might affect the future and hurt Edgar is what makes Catherine and Heathcliff grossly
Furthermore, the love that Heathcliff’s young niece and nephew share is one that echoes that of what his and Catherine’s love could have been, which provides even more ground for the fiend to tyrannize the two. The semblence in their relationships can be seen in comparable scenes, the first of which recounts Catherine uttering, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now…” (74) Later, Heathcliff pronounces apropos of Cathy caring for Hareton, “Your love will make him an outcast, and a beggar.” (299) The similarities between their two relationships is therefore outlined in their alluded elements of shame and social degradation that can be found in both occasions , and this likeness further agitates the aching heart of Wuthering Height’s antagonist.
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.
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...
Heathcliff and Catherine have loved each other since their childhood. Initially, Catherine scorned the little gypsy boy; she showed her distaste by “spitting” at him (Brontë 27). However, it was not long before Heathcliff and Catherine became “very think” (Brontë 27). They became very close friends; they were practically brother and sister (Mitchell 122). Heathcliff is intent upon pleasing Catherine. He would “do her bidding in anything” (Brontë 30). He is afraid of “grieving” her (Brontë 40). Heathcliff finds solace and comfort in Catherine’s company. When Catherine is compelled to stay at Thrushcross Grange to recover from her injury, she returns as “a very dignified person” (Brontë 37). Her association with the gente...
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 ...