wuthering heights

A detailed Summary of wuthering heights

Like the world of Transylvania, the Gothic setting in Wuthering Heights suggests a wild and primitive landscape unconstrained by Orthodox norms. The reader is first introduced to Wuthering Heights, the house and its surroundings, as it appears to the middle class, Mr. Lockwood, on a stormy night. Thus, Lockwood serves the same role and Jonathan Harker as he is the bridge between the world of 19th century normal realities and the primeval world of Wuthering Heights. Just as Mr. Harker characterizes his trip to Transylvania as a journey between two atmospheres, entering the "thunderous one", Mr. Lockwood too is introduced to Wuthering Heights on a stormy night, a foreshadowing of the darkness to come. Mr. Lockwood has an arrangement to meet with his neighboring tenant, Mr. Heathcliff and after walking four miles in the snow, he reaches the Heights to find the gate closed. He stands "on that bleak hilltop [where] the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made [him] shiver through every limb." (WH-p.29) In fact, the word "Wuthering, being a significant provincial adjective, [is] descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed to stormy weather," (WH-p.25) thus emphasizing the darkness and cruelty in nat

Like Dracula who seems an extension of his dark world, Bronte's hero/villain Heathcliff, is clearly as much as a creature of storm, as the house he occupies. Heathcliff's childhood experiences have turned Heathcliff into the monster seen in his adult life. Like Dracula, Heathcliff's origins are unknown, One day Mr. Earnshaw went to Liverpool to conduct some business, found a parentless gypsy boy wandering the streets, brought him home and "christened hum Heathcliff." (WH-p.52) However, Heathcliff's happiness at Wuthering Heights was short lived and "died in childhood" (WH-p.52) as a result of the abuse he had received form his step sibling. As children, Catherine and Heathcliff were passionately close: "It was the greatest punishment ever invent[ed] for her to be keep separate from him," (WH-p.55) yet Heathcliff "would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shredding tear" (WH-p.52) as a result of jealously. "So, from the very beginning, Heathcliff bread bad feelings in the house," (WH-p53) which worsened with the death of Mr. Earnshaw. Hindley stopped the "naughty, swearing boy" (WH-p.65) from his studies and forced him to live a life similar to that of a servant. As the abuse of Heathcliff's grows, he finds Catherine is his only means of please in his hostile environment. The two play endlessly on the moors by Wuthering Heights and in essence are children of the heaths and the cliff; bot are wild aspects of nature and find comfort here: "It was on of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at." (WH-p.59) However, after spending five weeks at Thrushcross Grange recovering from a dog bite, Catherine returns blinded by the Victorian ideals of ignorance to those not prosperous. Upon her arrival home to Wuthering Heights, she dismisses her soul mate Heathcliff and his gypsy manners. Even the maid Nelly notices the "unfeeling child [and] how slightly she dismisses her old playmate's troubles. I could not have imagined her to be so selfish." (WH-p.69) Like Dracula, Heathcliff rejects the Victorian ideals Cathy has embraced. Catherine's rejection of her friend further pushes Heathcliff into idle. Heathcliff is genetically wild, and is not cruel or unkind as long as he has someone to share his life with. Once Catherine has distanced herself from Heathcliff, his "predominately passional, irrational, unknown, and unconscious part of the psyche the id or 'it'"32 take over Heathcliff thus "the primary traits...ascribed to the id apply perfectly to Heathcliff: the source of psychic energy; the sear of the instincts (particularly sex and death); the essence of dream; the archaic foundation of personality- selfish, asocial, impulse"33 are released. It is the loss of Catherine that turn Heathcliff into a monstrous villain, seemingly devoid of the superego. Heathcliff loses the "aspect of the psyche, which [Freud} called the superego...[which] seems to be outside the self, making moral judgements, telling us to make sacrifices for the good causes even though self-sacrifice may not be quite logical or rational."34 Just as Dracula becomes a monstrous villain through becoming immortal thus removed from the rest of society, Heathcliff becomes monstrous through losing his only tie to society, his friend Cathy. Heathcliff gradually loses Catherine's love to Linton, son of the aristocratic family. As Linton tries to win Catherine's heart over, she removes herself from the stormy and wild ways she much enjoyed as a child with Heathcliff: "Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends as on came in, and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley." (WH-p.77) One evening, while informing Nelly of her love affairs, Heathcliff stood in the next room listening to their conversation. She tells Nelly how she loves Linton and has accepted her proposal in marria

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Approximate Word count = 3129
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English