26. WUTHERING HEIGHTS

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Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
Top Withens, possible inspiration for the
Earnshaw family house.
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Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part One First generation

• The foundling Heathcliff is brought to Wuthering
  Heights by Mr Earnshaw.
• Oppression and exploitation of Heathcliff by
  Hindley, Mr Earnshaws son.
• Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff become twin
  souls.

The bill for the 1992 film version
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Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part One First generation

• Catherine Earnshaws transformation from savage
  to proper lady during her stay at Thrushcross
  Grange.
• Catherines betrayal of her soul mate
  Heathcliff.
• Heathcliffs departure (splitting of the oak).
• Catherines marriage to Edgar Linton.

The bill for the 1992 film version
4
Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part One First generation

• Heathcliffs return as a gentleman intent on
  revenge.
• Catherines attempts to have both Heathcliff and
  Edgar.
• Heathcliffs elopement with Isabelle Linton
• Catherines derangement and illness.

Top Withens
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Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part One First generation

• Birth of Cathy II, Catherines and Edgars
  daughter.
• Catherines death and Heathcliffs despair.

Top Withens
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Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part Two Second generation

• Heathcliffs revenge property, gained by
  marriage to Isabella Linton and expropriation.
• Kidnapping of Cathy II and marriage with young
  Linton (Heathcliffs and Isabellas son).
• Heathcliff loses interest in revenge.

Near Top Withens
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Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part Two Second generation

• Heathcliff and Catherine together in death.
• Marriage of Cathy II and Hareton (Hindleys son)
  property restored to rightful owner.

Near Top Withens
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Emily Brontë
2. 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 Giedroycs 2009 film version
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Emily Brontë
2. Main characters
Heathcliff

• Persistent ambiguity man or beast?
• Unknown origins, absence of social connection.
• Absence of emotion, insensible.

Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuests 1970 film version
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Emily Brontë
2. Main characters
Heathcliff

• Deteriorates into brute state.
• Violent and extreme language.
• A Byronic hero.

Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuests 1970 film version
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Emily Brontë
2. Main characters
Heathcliff / Catherine relationship

• Vindictive, violent and possessive
• They may bury me twelve feet deep and throw the
  church down over me but I wont 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)

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Emily Brontë
2. Main characters
Heathcliff / Catherine relationship

• Vitality, authenticity, freedom.
• Rejection of class values.
• Heathcliff and Catherine symbolise the
  instinctual, unconscious forces.
• Contrasted with civilised characters Edgar,
  Lockwood, Nelly Dean.

Heathcliff and Catherine in the 1939 film version
of Wuthering Heights.
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Emily Brontë
3. Gothic elements

• Heathcliff as a Gothic villain in his inhuman
  treatment of his wife and his son.
• The sinister atmosphere of Wuthering Heights
  surrounded by the wilderness.
• Catherines ghost.

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Emily Brontë
3. Gothic elements

• 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.
15
Emily Brontë
4. The Moors as symbol
The Moors represent the Romantic rejection of
society and the desire to transcend its rules
Attempt to escape
English Moors
English Moors
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Emily Brontë
4. The Moors as symbol
Catherine tries to reconcile self class society
through her marriage to Edgar and her
relationship with Heathcliff
Escape is impossible
English Moors
English Moors
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Emily Brontë
4. Opposite principles
Thrushcross Grange
Wuthering Heights

• 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.

principle of calm
principle of storm and energy
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Emily Brontë
5. Narrative structure
Non-linear narrative structure
Use of flashback
Beginning in medias res
Two frame narrators
Elicits curiosity in the reader
Invites comparison between the two stories
Implies an active reader
Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, where the Brontë
family lived
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Emily Brontë
6. Narrative point of view

• Two frame narrators Lockwood (as external
  narrator) and Nelly Dean (as internal narrator).
• Chinese box structure stories within stories.
• .

Lockwoods dream in an etching by Rosalind Whitman
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Emily Brontë
6. Narrative point of view
Nelly Deans perspective

• 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).

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Emily Brontë
6. Narrative point of view
Lockwoods perspective

• The voice of conventional society.
• An unreliable narrator because he does not know
  all the details of the story.

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Emily Brontë
6. Narrative point of view
Implications of the multiple narrators

• Strangeness and otherness preserved.
• Multiple interpretations no single truth.
• Unique Interpretation becomes impossible ?
  modern aspect of the novel.