WUTHERING HEIGHTS
By Emily Brontë
EMILY BRONTE
 Born on July 30, 1818, the fifth of six children of Maria
and Patrick Brontë
 Within a year and a half of moving to Haworth where Patrick was the rector,
Maria died. Maria and Elizabeth, the two eldest daughters, died in 1825 of
tuberculosis contracted at the Clergy Daughters’ School; Emily and Charlotte
returned home from school.
 Since their father was an eccentric recluse and their aunt disliked the harsh
weather, the Brontë children entertained themselves on the moors, isolated from
the world. The children created the imaginary worlds of Angria and Gondal;
they wrote their tales in miniscule script.
 Although Emily left Haworth twice, she returned quickly to her beloved
countryside and took care of her father. Later, when her brother Branwell
returned home in disgrace after being dismissed from a tutoring job, Emily cared
for him as well. He became addicted to opium and alcohol (Hindley?)
CURRER, ELLIS AND ACTON BELL
 Charlotte, Emily, and Anne collaborated on a book of poetry in an effort to
make money and chose masculine pseudonyms to maintain anonymity and to
avoid prejudice against female authors. Their collected poems sold two copies.
 Charlotte published
in 1847 as Currer Bell.
 Anne’s
and Emily’s
were also published in 1847 as
Acton and Ellis Bell, respectively.
 According to Charlotte’s biographer, Elizabeth Gaskwell, Emily sorely felt “the
pangs of disappointment as review after review came out”; it was believed to
be “a disagreeable story” with “coarse” characters, and “the nightmare of a
recluse.”
 In September of 1848, Branwell died. Emily caught a cold at his funeral and
died of consumption in December of that same year at the age of thirty, a year
after the publication of
.
SETTING
 High Sunderland Hall – this is the home Brontë
 Modeled Wuthering Heights after this home
Shibden Hall
Ponden Hall
Both Shibden and Ponden Halls are
believed to be the models of
Thrushcross Grange
THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
1789-1832
The term Romantic is like Janus, the Roman god of doorways, who
had two faces, one looking backward and one looking forward.
Romantic is a word signifying both beginnings and endings.
The most notable Romantic poets were
; these three were known as the first generation. They
were influenced by the French Revolution, Napoleon, and the
Industrial Revolution. They looked backward to Milton and
Shakespeare and looked forward by creating new forms of lyric
poetry.
The second generation included
. They
were upset with the repressive atmosphere in England in 1815
(just after the Napoleonic Wars). They looked backward to
Milton and Shakespeare and looked forward by writing poems
that were thought to be visionary and extravagant.
SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM
FOUND IN WUTHERING HEIGHTS:
 The love of nature is presented in its tranquil and smiling aspects as well as its
wild, storminess
 Nature is a living, vitalizing force and offers a refuge from the constraints of
civilization
 The concern with identity and the creation of the self are a primary concern
 Focus is placed on the individual that society matters little
 Heathcliff is the Byronic hero in that both are rebellious, passionate,
misanthropic, isolated, and wilful; both have mysterious origins, lack family ties,
reject external restrictions and control, and seek to resolve their isolation by fusing
with a love object.
 The passion driving Catherine and Heathcliff and their obsessive love for each
other are the center of their being and transcend death
GOTHIC CHARACTERISTICS
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A castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not
Extreme landscapes
Magic, supernatural manifestations, or the suggestion of the supernatural
A passion-driven, wilful vaillain-hero or villain
A curious heroine with a tendency to faint and a need to be rescued
Horrifying or terrifying events of the threat of such happenings
Boundaries are trespassed (life and death + Heathcliff ’s transgressing social class
and family ties
 Imprisonment and escape, flight, the persecuted heroine, the heroine wooed by a
dangerous and a good suitor, ghosts, necrophilia, a mysterious foundling, and
revenge
RECURRING MOTIFS, SUBJECTS
FOR DISCUSSION, AND THEMES
 Clash of storm and calm, discord and harmony, past and present, nature and
nurture, reason and passion, the civilized and the primitive
 Clash of economic interests and social classes
 Striving for transcendence
 Abusive patriarch and patriarchal family
 Abuse of children and the family
 Self-imposed or self-generated confinement and escape
 Displacement, dispossession, and exile
 Communication and understanding
 The fall
 Revenge
 Defying conventional standards
 Marriage