Wuthering Heights Archetypes

792 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Characterisation In The Wuthering Heights

Over the course of history, many cultural works, whether it be a written book or a captured film, portray the timeless archetype of the constant struggle between good versus evil. In the novel Wuthering Heights, the inhabitants of the different estates are altered by the auras and atmospheres. Archetypes are like blueprints that many stories follow and cause them to be considered classics. In the novel written by Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights exemplifies the theme of good versus evil using the different houses. Wuthering Heights, which is the embodiment of evil, and Thrushcross Grange, which symbolizes virtue, have a transformative effect on the characters by altering their personalities when the characters cross the thresholds of the different …show more content…

Cathy II and Linton tease Hareton: ‘“[Hareton] does not know his letters,’ [Linton] said to [Cathy]. ‘Could you believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce?’ ‘Is he all as he should be?’ asked Miss Cathy seriously” (Bronte 170). “Not know[ing] his letters” reflects the horrible and inhumane treatment of Hareton. Most servants know their basic letters, but Hareton is not granted this right by the master of Wuthering Heights. “Miss Cathy,” in her prim and proper upbringing is unable to comprehend the fact that there is an uneducated person present and mocks Hareton. The “colossal dunce” has had the misfortune of being uneducated, and is relegated to a position even lower than a servant. Cathy is visiting Wuthering Heights and quickly becomes wicked, joining in on …show more content…

Hindley’s wife, Frances, lives at Wuthering Heights for a short period of time: “[Frances’] affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley grew tyrannical” (Bronte 37). Frances was kind at the beginning of her stay at Wuthering Heights, but “tired very soon” since the estate was transforming her. When Frances grows peevish, it represents changes imposed upon her. Anyone would become irritated if they were slowly changing. Hindley, noticing this change, “grew tyrannical” in an effort to stop the change; however, Hindley’s transformation aided the transformations caused by Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff has been living at Wuthering Heights for several years now and he has been transformed into a nearly unrecognizable creature of darkness: “[Heathcliff] seized [Cathy] with the liberated hand, and, pulling her on his knee, administered with the other a shower of slaps on both sides of the head” (Bronte 207). The “liberated hand” shows the freedom that is taken from Cathy by Heathcliff. Heathcliff showers “slaps on both sides” of Cathy’s head, showing Cathy’s helplessness in the face of evil. The physical abuse of women calmly and swiftly doled out by Heathcliff is shocking to the readers since that is one boundary that should not be crossed. There have been hints of other instances of abuse by Heathcliff, but

Show More
Related

  • Analysis of Susan Jaret McKinstry’s Desire’s Dreams: Power and Passion in Wuthering Heights

    660 Words  | 2 Pages

    In a place where law and social rules do not seem to apply due to isolation from society, childish and primitive instincts begin to be unrepressed, with wilder acts of violence showing savage emotions and actions in order to fulfill desires. As McKinstry claims, the characters are living in a world where “fantasy and desire overcome adult laws of reality and order” (McKinstry 142). This isolated environment leads to many acts of socially intolerable violence, such as physical harming of others and the putting of more helpless lives in danger. Unacceptable cruelty is apparent from the very beginning of the novel, when Heathcliff is first brought to the Earnshaw manor and is treated as an inferior being by being called “it” by Nelly and…… One of the most absurd examples of this is when Hindley is retrieving Hareton from Nelly during one of his common drunken o...

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Wuthering Heights

    995 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hindley’s obstructive actions, imposed on Heathcliff’s life, expand an internal anger that arouses as Heathcliff’s time at Wuthering Heights draws to a close. The negligent and condemnatory conditions advanced by Hindley transform Heathcliff’s futuristic outcome and supply him with motives to carry out vengeance on multiple personalities involved in the plot. Heathcliff’s troubled social environment renders it difficult to determine the ethical legitimacy behind his decisions, contributing to the moral ambiguity of his

    Read More

  • The Country Setting in Wuthering Heights

    584 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wuthering Heights is a classic in which Emily Bronte presents two opposite settings using the country setting. Country settings are often used as a place of virtue and peace or of ignorance and one of primitivism as believed by many city dwellers. But, in the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte has used Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights to depict isolation and separation. Wuthering Heights setting is wild, passionate, and strong and Thrushcross Grange and its inhabitants are calm, harshly strict, and refined and these two opposite forces struggle throughout the novel.

    Read More

  • Wuthering Heights Essay

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    The relation between Hindley and Heathcliff plays a major role in Heathcliff’s social status. Hindley happens to despise Heathcliff because he was adopted by his father and received special treatment which Hindley longed to receive. Perhaps, this triggers Hindley jealousy and hatred towards and ...

    Read More

  • Interweaving Characters and Surroundings in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

    1715 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Selfishness in "Wuthering Heights"

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Events that Affect Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights

    398 Words  | 1 Pages

    From the beginning of the novel and most likely from the beginning of Heathcliff's life, he has suffered pain and rejection. When Mr. Earnshaw brings him to Wuthering Heights, he is viewed as a thing rather than a child. Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out the doors, while Nelly put it on the landing of the stairs hoping that it would be gone the next day. Without having done anything to deserve rejection, Heathcliff is made to feel like an outsider. Following the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff suffers cruel mistreatment at the hands of Hindley. In these tender years, he is deprived of love, friendship, and education, while the treatment from jealous Hindley is barbaric and disrupts his mental balance. He is separated from the family, reduced to the status of a servant, undergoes regular beatings and forcibly separated from his soul mate, Catherine. The personality that Heathcliff develops in his adulthood has been formed in response to these hardships of his childhood.

