Wuthering Heights
“He's more myself than I am.
Whatever our souls are made of, his
and mine are the same” ~Cathy
Meet Emily Bronte
• Born in 1818 in Yorkshire, England
• Father- Patrick Bronte, a Cambridge-educated
clergyman
– Appointed to a church in Haworth, a remote village in
Yorkshire
• Mother – Maria Branwell Bronte
– Died of cancer
Emily Grows Up
•Mr. Bronte sent his eldest daughters
(Elizabeth, Maria, Charlotte, and
Emily)
to boarding school
- Girls were frequently cold &
undernourished
- Maria and Elizabeth contracted
tuberculosis
•Later sent home and died
• Inspiration for the boarding
school in Charlotte’s novel
Jane Eyre
Haworth: the Brontes’ Home
• Relatively isolated community
• Children entertained themselves
and created their own stories
• They create their own fictitious world using
toy soldiers
The Brontes Leave Home
• 1830- Bronte children left home
for study and work
• Branwell became a selfdestructive alcoholic
• Emily pined for the moors
• Charlotte fell in love with a married man
• Anne was fired from her job as a
governess
• Mid 1840s-Bronte children moved back to
Haworth parsonage
Pen Names
• To protect their
privacy and conceal
that they were
women, the girls
published under
pseudonyms
– Currer (Charlotte),
Ellis (Emily), and
Acton (Anne) Bell
Successful Sisters
• Charlotte published Jane Eyre in 1847
• Emily published Wuthering Heights in 1847
Literary Success?
• When Wuthering
Heights was
published in 1847,
critics called it “a
disagreeable story.”
• In 2007, a first
edition of the novel
sold for over
$150,000.
Tragic Ending
• 1848- Branwell dies of
tuberculosis
– Emily catches cold at his
funeral and becomes ill with
tuberculosis
– she dies on December 15,
1848
Historical Background
• Emily Bronte grew up during the Age of
Romanticism
• Romanticism was a reaction against the
emphasis on reason and intellect of the 18th
century.
Differences Between Age of Reason and the Age of Romanticism
Age of Reason
Age of Romanticism
• Reason and intellect
• Classic, symmetrical
Georgian architecture
• Poetry is very ordered and
followed strict rules
• Reason brought progress
(industrialization) and
ordered cities
• City life was superior
• Stressed the importance of
feeling rather than thinking
• Creepy irregularities of
Gothic revival
• Poetry was lyrical and
passionate
• Romanticism brought
emphasis on emotions
– Humans could be vicious and
perverse
• Focused on rural settings
and lives of simplicity
Byronic Hero:
Romantic “Bad Boy”
• “A man proud, moody,
cynical with defiance
on his brow & misery
in his heart, a scorner
of his kind, implacable
in revenge, yet capable
of deep & strong
affection.”
Byronic Hero:
Romantic “Bad Boy”
• George Gordon, Lord
Byron
– Gave his name to his
devastatingly
attractive, yet fatally
flawed man.
Byronic Heroes Were…
• Passionate, yet flawed
individualists
• Intellectually searching
• Incapable of compromise
• Brooding over mysterious
past sins
• Painfully, yet defiantly
alone
Byronic Heroes in Film
• James Dean –
Rebel Without a Cause
(1955)
• Marlon Brando –
The Wild One (1954)
Byronic Heroes from Literature
Tristan
- Legends of the Fall
(Brad Pitt)
Mr. Darcy
– Pride and Prejudice
Byronic Heroes from Literature
Heathcliff
-Wuthering Heights
Edward Cullen
- Twilight series
Cast of Characters
Cast of Characters: Heathcliff
• Dark- featured gypsy foundling
brought to live at Wuthering
Heights by old Mr. Earnshaw
(father or Hindley & Catherine)
• Mr. Earnshaw prefers
Heathcliff over his own son –
leads to tragic consequences
• An assault on Heathcliff’s dignity at the hands
of the jealous Hindley and the loss of his true
love Catherine (his adoptive sister) drive him to
plan vengeance that dominates his life and his
relationships.
