Assignment Paper-E-C-201

Topic- Thematic Concerns in Wuthering Heights

Dabhi Ashvin P

M.A. Part – 1

SEM- II

Roll No -06

Year – 2010-11

Department of English

Submitted to Mr. Jay Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

___________________________________________

Introduction:-The novel “Wuthering Heights” is the most popular and highly regarded novels in English literature. It is written by Emily Bronte. The concept that almost every reader of “Wuthering Heights” focuses on is the passion, love of Catherine and Heathcliff, often to the exclusion of every other kinds of love of are presented and that Catherine dies half way through the novel. The loves of the second generations, the love of Frances and Hindley and the “susceptible heart” of Lockwood receive scant attention from such readers. Is love the force perhaps economic?

            The desire for wealth does motivate Catherin’s marriage, which results in Heathcliff’s fight and causes him to acquire Wuthering Heights, to appropriate Thrushcross Grange and to dispossess Hareton. It is possible that one of the other themes constitutes the center of the to the theme of love?

            Consider the following themes:-

Ø  Clash of elemental forces:-

            The universe is made up of two opposite forces, storm and calm. Wuthering      Heights and the Earnshaws express the storm, Thrushcross Grange and the Lintons the calm. Catherine and Heathcliff are elemental creatures of the storm. This theme is discussed more fully in later critical response to Wuthering Heights.

Ø  The clash of economic interests and social classes:-

The novel is set at a time when capitalism and industrialization are changing not only the economy but also the traditional social structure and the relationship of the classes. The respectable farming class was being destroyed by the economic alliance of the newly-wealthy capitalist (Heathcliff) and the traditional power holding gentry (the Lintons). This theme is discussed more fully in “Wuthering Heights” as socio-economic Novel.

Ø  The striving for transcendence:-

It is not just love that Catherine and Heathcliff seek but a higher, spiritual existence which is permanent and unchanging, as Catherine makes clear when she compares her love for Linton to the seasons and her love for Heathcliff to the rocks. The dying Catherine looks forward to achieving this state through death. This theme is discussed more fully in Religion, Metaphysics and Mysticism.

Ø  The abusive patriarch and patriarchal family:-

The male heads of household abuse females and males who are weak or powerless. This can be seen in their use of various kinds of imprisonment or confinement, which takes social, emotional, financial, legal and physical forms. Mr. Earnshaw expects Catherine to behave properly and hurtfully rejects her “bad girl” behavior. Edger’s ultimatum that Catherine must make a final choice between him and Heathcliff restricts Catherine’s identity by forcing her to reject an essential part of her nature, with loving selfishness Edger confines his daughter Cathy to the boundaries of Thrushcross Grange. A vindictive Hindley strips Heathcliff of his position in the family, thereby trapping him in a degraded laboring position. Heathcliff literally incarcerates Isabella and later he imprisons both Cathy and Nelly also, Cathy is isolated from the rest of the household after her marriage to Linton.

Ø  Study of childhood and the family:-

The hostility toward and the abuse of children and family members at Wthering Heights cut across the generations. The savagery of children finds full expression in Hindley’s animosity toward Heathcliff and in Heathcliff’s plans of vengeance. Wrapped in the self-centeredness of childhood, Heathcliff claims Hindley’s horse and uses Mr. Earnshaw’s children, she becomes renellious. Despite abuse, Catherine and Heathcliff show the strength of children to survive and abuse at least party forms the adult characters and behavior of Catherine and Heathcliff.

Ø  The effect of intense suffering:-

In the passion-driven characters Catherine, Heathcliff and Hindley pain leads them to turn on and to torment others. Inflicting pain provides them some relief, this behavior raises questions about whether they are cruel by nature or are formed by childhood abuse and to what extent they should be held responsible for or blamed for their cruelties. All their suffering inflicted by others or by outside forces, like the death of Hindley’s wife, or at least some of their torment self inflicted, like Heathcliff’s holding Catherine responsible for his suffering after her death. Suffering also sears the weak, Isabella and her son Linton became vindictive and Edger turns into self indulgent, melancholy recluse. The children of love, the degraded Hareton and the imprisoned Cathy are able to overcome Heathcliff’s abuse and to find love and a future with each other. Is John Hasan right that “Wuthering Heights” is such a remarkable work partly because it persuades us forcibly to pity victims and victimizers alike?

