wuthering heights

A detailed Summary of wuthering heights

Emily Bronte's characters in Wuthering Heights display characteristics that some major 18th Century Romantic writers would either cringe in disdain from or openly embrace as their own. Upon analysis of Heathcliff and Hareton, characters nurtured in atmospheres of degradation, it is apparent that they embody dissimilar Romantic sensibilities. Heathcliff's life is an evolution of Blakian progression while Hareton is a Wordsworthian projection.

The course of Heathcliff's life is characterized by stages Blake recognized as innocence, experience, rebellion and higher innocence. As a child, the torture and humiliation he endures is obviated when roaming the moors with Catherine. "... it was one 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 ... they forgot everything the minute they were together again" (Bronte 87). Heathcliff emanates innocence when he spies Isabella and Edgar Linton amongst their riches but recognizes them as utterly devoid of imagination. Heathcliff proclaims "I'd not exchange for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thruscross Grange" (Bronte 89). Armed with a child's imagination, Heathcliff ha

Heathcliff's revenge ... has a moral force. For what Heathcliff does is use against his enemies with complete ruthlessness their own weapons to turn on them... their own standards, to beat them at their own game. The weapons he uses against the Earnshaws and Lintons are their own weapons of money and arranged marriages. He gets power over them by the classic methods of the ruling class, expropriation and property deals (Volger 38).

Heathcliff further proves himself a Blakian character by his display of disgust of Edgar's regard of Catherine during her mental illness. Nelly states that Edgar will continue his affections for Catherine "by the remembrance of what she once was, by common humanity, and a sense of duty" (Bronte 185). Enraged by this, Heathcliff declares, "... that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity! He might as well plant an oak in a flower pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigor in the soil of his shallow cares" (Bronte 190).

Despite his age, Hareton embodies the innocence that Wordsworth cherishes. ... "though he was twenty-three, and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel, and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity" (Bronte352). Hareton has retained the truths that adults "...are tolling all our lives to find" (Wordsworth, 333).

The words that are immediately recalled by Heathcliff's declaration are Blake's Mercy, Peace, Pity, and Love. In "The Human Abstract" Blake writes

These are the vices of the crazed world that Blake protests.

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Approximate Word count = 1187
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English