26. Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Emily BrontëTop Withens, possible inspiration for the Earnshaw family house.

• The foundling Heathcliff is brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw.

• Oppression and exploitation of Heathcliff by Hindley, Mr Earnshaw’s son.

• Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff become twin souls.

The bill for the 1992 film version

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Only Connect ... New Directions

1. Key eventsPart One: First generation

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• Cathy Earnshaw’s transformation from ‘savage’ to ‘proper lady’ during her stay at Thrushcross Grange.

• Cathy’s betrayal of her ‘soul mate’ Heathcliff.

• Heathcliff’s departure (splitting of the oak).

• Cathy’s marriage to Edgar Linton.

Part One: First generation


1. Key events

The bill for the 1992 film version

1. Key events

• Heathcliff’s return as a ‘gentleman’ intent on revenge.

• Cathy’s attempts to have both Heathcliff and Edgar.

• Cathy’s derangement and illness.

Top Withens

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• Birth of Cathy II, Catherine’s and Edgar’s daughter.

• Cathy’s death and Heathcliff’s despair.

1. Key events

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Top Withens



1. Key events

• Heathcliff’s revenge: property, gained by marriage to Isabella Linton and expropriation.

• Degradation of Hareton, Heathcliff’s and Isabella’s son.

• Heathcliff loses interest in revenge.

Near Top Withens

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Part Two: Second generation


1. Key events

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• Heathcliff and Cathy together in death.

• Marriage of Cathy II and Hareton: property restored to rightful owner.

Part Two: Second generation

Near Top Withens


2. Narrative structureNon-linear narrative structure

Use of flashback Beginning in medias res Binary structure

Elicits curiosity in the reader

Invites comparison

between the two stories

Implies an active reader

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Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, where the Brontë family lived


• Two frame narrators: Lockwood (as external narrator) and Nelly Dean (as internal narrator).

• Chinese box structure: stories within stories.

• Two interpreters; two auditors (reader and Lockwood closely identified).

3. Narrative point of view

Lockwood’s dream in an etching by Rosalind Whitman

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3. Narrative point of viewNelly Dean’s perspective

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• Conventional based on morality, religion and superstition.

• She thinks Cathy is “wayward”, “ill-tempered”.

“I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance” (Part I, Ch. VIII).

“She was too much fond of Heathcliff” (Part I Ch. V).


Lockwood’s perspective


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• The voice of conventional society.

• An unreliable narrator because he does not know all the details of the story.


Implications of the multiple narrators


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• Strangeness and ‘otherness’ preserved.

• Multiple interpretations: no single ‘truth’.

• Unique Interpretation becomes impossible modern aspect of the novel.


4. Main characters

Catherine

• Wayward, difficult, rebellious, spirited & ‘unfeminine’.

“her spirits were always at high water-mark, her tongue always going... A wild, wick slip she was but she had the bonniest eye, and sweetest smile and lightest foot in the parish” (Part I, Ch. V)

“heaven did not seem to be my home” (Part I, Ch. IX)

Charlotte Riley as Catherine and Tom Hardy as Heathcliff in Coky Giedroyc’s 2009 film version

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• Persistent ambiguity: man or beast?

• Unknown origins, absence of social connection.

• Absence of emotion, “insensible”.

4. Main characters

Heathcliff

Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version

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4. Main characters

Heathcliff

Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version

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• Deteriorates into brute state.

• Violent and extreme language.

• A Byronic hero.


• Vindictive, violent and possessive

“They may bury me twelve feet deep and throw the church down over me; but I won’t rest till you are with me… I never will!”

(Part I, Ch. XII)

• Merged identities

“If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the

Universe would turn to a mighty stranger….Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” (Part I, Ch. IX)

Heathcliff / Catherine relationship

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4. Main characters

• Vitality, authenticity, freedom.

• Rejection of class values.

• Heathcliff and Cathy symbolise the instinctual, unconscious forces.

• Contrasted with ‘civilised’ characters: Edgar, Lockwood, Nelly Dean.

Heathcliff / Catherine relationship

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Robert Brook, Heathcliff and Cathy, from the novel Wuthering Heights, 20th century, Private Collection.


4. Main characters

5. The Moors as symbol

Attempt to escape

The Moors represent the Romantic rejection of

society and the desire to transcend its rules

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English Moors English Moors


5. The Moors as symbol

Escape is impossible

Cathy reconciles self & class society through her marriage to Edgar and her relationship

with Heathcliff

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English Moors English Moors


6. Gothic elements

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6. Gothic elements

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• The dreams and superstitions often mentioned.

These are not used to frighten the reader, but to convey the struggle between the two opposed principles of love and hate, of order and chaos.


• The home of the Earnshaws.

• Severe, gloomy, brutal in aspect and atmosphere.

• Firmly rooted in local tradition and custom.

• The background for the life of primitive passion led by its owner.

• The home of the Lintons.

• Reflects a Victorian conception of life.

• Symbolises stability, kindness and respectability.

7. Opposite principlesThrushcross GrangeWuthering Heights

principle of storm and energy

principle of calm

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26. Wuthering Heights

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