feature in gothic fictions which is the transgression. What makes Heathcliff a gothic villain is his wild, unreasonable passion. He transcends the normal limits of both revenge and love. Sometimes exaggeration is made for the sake of emphasis; however, exaggeration in Wuthering Heights is fearful because it is presented as something abnormal, something supernatural, something accurately described as obsession. Heathcliff’s love towards Catherine is supernatural, as well his intense desire for revenge is hysterical and transcends logical limits, and finally these two obsessions leads him to madness.
Revenge and the Vicious Cycle of Abuse in Wuthering Heights The desolate cliffs of Wuthering Heights serve as backdrop to a story that mimics the harsh conditions the characters face.With only two places of lodging and frequently inclimate weather, characters are isolated and maintain consistent interaction with each other. Bronte establishes a cycle of misery through a juxtaposition of setting and character interactions, which serves to further the motif of vengeance. As Mr. Earnshaw adopts Heathcliff, Heathcliff immediately becomes an outsider and a target for abuse from other characters in the novel. When Mr. Earnshaw passes away, Hindley takes over as guardian for Heathcliff. This change begins the cycle of abuse in Wuthering Heights.
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Emily Bronte 's novel 'Wuthering Heights ' did not depict just the Victorian life and society, but also it reflects the fundamental and crucial parts of human life, “this is the conflict between civilized and uncivilized life, between the rich and the poor between order and chaos, between storm and calm, between light and darkness, between wild vitality and modern sterility.’’(Nasir Uddin, 2014). Lord George Gordon Byron in his first poem “Childe Harold 's Pilgrimage” initiated the concept of Byronic Hero whose status is that of a social outcast with strong disgust for social norms and strong inclination to vengeance. Generally, it is some bitter experience of life that causes a Byronic hero to exile himself from the society, (Nasir Uddin, March 2014). Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is a Byronic hero, as one critic states that the issues of race and social class in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights are main focuses for how Heathcliff is perceived and how they influence his actions (Malin, 2013). The significance lies in how both issues are fundamental in dealing with the character of Heathcliff .He is not treated basically on account of his social class nor his race, yet a mixture of both.
Moreover, Heathcliff’s sadism manifests itself in his use of torture and imprisonment; classic Gothic features. He imprisons young Cathy at Wuthering Heights so as to torture emotionally Edgar Linton, who took Catherine away from him, but at the same time he equally tortures poor Cathy: “If papa thought I had left him, on purpose, and if he died before I returned, could I bear to live? I’ve over crying: but I’m going to kneel here, at your knee; and I’ll not get up, and I’ll not take my eyes from your face till you look back at me! No, don’t turn away! DO LOOK!
Emily Brontë’s (1818-1848) Wuthering Heights, written under a pseudonym Ellis Bell in 1847, is considered one of the most perplexing novels of the Victorian era. Born and raised in West Yorkshire, mostly by their father due to their mother’s early death, all three Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, lived fairly secluded lives finding the company in their imaginations and each other. Their marginalization and relative isolation limited their experiences with the society and gave rise to desires and needs that fuelled their creativity in writing. As highly educated introverts of poor wealth, they observed people and their personalities to create now timeless works of English literature. (Bronte 2010: v) Experiences and solitary life in
Wuthering Heights is a novel that revolves around the story of Heathcliff and how he turns out to be an angry character. Anger is not an emotion that happens haphazardly, it has various motives and causes which arouse one 's fury. It has been mentioned before that anger can be caused by racism, social injustice and class distinction. These are the main reasons behind Heathcliff 's anger. From the beginning, Heathcliff has been discriminated and treated as an inferior.
Some of the most important themes in Wuthering Heights would come to show after the death of a character. Heathcliff’s death shows to be one of the most important scenes in the book due to showing how revenge, the need for his character to rest, and his wish to be reconnected with Catherine emphasizes the entire meaning of the story itself. One theme the death of Heathcliff shows is revenge, since throughout the story he gets hurt and seeks for vengeance afterwards. This fact is so important to the book due to how much of his life and effort Heathcliff has gone through worrying about this subject. In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff states, “I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back.
In Chapter XII she recommends to Nelly that the years since she was twelve years of age and her dad kicked the bucket have been similar to a clear to her, and she yearns to come back to the fields of her youth. Heathcliff, as far as concerns him, has an apparently superhuman capacity to keep up the same mentality and to attendant the same feelings of spite over numerous
Edgar had taken Heathcliff’s love, Catherine, so this was to get to Edgar and be able to hurt him emotionally from a closer distance. This was all out of spite and never out of love. So when Cathy’s daughter and Heathcliff’s son are only left with Heathcliff, Heathcliff makes it a point to get them married to each other. This is immoral because people of the same family were not supposed to marry one another. This act showed that Heathcliff was not concerned about what was moral and what was
A Victorian writer, Bronte has contributed immensely to the genre of Female Gothic fiction by her single but most popular novel Wuthering Heights (1847). Though hardly appreciated by her contemporaries, Emily Bronte has wedged her way towards the front rank Victorian novelists through her extraordinary piece of work. And now she is admired by all as a genius, revealing flashes of extraordinary imagination which are however at a distant from the central interests of human being. Intrinsically different from her contemporaries, Bronte’s work is devoid of the bustling, progressive urban world of the nineteenth century England which were the settings of many fictions of her contemporary writers. Her fictional world is quite different, inhabited by different characters, and she created it from a different point of view.