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. Knowledg

His intentions are good and pure since he does not want his daughter to be involved in the prior wrongs. Still, his own actions are the first step in Cathy's normal search for knowledge of the other and the outer world. Like in Moliere's l'Ecole des Femmes, the young heroine is pushed into the arms of her lover Arnolphe by her husband's coveting of her education. It is impossible in both texts to ensure the education of an innocent mind, and assuring that this mind stays attached to her small, limited social world.

4 Idem. No Coward Soul is Mine by Emily Bronte, p.1273.

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.

The Victorian era was one of regression for the status of women: they are sent out into the industrialized work force with little or no equality in status to men. Furthermore, land ownership for women continued to be refused until the Married Women's property Act in 1870. Women are thus integrated in a harsher social context, but are not compensated for their new status.

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.

The coveting of innocent minds only leads to their sure search toward knowledge of the other. " Ellen, how long will it be before I can walk to the top of those hills?"(p.189). She cannot wait long before she does reach the hills, and thus begins her deconstruction in knowledge. Simply, she must regress in progression to encompass the reality on the other side of the wall. For example, her initial disgust on learning that Hareton is her cousin relates her prior notions in the "pride of blood". Only her acceptance of the new situation will restart her progression in knowledge, but now on a wider and larger social scale.

A question remains: how may we attribute these social values of regression to Catherine Earnshaw if the novelist was a recluse and separated from social life in general? The answer is simple, we cannot. On the other hand, we may transpose the question toward the next generation since they will have to cope with the effects of the ill events that have taken place between herself, Heathcliff, and Linton. Our answer lies with Catherine Linton - Cathy- her daughter.

This process develops toward her encounter with Thrushcross Grange, and the question of primitive human social choice. Catherine is now faced with another new element totally unprepared and certainly lacking in character. She mu

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Approximate Word count = 2504
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)