Wuthering Heights

A detailed Summary of Wuthering Heights

The Romantic period was a time of experimentation and stretching of the novel. The novel often proved plain, familiar, and uninviting because of the strict adherence to common life. Novelists were inspired more so by poets and playwrights than other novelists (Romantic Period, The). This allowed for more freedom and expansion into emotional intensity. Writers dared to explore emotions, the imagination, and dreams. Their willingness to experiment created the expansion from realism into something of much more depth. In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte combines the romantic and realistic styles illustrating the romantic and realistic elements through nature, her characters, and the supernatural. The use of romance and realism in the novel also affect the reader's impressions and reactions, as well as the meaning of the work.

One of Bronte's significant romantic elements is her return to nature and her use of setting. The Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange estates are also effectively used to reflect the certain types of people who reside in them. The Wuthering Heights' dark and oppressive state adds on to Hindley's already existing agony from his wife's death and further encourages his isolation fr

Emily Bronte also includes the supernatural as a romantic element. In the beginning of the novel, Mr. Lockwood encounters the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw. When Heathcliff hears that he is frightened by a ghost, he immediately rushes into the room hoping to meet Catherine's spirit. The supernatural element in the novel is included for dramatic effect and to allow the reader to feel the mysteriousness and gloom that surrounds Wuthering Heights. The supernatural is a romantic element in that it creates fantasy and mystery.

Emily Bronte's message in Wuthering Heights is that hard work will not amount to anything until one meets death and merges with God because that is when one will find his greatest satisfaction. Heathcliff has lived despairingly without Catherine, and so it is not until he dies that he is fully happy because he and Catherine will finally be united in heaven, and ultimately, the power of good prevails the power of evil.

It is through the entwinement of both the old romantic style and the newer realistic style that allows Wuthering Heights to have such an impact on the reader as well as the message of the work. The elements of romance and realism form a balance that is well maintained to keep the mystery, interest, and credibility all alive.

Another unpleasant element of realism is the cruelty in human nature. Hindley is the first example of cruelty in Wuthering Heights. His treatment toward Heathcliff is prejudicial because Heathcliff is dark-skinned and does not have the fair hair that Hindley and his sister have. As a result, he pitilessly, for example, mistreats Heathcliff and sends him away from Catherine. Heathcliff as a result of his childhood, grows vengeful and into a cruel being himself. He is an example of both the cruelty and vengefulness in human nature. He becomes abusive to his wife, Isabella, and throws a knife at her when she mentioned Catherine's name. Heathcliff also uses his son Linton to carry out his vengeance. He is determined to have Linton and young

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Approximate Word count = 1353
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English