Characterism And Criticism In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights
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Abstract: Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” is best known for its gothic scenery, romance and violence. The novel has portrayed Heathcliff as both a hero and a villain. He was a hero who was driven by vengeance at the middle of the novel and became a villain. He was not a born villain but a villain made. While all the retaliations in the English Literature were seen in favour of the one who retaliated, Heathcliff’s retaliation was regarded as a villainous act. Heathcliff was portrayed as a gypsy and I assume that the kind of racism in the novel against Heathcliff would be a primary reason why he was projected as a villain. It was Hindley who sowed the seeds of hatred and vengeance in the mind of Heathcliff. He tortured him and created space…show more content… She was born on 30th July 1818 and died at her 30th age in 1848. Wuthering Heights was written in the year 1846. Her full name was Emily Jane Brontë and she is one of the three famous Brontë sisters. All the three sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne were well known as poets and novelists. Because of the strict male dominated British society, they, like the other contemporary female writers, originally published their poems and novels under male pseudonyms. Charlotte under Currer, Emily under Ellis, and Anne under Acton Bell. “Wuthering heights” was her only novel that is still not understood fully by the readers and attracts different interpretations from various readers across the globe. By any means or literary standards, Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” is a classic. People still believe that she came to this world to gift her only novel and then leave the…show more content… Since she is the one narrating the story she decides how the reader is supposed to perceive Heathcliff and the other characters. This is evident from Brontë when Nelly introduces Heathcliff in the following manner, “Nelly initially refers to him as it, “I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the morrow” (31-32). Although Hafley states that Lockwood, the other narrator is innocent (201), Hillis Miller, in his article titled "Wuthering Heights" and the Ellipses of Interpretation, states that the whole narration is unreliable considering the story being so vast and full of hidden meanings (43) and that Lockwood, too, is an unreliable narrator. This is because he has to decipher all the confusing information that he tries to put in order (43).
Racial discrimination from all the angle, from the author, audience and the characters in the novel pushed Heathcliff to become the character which he didn’t intend to become. Racial discrimination and suppression of the oppressed class was always part and parcel of the English