Wuthering Heights
by
Emily Brontë
Emily
Brontë
1818 - 1848
Wuthering Heights
A song originally performed by Kate Bush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WChywYrwHBY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEWIUtEDq5o
Out on the wiley, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper, like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me?
When I needed to possess you
I hated you, I loved you too
Bad dreams in the night
They told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights.
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy come home
I'm so cold, let me in-a-your window
Oh it gets dark, it gets lonely
On the other side from you
I pine a lot, I find the lot
Falls through without you
I'm coming back love, cruel Heathcliff
My only one dream, my only master
Too long I roam in the night
I'm coming back to his side to put it right
I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy come home
I'm so cold, let me in-a-your window
Oh let me have it, let me grab your soul away
Oh let me have it, let me grab your soul away
You know it's me, Cathy
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy come home
I'm so cold, let me in-a-your window
Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy come home
I'm so cold, let me in-a-your window
Northern England is reputed to be very cold and
harsh; it is Viking territory. Like the older Heathcliff in
Wuthering Heights, it is unwelcoming to strangers.
Northern Yorkshire. In the foreground heaths.
Plot Structure: Frame Tale
To tell her story, Brontë uses two narrators, Mr.
Lockwood and Ellen Dean, called Nelly.
Lockwood, who rents Thrushcross Grange,
begins the narrative; Nelly takes it over after
he asks her to tell him the story of Heathcliff.
Lockwood and Nelly thus combine to form a
picture, Lockwood acting as the "outer
narrator" who frames the picture and Nelly
acting as the "inner narrator" who paints the
picture.
Heathcliff
Catherine
Character
Map
of
Wuthering
Heights
Main Characters
Heathcliff
The main character.
Orphaned as a child, he is constantly
on the outside, constantly losing
people. Catherine Earnshaw’s
decision to marry Edgar Linton
almost destroys their relationship.
He spends most of his life
contemplating and acting out
revenge. He is abusive, brutal, and
cruel.
Catherine Earnshaw
The love of Heathcliff’s life. Wild,
impetuous (heftig, oppfarende,
snarsint), and arrogant as a child,
she grows up getting everything she
wants. When two men fall in love
with her, she torments both of them.
Ultimately, Catherine’s selfishness
ends up hurting everyone she loves,
including herself.
Genealogy
Characters…
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Bronte.html
Mr. Earnshaw: Owner of Wuthering Heights and father of two children,
Hindley and Cathy. He adopts a street waif, Heathcliff, and dotes on the
child, arousing jealousy in Hindley. After Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley
inherits Wuthering Heights and makes Heathcliff a common stable boy and
field laborer.
Hindley: Earnshaw’s son, who torments Heathcliff when the latter is a small
child many years younger than Hindley. After Hindley inherits Wuthering
Heights, he continues to mistreat Heathcliff.
Frances Earnshaw: Hindley’s wife. Like Hindley, she maltreats Heathcliff.
She dies after the birth of Hareton.
Edgar Linton: Elegant aristocrat at Thrushcross Grange whom Cathy marries
to gain social position and the finer things of life.
Isabella Linton: Edgar’s naive sister. Heathcliff marries her to spite Edgar and
Cathy, then treats Isabella cruelly.
Young Catherine: The daughter of Edgar Linton and Cathy.
Hareton: The son of Hindley Earnshaw and his wife, Frances.
Linton: Sickly child of Heathcliff and Isabella.
Joseph: A crabby old servant.
Zillah: A housekeeper.
Type of Work
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• Wuthering Heights is a novel of romance, revenge, and
tragedy.
• It exhibits many characteristics of the so-called Gothic
novel, which focuses on dark, mysterious events.
• The typical Gothic novel unfolds at one or more creepy
sites, such as a dimly lit castle, an old mansion on a hilltop,
a misty cemetery, a forlorn countryside, or the laboratory of
a scientist conducting frightful experiments.
• In some Gothic novels, characters imagine that they see
ghosts and monsters. In others, the ghosts and monsters are
real.
• The weather in a Gothic novel is often dreary or foul: There
may be high winds that rattle windowpanes, electrical
storms with lightning strikes, and gray skies that brood over
landscapes. (The word wuthering refers to violent wind.)
Themes
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Theme 1: Love gone wrong. Relationships in Wuthering Heights are
like the moors: dark, stormy, twisted. Cathy loves Heathcliff but
marries Edgar Linton. Heathcliff loves Cathy but marries Isabella
Linton. Mr. Earnshaw loves his adopted son, Heathcliff, better than
his biological son, Hindley, causing Hindley to despise Heathcliff.
Linton and young Cathy are forced to marry.
Theme 2: Cruelty begets cruelty. Hindley’s maltreatment of
Heathcliff helps turn the latter into a vengeful monster. In
developing this theme, Emily Bronte is ahead of her time,
demonstrating that suffering abuse as a child can lead to inflicting
abuse as an adult.
Theme 3: Revenge. Heathcliff’s desire to get even against all who
wronged him is at times so strong that it subverts his other emotions,
including love.
Theme 4: Lure of Success and Social Standing. Cathy marries
Edgar after becoming infatuated with his image as a cultured
gentleman with wealth enough to meet her every need. Isabella
marries Heathcliff after becoming infatuated with an idealized,
romantic image of him.
Themes
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Bronte.html
Theme 5: Class distinctions. Heathcliff’s fury erupts after Cathy decides
to marry “up” into the world of the Lintons, and not down into the world
of Heathcliff.
Theme 6: Fate. The entire novel depends on the forces unleashed when
Mr. Earnshaw happens upon an orphan child, Heathcliff, on a street in
Liverpool and returns with him to Wuthering Heights.
Theme 7: Prejudice. The upper crust, the Lintons, look down upon the
lower crust, Heathcliff and his kind.
Theme 8: The moors as a reflection of life around them (or vice versa)
and life beyond. The dark, stormy moors–where only low-growing
plants such as heather thrive–symbolize the passionate and sometimes
perverted emotional lives of the residents of Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Grange. In the gloomy wasteland, the Yorkshire folk,
including Heathcliff himself, sometimes report seeing ghosts of people
buried in the moors.
Climax
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Most analysts of Wuthering Heights maintain
that the climax of the novel occurs when Cathy
dies, unarguably a decisive turning point.
However, one may fairly conclude that the
climax comes earlier–in particular when
Heathcliff overhears Cathy say she intends to
marry Edgar Linton. This event deeply wounds
Heathcliff, causes him to abandon Wuthering
Heights, and triggers the dreadful events that
follow.