Emily Bronte and D.H Lawrence's Exploration of Social Class

Social class plays a very significant part in my core text, ‘Wuthering Heights’ and also my partner text , ‘Sons and Lovers’ because it helps the reader determine a sense of character and plays a massive part in the reader finding the true depth of a character. Social class in both novels is determined by location and the origin of the characters, as in ‘Wuthering Heights’ we see that Heathcliff is considered as abnormal and known as having a lower social class because of the uncertainty of his origin. Also in ‘Sons and Lovers’ we see the battle and life between a refined woman of middle class aspirations to a low class hard working miner and their son who discovers a ne conflict of loyalties after many years of taking after his mother. The main female characters in the novels which are Catherine, Cathy and Gertrude have much of the focus of the novels which shows their difficult decisions based on social class, but the other women who are Isabella and Annie are in many ways unessential. The novels reflect how women were viewed in the Victorian era which was inferior to men, thus placing severe limits on women’s aspirations. The main female characters in both novels represent the frustrated, ambitious women who are forced to do and say bad things to climb the social ladder. The stories display their passion which was reviewed negatively in the Victorian era which shows how important social class was to everyone. In Victorian times social class was decided by whom people had married and the location they lived in and people were judged on what they had, this is shown in ‘Wuthering Heights; because Catherine makes a decision on whom to marry based on the men’s social status.

Wuthering Heights is portrayed as a house with low ...

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...rine has just accepted Edgar’s marriage proposal and is confessing her true feelings to Nelly.

‘My love for Linton is like the foliage in the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary.’ During the conversation between Catherine and Nelly, Catherine contrasts her love for Edgar which is shown as temporal to that for Heathcliff which is shown as eternal, and when she identifies herself with Heathcliff, she ally’s herself with a different material which is rocks verses foliage and this links to the natural imagery used in the novel of Catherine and Edgar being of different essences, so her decision to marry Edgar is a shock to the reader and she only marries Edgar because it would result in her living in Thrushcross Grange which embodies her goal to become higher in the social class scale.