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Emily Bronte: How Perceptions Shaped a Story
Wuthering Heights, a unique piece of literature based on the time period in which
it was written, is exemplified by interesting characters and obscure portrayals of different
aspects of society at the time. The compelling elements of Wuthering Heights, or any
book for that matter, are engendered by the intricacies of the author’s opinions and
experience. In this case, it is Emily Bronte’s experience that molds her perceptions of the
world, which in turn bring the pages of the novel to life. Emily Bronte’s perceptions of
reality and how her life helped to form them are clearly seen in the way religion, different
genders, and the status quo are portrayed in Wuthering Heights.
The manner in which church and religion are depicted in Wuthering Heights is a
testament to Emily Bronte’s background and adopted beliefs. Growing up in the ministry
of her father and Calvinistic schools, Bronte seemed to develop a dislike towards firm,
organized religion. One author asserts that Bronte had the “incapacity to acquiesce in the
stiff, pragmatic teaching, the narrow prejudice, of the Calvinists of Haworth” (Robinson).
This negative attitude towards rigid religion can be seen throughout Wuthering Heights.
In the book, the old servant Joseph serves as an outlet for Bronte’s feelings on religion.
An almost comedic element in the novel, he is constantly berating characters that don’t
have authority over him with religious zeal. At one point, Joseph scolds the children of
the household for playing after his master’s funeral. He is furious that they would do such
a thing on the Sabbath and forces them to sit down, read, and think about the quality of
their souls (Bronte 18). Joseph’s antagonistic nature serves to illustrate Bronte’s aversion
to overly religious sentiment. Because Joseph seems to use religion as a weapon to raise
himself above others emotionally, one can infer that Bronte had encountered such
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personalities previously in her short life. The strict nature of the Haworth church adds
verisimilitude to this deduction regarding Bronte’s encounters with religious authorities.
There are other factors that suggest Bronte’s abhorrence of organized religion in
Wuthering Heights. The curate in the novel punishes Catherine without hesitation, a
sentence with which the latter carries out with optimism. This reaction is most likely
polarized from the author’s supposed response to the same situation (Barreca). This
seemingly outlandish response of Catherine to punishment from a religious authority is
evidence of a suppressed desire of Bronte’s to act similarly, while the unforgiving curate
is yet another example of corruption that strict religion entails. Though subtle, Bronte
included minor clues in her novel that hinted at her negative views on ordered faith.
Although it seems evident that the author detested religion altogether and expelled
cynicism towards the topic with every breath, all of her writings, including Wuthering
Heights, hint at a different perspective. In the process of rejecting the stringent ideals of
Calvinism introduced in her youth, Emily Bronte incidentally brought the best aspects of
mortality into the light (Robinson). Especially in Wuthering Heights, Bronte portrays life
as a vast mix of emotion, bustling with activity. Idleness and apathy inevitably lead to
death. Through the actions and emotions of her characters, the author asserts her belief
that life should be lived fully, for no human can achieve physical immortality. While
Emily Bronte rejected Calvinism, she had no problem with expressing the intricacies of
her own assumed code of beliefs. Her prose hints towards her belief in living life for the
moment and her love for the earth while suggesting a view on the afterlife not associated
with the immortality of the soul, but rather a forever sleep that is both peaceful and
satisfying (Robinson). On the subject of a peaceful rest being the result of death, the last
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line of Wuthering Heights serves as a perfect characterization of Bronte’s opinion. While
observing the graves of the lovers Heathcliff and Catherine, the narrator Lockwood
declares that he “wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the
sleepers in that quiet earth” (Bronte 308). This quote displays both Bronte’s opinion on
the afterlife and her belief in the peace involved when one is in harmony with the earth.
Quite opposed to the status quo’s assertion of the existence of the afterlife, Bronte
unflinchingly stresses her disbelief. It is noted that the author of Wuthering Heights
seems to have held a certain amount of detestation towards both Heaven and Hell
(Bloom). This can be proved in Heathcliff’s language before his imminent death. When
questioned by Nelly Dean about the possibility of repentance so he could gain entrance
into heaven, Heathcliff responds: “No minister need come; nor need anything be said
over me – I tell you, I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether
unvalued and uncoveted by me” (Bronte 305)! As is made apparent in the text,
Heathcliff’s heaven involves being at rest besides his love, Catherine. Much like Bronte,
he doesn’t place value in the afterlife of Christians around him; he only gives merit to
that which he cares about.
