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Romance in the Victorian Era
Treatment of the theme of love in Wuthering Heights
Treatment of the theme of love in Wuthering Heights
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Recommended: Romance in the Victorian Era
Wuthering Heights
The problem of love in Wuthering Heights centers on the main characters Heathcliff and Catherine, the daughter of Mr. Earnshaw. Emily Bronte presents love in her novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ as a problem. A problem of two lovers united by love but separated by different desires in life. The novel describes how Catherine and Heathcliff would stay in the moors throughout the day and not care about being punished by Catherine’s elder brother Hindler. The moment they were with each other, they forgot all their problems. (Bronte, chapter 5). Heathcliff’s and Catherine’s romantic love is depicted as a secret kind of love reflected in great romantic tragedies like Romeo and Juliet, giving it an element of Victorian literature. These two lovers meticulously plan their meetings and pass love notes to each other. They enjoy each other’s company, spending many hours on the moors, not wanting to be apart. It is a wild kind of love, filled with insatiable passion and unrelenting.
In the novel, Heathcliff repeatedly refers to Catherine as ‘my soul’. This kind of love is tragic as it depicts two halves of one soul, struggling to unite. The tragedy of their love begins when Catherine is drawn towards the enchanting life at the Thrushcross Grange. She wants to live among the upper class in society and have the good life. When she comes back to Wuthering Heights after spending months at the Thrushcross Grange, she hardly recognizes Heathcliff.
In the novel, he is depicted to be unkempt, black and dirty. His clothes, not having seen water in three months and smelling of dirt. (Bronte, chapter 7). Catherine had changed and Heathcliff notices how white and soft her hands were because of doing no work. (Bronte, chapter 7). Catherine lau...
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...e comes off as a schemer with an obsessive plan to revenge on Hindley’s family, Edgar’s family and all their children. Catherine on the other hand has changed in that she has realized that she made a big mistake by marrying Edgar and wishes to die, in order to have the freedom of being with Heathcliff.
The problem of love further comes out when Catherine dies. Heathcliff is deeply affected and is seen banging his head on a tree. He is haunted by Catherine everywhere and feels a deep-seated emptiness. In chapter 34, he roams the moors like a mad man, seeing Catherine. Ironically, he is happy as he feels attached to Catherine. He finally dies in Catherine’s room. These two lovers finally unite in death, their souls becoming one. In conclusion in Wuthering Heights, love has been depicted as an element that could bring insanity, evoke revenge but however win in the end.
Misfit or Savior Should The Misfit be perceived as an evil, psychotic hoodlum as portrayed in the story, or does he save us from hearing any more religious rhetoric from the grandmother? “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” repeatedly preaches morality while giving readers the illusion that the Misfit is possibly a dark angel, in fact, the Misfit simply kills the family in order to prevent the family from giving away his route of escape. Ultimately, the act of saving one’s own life by killing cannot be judged as being wrong, the Misfit saves himself along with his supposed criminal counterparts, Bobby Lee and Hiram. The story provides no evidence or background on what crimes the Misfit and his gang have committed, therefore, the reader must not view them as being heartless animals. This essay will attempt to persuade the reader to understand the motives of the Misfit, hopefully depict him as a savior for ending the grandmother’s religious jargon, and disprove that he resembled any religious character.
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.
Heathcliff's love for Catherine transcends the normal physical "true love" into spiritual love. He can withstand anything against him to be with her. After Hindley became the master of Wuthering Heights, he flogged Heathcliff like a slave. Although Heathcliff could have simply run away, his decision to endure the physical pains shows his unrelenting devotion to Catherine. Fortunately, Catherine feels as deeply for Heathcliff as he does for her, explaining to Nelly that "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…" Their love for each other is so passionate that they can not possibly live apart. At Catherine's death, Heathcliff hopes that she will not rest, but will haunt him until he dies. This absurdity contradicts the traditional norm that one should pray that the dead rest in peace. Near the end of the novel, we learn that Catherine has haunted Heathcliff, allowing him only fleeting glances of her. This shows that despite their physical separation, nothing can part them spiritually. When Heathcliff dies and unites with Catherine once again, the neighbors see them haunt the moors. We finally see the power of their love; Not only does this love transcend physical barriers, it transcends time as well...
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
Heathcliff is a character who was abused in his childhood by Catherine’s brother, Hindley, because of his heritage as a “gypsy”, and Hindley was jealous of the love that Heathcliff got from Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley’s father. This is also selfishness upon Hindley’s part since he only wanted his father’s love for his sister and himself. So to reprimand Heathcl...
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.
“I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine”. (Brontë 156) Since the beginning of time, love is something all aspire to attain. It has shown through novels, movies, plays, and songs, however not all love is the same. In Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights, published in 1847, characters illustrate through disputes that occur, deception and selfishness. This is illustrated through the events of; Heathcliff's hunger for revenge, Edgar Linton's impact on Catherine in comparison to Heathcliff, and Heathcliff’s deception on all characters.
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.
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.
(4) Wuthering Heights’s mood is melancholy and tumultuous. As a result, the book gives off a feeling of sorrow and chaos. For example, Catherine’s marriage with Edgar Linton made Heathcliff jealous and angry. In retaliation, Heathcliff married Edgar’s sister, Isabella, to provoke Catherine and Edgar. Heathcliff and Isabella’s marriage ignited a chaotic uproar with Edgar and Catherine because Linton disapproved of Heathcliff’s character, and Catherine loved Heathcliff in spite of being married to Edgar. Inside, Catherine wanted to selfishly keep Heathcliff to herself. Their relationships all had tragic endings because Catherine died giving birth to Edgar’s child. Isabella also died, leaving behind her young son. Heathcliff and Edgar resented each other because of misery they experienced together. The transition of the mood in the story is from chaotic to somber.
The basic conflict of the novel that drives Heathcliff and Catherine apart is social. Written after the Industrial Revolution, Wuthering Heights is influenced by the rise of new fortunes and the middle class in England. Money becomes a new criterion to challenge the traditional criterias of class and family in judging a gentleman’s background. Just as Walpole who portrays the tyrannies of the father figure Manfred and the struggles of the Matilda who wants to marry the peasant Theodore, as depicted in the quote “(…) improbability that either father would consent to bestow his heiress on so poor a man, though nobly born”(p. 89), Brontë depicts a brutal bully Hindley who torments Heathcliff and separates Catherine from him. Heathcliff, a gypsy outcast picked u...
The scene above truly grasps the idea of Romanticism because Heathcliff is showing his emotions and individuality. His desire to be with Catherine is so powerful that he allows himself to disturb the peace and have enough space available for him to occupy after he has passed. This is very unusual because there are not any characters similar to Heathcliff in this text. This scene makes Heathcliff even more difficult to analyze but at the end we learn that the only thing he sincerely wanted throughout the text was to...
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 ...
In the novel Wuthering Heights, the dark and mysterious Heathcliff once began his life with an open heart, but after mistreatment from Edgar and Hindley he turns to revenge. Heathcliff's actions are reasonable; he has been hurt from the unfair reason of discrimination. Heathcliff slowly becomes sickly obsessed with planning an elaborate revenge after eavesdropping a conversation between his beloved Catherine to Nelly. He hears his young beautiful and idolized Catherine say, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff” (77). Heathcliff, heartbroken and hopeless, abruptly leaves Wuthering Height for two years. Catherine is left wondering where he is. Heathcliff leaves in search of revenge.