In Wuthering Heights, a good majority of the characters suffer in many ways. Anorexia, idiocy, and abuse are prevalent throughout this story. It is ultimately these sources that lead to character’s abundant psychological suffering. To name a few, Isabella enters a loveless marriage, the death of Hindley’s wife, and, above all, Heathcliff and Catherine have a constant back and forth of blaming the other for their pain (Baldys). Evan at the end of Catherine’s life, Heathcliff comments, “Misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart- you have broken it- and in breaking it, you have broken mine” (Bronte). This perfectly sums up a vicious cycle created in this novel. These characters are putting themselves I situations that will cause them to suffer, and as a result of their suffering, they inflict the same sensation on others. A perfect example being Heathcliff’s treatment of Hareton and Cathy, who, despite the abuse, are the few characters that are able to break out of this cycle. Similar situations can be found in Grendel. Of course there is the suffering of Grendel’s victims who are brutally torn apart and killed. Gardner also introduces Unferth who, despite his greatest attempts, cannot die. Grendel spares him time and time again, leaving him broken. Lastly, there is Grendel. Above all
Heathcliff is a miserable human being. Linton and Catherine’s ill-treatment was the cause of the transition, and his position in the household gave him faith and courage. To sum up, the changes in a character’s position greatly affected the
Growing up as a Buddhist Chinese Malaysian in an increasingly Islamic Malay-centric Malaysia, I oftentimes feel like an outsider. Consequently, I was drawn to the outsiders and the social Other in literature during my undergraduate years in NCCU.
and Miss Tilney develop with good intentions, yet her immaturity change the dynamics to become more of a doting relationship. In both instances when Catherine meets the Tilneys for the first time, she is polite and conversational, but Catherine also “was desirous of being acquainted with [Miss Tilney]” (Austen 50). In Catherine’s meeting of the Tilneys, she possesses an element of her immaturity, as her emotions and attention scatter back and forth between the Tilneys and the Thorpes. Her attachments to both women, Isabella Thorpe and Miss Tilney, display Catherine’s childlike admiration and naive adoration. In the argument of the argument of Waldo Glock, he refers Catherine to have an “impressionable mind occasionally interpret[ing] scenes at Bath in the light of her reading of Gothic romance" (Glock 33). Her books influence her character and actions, as she makes decisions based on what she has read in her gothic novels. Like a child, her stories influence her day to day experiences which establish her immaturity, in looking for role models to mirror her life
While Lockwood narrates the story, he introduces the readers to Heathcliff, the villain protagonist. Heathcliff is a tragic anti-hero of Wuthering Heights that he is in some ways an archetypal Gothic character. He is a dark, mysterious, and violent character whose circumstances have turned him to a villain character. These circumstances may lead the reader to have sympathy with Heathcliff. Bronte expresses how Heathcliff arrives at Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw as “a dirty, ragged, black-haired child”(24). He has a hard childhood because of Hindley’s jealousy. Hindley’s bad treatment of Heathcliff forces Mr. Earnshaw to send him away to school. After Mr. Erarnshaw’s death, Hindley uses his power and authority to destroy Heathcliff and
“She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of on his account” (Bronte, 41). Catherine and Heathcliff’s love is a never ending cycle of torment and abuse. During the 1700’s love was more about ownership than one’s own feelings towards their partner. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights depicts the various ways love can be distorted or wrongfully defined through unreal expectations, revenge, and possession.
By doing this Hosseini allows the reader to connect with and have sympathy for both main female characters. Especially in highly emotional scenes when Mariam sees "Nana dangling" from a tree, having committed suicide and when Laila's parents are killed "It hurts. It hurts to breathe". In contrast Bronte wrote 'Wuthering Heights' in first person but from the perspective of an outsider Lockwood ("I have just returned...) and Nelly, who is still distanced from Catherine and Heathcliff. This could have been used by Bronte to isolate Catherine from the reader. This may represent here geographical location on the moors or her oppression in the restrictive 18th century society, when the novel was set. An era in which Catherine's free and open nature, Nelly described her as being "a wicked wild slip " would be unacceptable and expected to change as she grew into a proper young woman - the Victorian stereotype of the 'Angel of the House' (similar to Isabella Linton). Hosseini however may be trying to create a sympathetic, emotional connection between character and reader, to show how the women are more free to be who they want to in a 20/21st century
Due to the time that this novel was written a boys childhood would be a lot stricter than the girls, in the novel this is present between Heathcliff and Catherine, which would naturally make his childhood bitter in comparison. Heathcliff’s childhood could be considered bitter in many ways due to his relationship with the different people within Wuthering Heights and how he got there in the first place. The most common relationship that would make is childhood bitter was his relationship with Hindley Earnshaw.