Emily Bronte may have refused to accommodate the supposed firm views of the
Calvinists of Haworth, but she still maintained the base values of a Christian. In
Wuthering Heights, Bronte does not accentuate Heathcliff’s flaws or celebrate his death
due to the small amount of faith that she had maintained. “No possibility in the just and
reverent mind of Emily Bronte that the God whom she believed to be the very fount and
soul of life could condemn to everlasting fire the victims of morbid tendencies not chosen
by themselves” (Robinson). Bronte did not overly criticize Heathcliff for his actions
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because she believed that what he did was a direct result of his poor upbringing. While
most would consider some of Heathcliff’s actions in the novel monstrous and evil, Bronte
paints them in a forgiving, very human light. This character trait of Bronte’s is a direct
result of her background, a remnant remaining of what she learned of Christian doctrine.
Emily Bronte’s religious upbringing ultimately distorted her view of organized faith,
bringing a unique perspective to her writing.
The men in Emily Bronte’s life had a major impact on how she depicted the male
characters in Wuthering Heights. One correlation noticed of the males in the novel is that
it is difficult for them to express their most basic thoughts. The narrator Lockwood, for
example, can only pass on Nelly’s story to the audience (Barreca). He is sorely lacking in
creativity and is at times ignorant and short-sighted. Many of the men in the novel follow
this pattern of thoughtlessness. Hindley Earnshaw’s intolerance of Heathcliff and his later
degradation into drunkenness is indicative of Bronte’s opinion on male ability. Of the
novel’s main male characters, one can recognize two extremes. There are strong
characters intent on achieving their desires such as Hindley and Heathcliff, and there are
characters that wallow in their imperfections and weaknesses like Edgar and Linton. No
matter their traits, Bronte has them all meet a rough end; the former in mad alcoholism
and the latter in sickness. The general flaws that are easily seen in the men of Wuthering
Heights are highly indicative of Bronte’s general opinion of the gender as a whole.
Most of Bronte’s knowledge of men originated from her family, specifically her
father and brother. She had “an old, blind, disillusioned father, once prone to
extraordinary violence of temper, but now grown quiet with age, showing his
disappointment with life by a melancholy cynicism that was quite sincere” (Robinson).
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This exact attitude can be seen in Hindley and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. Very
easily angered at a young age, these men grew even more pessimistic as the years passed.
Bronte’s father could very well have been the reason she developed a negative attitude
towards religion and the male gender. While the father had an influence on Bronte’s
perceptions, her brother held a greater part of her imagination captive on the subject of
men.
The brother Branwell, clever, good-for-nothing, - we may hope insane, - raised
many a storm, by reason of his intoxication and worse errors. He madly loved a
woman who could never be his, - a woman whom he had brought low into sin and
disgrace; and some of his wild paroxysms are reproduced for us in the pages of
this book (Salmon).
This described desired romance of Branwell’s parallels that of Heathcliff and Catherine.
The underlying theme of forbidden or impossible love in Wuthering Heights appears to
be inspired by Branwell’s experiences. In fact, many of the darker aspects of the book
seem to have stemmed from Branwell. Emily Bronte observed his obsessions involving
love, weakness regarding alcohol, and quick but unrealized wit, incorporating all of them
into Wuthering Heights. Out of all the male characters, Heathcliff is the most analogous
to Branwell in behavior and circumstance. Bronte’s previously discussed unwillingness
to declare Heathcliff villainous is not only a presentation of her values, but also a
realization that to ere is human. She could no more denounce Heathcliff than her own
squalid brother. While Bronte’s perception of men is unique, it is by no means
comprehensive. Her life experience with the gender was largely limited to her brother and
father, leaving her devoid of crucial knowledge. The absence of Bronte’s comprehension
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is evident in Catherine’s lack of understanding of the male psyche in Wuthering Heights
when she misjudges the desires and intentions of Heathcliff and Edgar. She lives in an
ideal fantasy world, and is shattered when the men don’t allow her to stay there.
Catherine remains unable to conform to male expectations of choosing one lover, even
upon her own death (Stoneman). Bronte’s experiences with men weren’t inadequate in
substance, just variety. Her perception of the gender and their placement within the status
quo was radically dependent on her kindred familiarity. The portrayal of flawed men
throughout the novel indicates Bronte’s disagreement about men’s place in society, as
well as a disillusionment involving the nature of men.
