Throughout her life time, Emily Bronte was a self-imposed recluse from society, living in the confines of the hellish and quite savage moors of Yorkshire. It is in this isolation that she found the inspiration and strength of emotion to write such potent prose and poetry. In keeping with these facts, it is quite plausible to state that her social means were somewhat lesser compared to the emotional content surrounding her. Furthermore, writing is such an impassioned state; it could well have been her only means to free her soul toward the outer world. In other words, her writings was the means by which she could search and question her personal knowledge on society.

Wuthering Heights develops the search for knowledge or truth that subsequently damns and saves her emotionally charged characters: Heathcliff searches for the knowledge he might one day rest with Catherine Earnshaw; Catherine Linton searches for the enigmatic truth behind the family secrets. Knowledge for the players is

Young Cathy is the inheritor of all the evils that have destroyed and enraged the first generation of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Cathy emerges from Catherine's womb with a pre-destined knowledge encrusted into her family blood. " An unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of life, and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence." (p.164). Thus, her development in the social world of Thrushcross Grange lies heavily with the past events that have damned her mother.

Catherine until now is seen more as an addict to the new and bewildering effect of culture and knowledge in society. It is impossible to dissociate this new process to one of personal development. First, Catherine is ill-educated on how to approach her new environment. She has not developed the proper skills to delve rationally in an all encompassing culture. Her mind becomes disturbed with the search for truth and knowledge in the social context outside Wuthering Heights. Edgar's affections are a poor substitute for the pure energetic passion she has felt for Heathcliff. As she has said before their wedding, Edgar Linton is " as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire." (p.80). The pragmatic reality at Trushcross Grange cannot fill the void that she has made for herself in leaving the furious calm of her childhood environment.

On an opposite psychological pole from her mother, Cathy is never whole when the events in her development take place. This is her salvation since it gives a certain leeway to add or reconstruct her knowledge into a piercing weapon. By regressing to a more common social standing at Wuthering Heights, she is able to understand Hareton's situation and thus not only reconstruct herself into a fuller picture of society, but extend her new awakening onto Hareton and his salvation toward a better situation. Unlike her mother's destructive process, she is able to rebuild a fuller reality by accepting social structures and knowledge in a broader picture. In the end, not only has she advanced herself and Hareton in the world, but made Heathcliff unfulfilled in his quest for revenge. Still, only by her personal progress can Heathcliff be finally reunited onto his beloved Catherine.

Heathcliff becomes not only a willing participant in the deconstruction of Cathy's instruction in the ways of the world, but also the cause of his own downfall. Only in Cathy's deconstruction of knowledge may she assimilate and comprehend the reality of the outer world. For example, her forced marriage to Linton should in her eyes satisfy the social contract of a decent marriage, equal in lineage. At no point will this seemingly conventional bond satisfy her morality and her social development. Linton not only alienates her from her basic wealth of knowledge through the intervention of Heathcliff, but makes it possible to find a common bond with Hareton in the end. " They lifted their eyes together, to encounter Mr. Heathcliff - perhaps you have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar, and they are those of Catherine Earnshaw" (p.322). Both unwillingly obey their calling in union through the strength in their eyes. Heathcliff with thoughts of destruction has brought to Cathy the primitive know

Catherine Earnshaw's quest for knowledge does not start with her discovery of Thrushcross Grange, but with the discovery of Heathcliff himself. As a young girl, she is cloistered in a very secluded but happy family circle. The arrival of an exterior force, Heathcliff, starts the simple human process of discovery of the other. Catherine is a blank painting in our

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2443
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)