Catherine Earnshaw
• Wild, passionate beauty who roams the moors
with Heathcliff as a child
– Considers him her soulmate
– Yet, she marries another man for his wealth and social
position
• Her death will haunt
the two men who love her
Edgar Linton
• Pampered, somewhat
spoiled son of the owner of
Thrushcross Grange
• Polite, educated, refined
young man
• Civilizing influence on his
wife, and later, daughter
• Cannot satisfy his wife’s
need for dramatically
expressed passion that
goes beyond the
boundaries of reason
Hareton Earnshaw
• First seen as a loving & lovable
little boy, the son of Hindley and
Frances Earnshaw
• Innocent Pawn used by Heathcliff
to wreak revenge on his adoptive
brother Hindley
• Grows up to be big & strong, with a bad temper and
a foul mouth
• Is deliberately taught by Heathcliff to treat people
cruelly, but nevertheless retains the capacity for love
and devotion
• Defends Heathcliff loyally
Isabella Linton
• Pale, immature younger sister of Edgar
• Disowned by him after she elopes with
Heathcliff, who sees her as an instrument of
revenge
Hindley Earnshaw
• Lives life scarred by loss
– Losses his father’s favor to
Heathcliff- results in destructive
jealousy
– Losses wife Frances-sets him on a path of
gambling and excessive drinking
– Ultimately loses his son and Wuthering Heights to
his enemy - Heathcliff
Catherine Linton
• Known as Cathy
• Catherine and Edgar Linton’s
daughter
• Inherits her mother’s beauty
and vivacious spirit and her
father’s generous nature
• Falls prey to Heathcliff’s
revenge, but is strong enough
to overcome it
Linton Heathcliff
• Pale, sickly son of
Isabella and Heathcliff
• Becomes an instrument
of his father’s revenge
Nelly Dean
• Servant whose mother
also worked at
Wuthering Heights
• Playmate of Catherine
and Hindley
• Witnessed Heathcliff’s
arrival
• Confidante to Catherine,
Heathcliff, and Cathy
– Narrator of their story
Theme: Conflict Between Good and Evil
– Evils depicted in the novel are greed,
vengefulness, selfishness, and the failure to forgive
• Characters who display evil thoughts &
behavior are eventually punished
• At first, it may seem that some characters are
good (Edgar) and other characters are bad
(Heathcliff). Events suggest there is good and
evil in everyone.
• Good eventually triumphs over evil
Theme: The Nature of Love
• Different, conflicting definitions of love
• Love is depicted as primarily spiritual rather than
physical
• Love at Thrushcross Grange – tender affection
that seeks to protect the beloved from harm (could
be seen as lukewarm, coming from the head, not
the heart)
– Love at Wuthering Heights – passionate search for
total unity, no matter what it costs the lover or the
beloved.
• The happiest love is a blend of the two extremes
• The greatest unhappiness comes form failing to
love, or withholding total commitment to love.
Theme: The Darkness of the Human Soul
• In every human, there is a hard core of darkness
and violence.
– Because this darkness is a universal condition of
human nature, it can never be truly overcome, only
limited or restrained.
– The darkness of human nature is related to the emotion
and stands in contrast to the light of reason.
– The darkness of the human soul may turn outward,
causing pain and sorrow to others.
• At the same time, it causes as much or more suffering within.
Theme: Civilization Versus Primal Passion
• The human animal is part of the natural environment, &
human nature is as wild, mysterious, & uncontrollable as
physical nature.
• Natural tendency to humankind is to be passionate, even to
the point of self-destruction
• Civilization = destructive aspects of human nature can be
controlled
• Civilization’s calm pleasures (reading and listening to
music) strengthen good in human nature and restrain
evil impulses of violence and destruction
• To reap the benefits of civilization, humans pay
the price of repressing their emotions and
ignoring, or underestimating, their power.
Setting
• Wild and windy moors of northern Yorkshire
– The power of the natural setting has an effect on its
inhabitants
– Moor= hostile environment, but has dramatic beauty
•
•
•
•
Open, bare, and rolling expanse of land
Left to grow wild
Dangerous expanse of land
Contains dangerous
bogs/swamps in areas
Scenes from the Moors
“In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing
more divine, than those glens shut in by hills and those
bluff, bold swells of heath”
Contrasting Settings
Thrushcross Grange
• Lies in a protected valley
and is encircled by a high
stone wall (oasis of
civilization)
• All light and luxury
– Rich colors and sparkle
– Filled with music, books, and
beautiful things
– Inhabitants
offer hospitality
to the point of
self-sacrifice
Wuthering Heights
• Top of the hill, exposed to
the full brunt of the weather,
almost a part of the
inhospitable landscape
• All darkness and gloom
Point of View
• 1st person narrativeNovel begins and ends
with Mr. Lockwood’s
narrative
– Inside of this story,
Nelly Dean tells the
story of Catherine and
Heathcliff
Structure of the Novel
• Part 1: First half of the story deals with
Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and Edgar
Linton
– Ends with Catherine’s death on the night her
daughter was born
• Part 2: Focuses on the children of Catherine,
Heathcliff, and Edgar Linton.
– Also tells the story of Catherine Linton,
Linton Heathcliff, and Hareton Earnshaw
Literary Devices
• Diction – Choice of words
– Lyrical style, simple diction which provides strong
expression of feeling as clearly and directly as the
language allows
• Imagery – Using language to represent actions,
person, subjects, and ideas descriptively.
– Images of heaven / Images of hell
• Dialect- Language of a particular district, class,
or group of persons.
– Joseph (servant at WH) – Yorkshire dialect
– Reinforces the authenticity of the setting
Symbols
• The Moors – twin faces of the natural world
that are echoed in human nature: great beauty
and equally great harshness
– Also represent freedom – characters leave the
comfort of their dwellings and venture to the
moors
• They may get lost, soaked with rain, or stranded by a
storm; yet they still long for the freedom of the moors.
• Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering
Heights – These two houses & their
inhabitants symbolize complex relationships
between light/dark, good/evil, civilization/the
primal nature of humankind.