The representation of women in Wuthering Heights is largely related to Bronte’s
perception of the status quo and where she desired for her sex to fit into it. She gives the
female characters advantages that allow them to undermine the societal expectations of a
Victorian-era male-dominant social order. “The power to write and speak are evidence of
women’s power, not women’s subjection. The female characters are the subjects, not the
objects, of the discourse. They challenge the male characters by creating texts that exist
in opposition to the prevailing ideology” (Barreca). This description of women as
intelligent and insightful creates a stark contrast to the unrestrained, thoughtless men. A
character in the novel that serves as the quintessential model of feminine wit is Catherine.
She is set apart due to her disruptive remarks and uses her cleverness to transform
punishment, such as the curate assigning passages from the scriptures, into something to
make fun of (Barreca). Feminine ingenuity and manipulation in Wuthering Heights was
one of the many ways that Emily Bronte showed her disagreement with the placement of
the genders in society. She also challenged the standard that established that women
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should not have multiple lovers. Catherine’s relationship with both Heathcliff and Edgar
is taboo to the time period in which Wuthering Heights was written. Men were
effortlessly able to adopt a lifestyle involving free love. Women, on the other hand, could
not have multiple lovers due to the status quo’s assertion that men should be able to
identify their children with ease (Stoneman). This social expectation is not met in
Wuthering Heights. By giving Catherine the ability to manipulate and love both
Heathcliff and Edgar, Bronte displayed a desire to destabilize the male-dominant social
order.
Emily Bronte recognizes her love for home in her novel. Since her prose relates to
the men in her family, it is not surprising that the setting would be similar to her home.
A gray old Parsonage standing among graves, remote from the world on its wind
beaten hilltop all around the neighboring summits wild with moors; a lonely place
among half-dead ash-trees and stunted thorns, the world cut off on one side by the
still ranks of the serried dead, and distanced on the other by mile-long stretches of
heath. Such, we know, was Emily Bronte’s home (Robinson).
Bronte wrote about a world she was familiar with, one she felt accessible to. The world of
Wuthering Heights was produced from the vivid memories and fondness that the author
felt for her Haworth abode. In the novel, Catherine dreams that she is in heaven and
experiences an overflow of grief and an overwhelming desire to be back at Wuthering
Heights. This dream of Catherine’s serves as an outlet for Bronte to express her love of
home (Salmon). Everything that Bronte included in her writing involved her life and how
she perceived its different aspects. That is what makes her home such a vital aspect of her
life to inspect. It is not just an explanation of numerous details in the novel, but the
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foundation for all of its complexities. Without the influence of Bronte’s home, the
Wuthering Heights in the book would not be as compelling.
The unique aspects of Emily Bronte’s life and how it shaped her views are
fundamental to the success of Wuthering Heights as a piece of literature. The same could
be said for any author and any book, but Bronte’s case is special. Her limited, but
enriched experiences gave her an outlook on life that no other author could reproduce,
especially in her time period. Religion, the different genders, and the status quo are
addressed in a manner so distinctive that it is apparent that Emily Bronte’s personalized
insight is responsible. After reading Wuthering Heights and seeing its correlation to
Bronte’s life, it is clear that perception is everything.
Works Cited
Barreca, Regina. “The Power of Excommunication: Sex and the Feminine Text in
Wuthering Heights.” Bloom's Literary Reference Online (2007). Facts on File
Online Databases. 8 May 2009 <http://www.fofweb.com>.
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Bloom, Harold. “Bloom on Emily Bronte.” Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts on
File Online Databases. 13 May 2009 <http://www.fofweb.com>.
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York: Bantam Classics, 1983.
Robinson, Mary F. “Wuthering Heights: Its Origin.” Bloom's Literary Reference Online
(2008). Facts on File Online Databases. 18 May 2009 <http://www.fofweb.com>.
Salmon, Arthur L. “A Modern Stoic: Emily Bronte.” Bloom's Literary Reference Online.
Facts on File Online Databases. 14 May 2009 <http://www.fofweb.com>.
Stoneman, Patsy. “‘Addresses from the Land of the Dead’: Emily Bronte and Shelley.”
Bloom's Literary Reference Online (2006). Facts on File Online Databases. 5 May
2009 <http://www.fofweb.com>.