Ø  Self-imposed or self-generated confinement and escape:-

Both Catherine and Heathcliff find their bodies prisons which trap their spirits and prevent the fulfillment of their desires. Catherine yearns to be united with Heathcliff, with a lost childhood freedom with Nature and with a spiritual realm. Heathcliff wants possession of and union with Catherine also defines the course of Catherine’s life. In childhood she alternates between the constraint of Wuthering Heights and the freedom of the moors. In puberty she is restricted by her injury to a couch at Thrushcross Grange finally womanhood and her choice of husband confine her to the gentility of Thrushcross Grange from which she escapes into the freedom of death.

Ø  Displacement and exile:-

Heathcliff enters the novel possesses of nothing. He is not even given a last or family name and loses his privileged status after Mr.Earnshaw’s death. Heathcliff displaces Hindley in the family structure. Catherine is thrown out of heaven, where she feels displaced. She sees herself an exile at Thrushcross Grange at the end and wanders the moors for twenty years as a ghost. Hareton is dispossessed of property, education and social status. Isabella cannot return to her beloved Thrushcross Grange and brother. Linton is displaced twice after his mother’s death, being removed first to Thrushcross Grange and then to Wuthering Heights. Cathy is displaced from her home, Thrushcross Grange.

Ø  Communication and understanding:-

The narrative structure of the novel revolves around communication and under standing. Lockwood is unable to communicative with or understands the relationships at Wuthering Heights and Nelly enlightens him by communicating the history of the Earnshow and the Lintons. Trying to return to the Grange in a snowstorm, Lockwood cannot see the stone markers. A superstitions Nelly refuses to let Catherine tell her dreams. Repeatedly is talking about or refuses to accept what Catherine is saying after that she locks herself in her room. Isabella refuses to heed Catherine’s warning and Nellie’s advice about Heathcliff. And probably the most serious mis-communication of all is Heathcliff’s Hearing only that it would degrade Catherine to marry him.

Ø  The Fall:-

Recently a number of critics have seen the story of a fall in this novel, Does Catherine fall, in yielding to the comforts and security of Thrushcross Grange? Does Heathcliff fall in his “moral teething” of revenge and pursuit of property? The theme of a fall relies heavily on  he references to heaven and hell that run through the novel beginning with Lockwood’s explicit reference to Wuthering Heights as a “misanthrope’s heaven” and ending with the implied heaven of the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine roaming the moors together. Catherine dreams o of being expelled from heaven and sees herself an exile cast out from the heaven” of Wuthering Heights- a literal as well as a symbolic fall. Heathcliff likes Satan. He is relentless in his destructive pursuit of revenge. The ideas of expulsion from heaven, exile and desire for revenge have been connected to Milton’s epic “paradise lost” and parallels drawn between Milton’s epic and Bronte’s novel. Catherine’s pain at her change from free child to imprisoned adult is compared to Satan’s to Beelzebub, how changed from an angel of light to exile in a fiery lake”.

Ø  The Destructiveness of a love that never changes:-

In this novel Catherine and Heathcliff’s passion for one another seems to be the centre of “Wuthering Heights. It is stronger and more lasting than any other emotion displayed in the major conflicts that structure the novel’s plot. As she tells Catherine and Heathcliff’s story, Nelly criticizes both of them harshly condemning their passion as immoral but this passion is obviously one of the most compelling and memorable aspects of the book. It is not easy to decide whether Bronte intends the reader to condemn these lovers as romantic heroes whose love transcends social norm and conventional morality. The book is actually structured around two parallel love stories, the first half of the novel centering on the love between Catherine and Heathcliff, while the less dramatic second half features the developing love between young Catherine and Hareton. In contrast to the first, the latter tale ends happily restoring peace and order to Wuthering heights and Thrushcross Grange. The differences between the two love stories contempt to the reader understands. The most important features of young Catherine or Harleton’s love story are that it involves growth and chance. Early in the novel Hareton seems brutal, savage and illiterate over time he becomes a loyal friend to young Catherine and learns to read.

Moreover, Catherine and Heathcliff love is based on their shared perception that they are identical. Catherine declare famously, “I am Heathcliff”, while Heathcliff upon Catherine’s death, wails that he can live without his “soul” that means Catherine. Their love denies difference and is strong unsexual.