During the book Wuthering Heights their is an chapter that is a letter written by Isabella and how her time at Wuthering Heights is. “ Is Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he an devil?... I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married.” (Bronte 100). In
At the beginning of the novel, Catherine is described as a wild and rebellious child. However, that changes after her stay with the Linton’s. When she returns from her stay her “manners were much improved,” and “instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house…there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in” (46). Catherine was tempted by the way of life the Linton’s lived and, to fit in, has concealed her wild and rebellious nature. She confides in her housekeeper that she loves Heathcliff, but can’t marry him because it would “degrade” her (71). While Catherine does have some affection for Edgar, she does not marry him out of love, she marries him because he is rich. Her love for Edgar is not natural, it is pretended. When Catherine falls ill, there’s a certain moment that she believe she is being haunted because she does not recognize herself in the mirror. When Nelly manages to convince her that the image in the mirror is her own, Catherine is horrified. “At the point when Catherine realizes the woman in the mirror is herself…she recognizes just how profound her self-alienation…can be” (Ablow 62). She realizes that by marrying Edgar she has alienated herself and concealed her own nature in order to become his
Emily Bronte used various figures of speech to relate commonly known ideas to less known concepts. Catherine, alike to other family members, had rage and had it shown through the parallelism, “... though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated” (Bronte 99). The parallelism and repetition is effective in listing Catherine’s characteristics, all the while connecting it to the theme. In the simile, “ I’ll crush his ribs in like a rotten hazel-nut before I cross the threshold!” (Bronte 114), is said by Mr. Linton to Catherin to explain his jealousy and motive to kill Heathcliff. The amount of anger and frustration expressed to keep their marriage together is emphasized by the rhetorical device. It also shows that hatred is expressed in a family when one is lost for patience, becoming a problem and resolution. In the metaphor, “He’s not a rough diamond-a pearl-containing oyster of rustic: he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man”(Bronte 101), Heathcliff is described by Nelly Dean to be powerful and potentially hurtful to Isabella. Dean protects Isabella by warning her at the cost of dehumanizing Heathcliff. The metaphor is used to describe and illustrate an image for readers and Isabella. The condescending tone and choice of words translates into
Adopted by Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff is treated very poorly by everyone except Mr. Earnshaw and eventually Old Cathy grows to love him. After Mr. Earnshaw dies his son, Hindley, takes control of his father’s estate, Wuthering Heights. He treats Heathcliff terribly and separates him from Old Cathy; although she still loves Heathcliff, she marries Edgar. When Heathcliff returns from his three-year absence he still loves Old Cathy and so does she, but of course can no longer be with her. The marriage adds onto to his ever growing vengeance he holds against the Earnshaws and Lintons, but if he had stayed she would have chosen him over Edgar. He decides by marrying Isabella his plan to own both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange will come to fruition; marriage is used as a weapon of revenge in this
Heathcliff personifies the role of a savage and a cultured gentleman. Heathcliff’s upbringing was tainted from the begging, he was a parentless gypsy orphan that was adopted by and brought out to the moors. As a child he was very unkempt, but unlike most children he never outgrew this trait. When Catherine returns from Thrushcross Grange, she immediately
Isabella Linton falls in love with Heathcliff, but she is so cruelly abused by him that she has to leave him. This fact presents a social taboo for the period, in which the novel was written and can be seen in this excerpt from her epistolary confession to Ellen Dean “I assure you, a tiger, or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens...I do hate him- I am wretched - I have been a fool” (Bronte 233). Heathcliff does not feel any remorse or shame for Isabella’s fate, not even for their son Linton whom he neglects to seek medical care for when he has fulfilled his purpose in taking over the Heathcliff Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff’s irrational violent acts against vulnerable victims show his total indifference for human suffering.
Individualism is the political and social philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. It is the idea that the individual’s life belongs to him and that he has an inalienable right to live it as he sees fit, to act on his own judgment, to keep and use the product of his effort, and to pursue the values of his choosing. It’s the idea that the individual is sovereign, an end in himself, and the fundamental unit of moral concernIndividualism in a novel refers to characters’ unique qualities as well as the way in which they express themselves. It is also called non-conformity, which implies standing out from the rest. Societal expectations in a novel refers to standards of behavior set and accepted to be “normal” by the society