Wuthering Heights Gender Essay

Although Wuthering Heights is highly acclaimed as a literary masterpiece, it is a controversial work of literature that has been criticized with a multitude of perspectives. One critic, Carole Gerster, argues that the true message of the novel is to break free from Victorian gender norms while Annette Federico emphasizes in her criticism that the novel depicts a transition from arrested development to a bildungsroman, which outlines a character’s development into adulthood.

Bronte’s unconventional approach toward romance is interpreted by critic Carole Gerster as a form of social commentary on gender roles. Through the lens of the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine, Gerster argues that the novel “is a projected world that reveals

I agree with this sentiment because the passionate outbursts between Heathcliff and Catherine model the equality between genders that Bronte desires because both the male and female comfortably express their opinions, which signals mutual respect. Catherine professes that Heathcliff “has killed [her]--and thriven on it” to which he retaliates that he has not “broken [her] heart--[she] [has] broken it; and in breaking it, [she] has broken [his]” (Bronte 157, 159). Not only does the couple’s arguing reveal their passionate, anguished love, but it also demonstrates that neither lover is afraid to assert himself or herself. Furthermore, Gerster claims that Bronte depicts the Earnshaws with masculine traits and the Lintons with feminine characteristics regardless of sex in order to deny “the conventional

Federico asserts that Catherine undergoes an arrested development because she“[fails] to develop a mature understanding of [herself] and others…” (“Wuthering Heights”). I agree with Federico that Catherine does not experience growth because her dramatic reunion with Heathcliff is only a continuation of their relationship during their childhood, driven only by passion. She naively believes throughout the novel that even if she is married to Edgar, Heathcliff will “be as much to [her] as he has been all his lifetime” (Bronte 81). Her stubborn mentality is reflective of adolescence, not of mature adulthood, which contrasts with the complex development of her offspring, Catherine Linton. According to Federico, young Catherine “represents a successful passage through the difficult rites of adolescence” (“Wuthering Heights”). I concur with this idea; unlike her impulsive, self-centered mother who constantly aggravated her late grandfather, young Catherine expresses caring for others, especially for her father. Within all her actions, “her affection for him [is] still the chief sentiment in her heart” (Bronte 247). Even at a younger age, young Catherine is already more selfless and compassionate than her mother, a fact juxtaposed with the static development of Catherine Earnshaw in the first half of the