    Read More

  • The Presentation of Childhood in "Wuthering Heights"

    1832 Words  | 4 Pages

    The presentation of childhood is a theme that runs through two generations with the novel beginning to reveal the childhood of Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, and with the arrival of the young Liverpudlian orphan, Heathcliff. In chapter four, Brontë presents Heathcliff’s bulling and abuse at the hands of Hindley as he grows increasingly jealous of Heathcliff for Mr. Earnshaw, his father, has favoured Heathcliff over his own son, “my arm, which is black to the shoulder” the pejorative modifier ‘black’ portrays dark and gothic associations but also shows the extent of the abuse that Heathcliff as a child suffered from his adopted brother. It is this abuse in childhood that shapes Heathcliff’s attitudes towards Hindley and his sadistic nature, as seen in chapter 17, “in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity” there is hyperbole and melodrama as the cruelty that stemmed from his abuse in childhood has been passed onto Isabella in adulthood.

    Read More

  • The Power of Love in Wuthering Heights

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    Young Cathy’s love for Hareton is a redemptive force. It is her love that brings an end to the reign of Heathcliff. 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).

    Read More

  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    (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.

    Read More

  • The Castle of Otranto and Wuthering Heights: Love Beyond Classes, Life, and Death

    1195 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Analysis of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

    518 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Wuthering Heights is a strange, inartistic story”(Atlas, WH p. 299).  “Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book” (Douglas, WH p.301).  “This is a strange book” (Examiner, WH p.302).  “His work [Wuthering Heights] is strangely original” (Britannia, WH p.305).  These brief quotes show that early critics of Emily Bronte’s first edition of Wuthering Heights, found the novel baffling in its meaning - they each agreed separately, that no moral existed within the story therefore it was deemed to have no real literary value.   The original critical reviews had very little in the way of praise for the unknown author or the novel.  The critics begrudgingly acknowledged elements of Wuthering Heights that could be considered strengths – such as, “rugged power” and “unconscious strength” (Atlas, WH p.299), “purposeless power” (Douglas, WH p.301), “evidences of considerable power” (Examiner), “power and originality” (Britannia, WH p.305).  Strange and Powerful are two recurring critical interpretations of the novel.   The critics did not attempt to provide in depth analysis of the work, simply because they felt that the meaning or moral of the story was either entirely absent or seriously confused.

    Read More

  • Wuthering Heights: The Power to Transform

    1438 Words  | 3 Pages

    The protagonist of the novel, Heathcliff, was shown to have gone through the biggest transformation. In the beginning of the novel, Heathcliff is an orphan brought home to live with a high-class family. He is described as “a dirty, ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk…yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand” (Bronte page 36).Although, Mr. Earnshaw tried to make Heathcliff an equal part of the family, Heathcliff never truly fits in. Heathcliff is from a complete different social class than the rest of his “family”. This led to the hatred that Hindley felt towards Heathcliff. Hindley robs Heathcliff of his education, forces him to work as a servant at Wuthering Heights and frequently beats him. Throughout this all, Heathcliff never complains. He receives his punishment silently, all the while planning his revenge. After he runs away, Heathcliff is barely recognizable. Nelly said, “… I was amazed, more than ever, to behold the transformation of Heathcliff. He had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man…” (Bronte page 85). Although it is unknown how, it is apparen...

    Read More

  • The Relationship Between Hindley And Heathcliff

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    When Hindley is drunk, Heathcliff “cheat[s] Mr. Hindley”(63) at cards. This is part of Heathcliff’s revenge on Hindley. Eventually, Hindley has to mortgage Wuthering Heights in order to pay his debts, and Heathcliff is able to gain possession of Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff tells Cathy, Catherine and Edgar’s daughter, that Linton, his son, “is on his deathbed”(255) and that she should come visit him. Cathy feels obligated to go help Linton, so she and Nelly go to Wuthering Heights. Once they arrive, Heathcliff locks them in and tells them “you shall not quit this place till it is fulfilled”(261); implying that they will not be able to leave until Cathy marries Linton. Heathcliff wants them to marry so that he can get the inheritance. While Heathcliff gains money from his connections, d Cathy and Hindley loses their inheritance, money, and

    Read More

  • Theme Of Social Class In Wuthering Heights

    1518 Words  | 4 Pages

    At first, the children of Wuthering Heights (Hindley, Cathy, Nelly) all rejected him for his appearance as a gypsy- they thought of him as knavish, grimy, and uneducated. Despite this, Mr. Earnshaw treated with a certain respect by letting him live as with the Earnshaws while still being an outsider to the family. Yet the spectrum of hostility didn’t end with the children. Mrs. Earnshaw questions her husband’s insight, “asking how [Mr. Earnshaw] could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house” when he added another mouth for her to feed at the dinner table. (Chapter 4). Mr. Earnshaw’s attempt to integrate Heathcliff fails once Hindley takes over Wuthering Heights. Despite basically being middle class under Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley takes it on his own to oppress and torture him. Before this, Heathcliff was on a level playing field class wise compared to the Earnshaws. Heathcliff now finds himself as a servant, a laborer working the fields. By subjugating Heathcliff, Hindley drew the line in the sand. Hindley has effectively forced Heathcliff into a lower class, Hindley has colonized

    Read More

More about Wuthering Heights Archetypes

Open Document