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Berna Bozkurt

Ass. Prof. Dr. Özlem Ulucan

19th Century British Literature

152052049

05 March 2019

Different Social Class and Reality in Wuthering Heights

This paper will analyze Wuthering Heights, in terms of different Social Class and

Reality. In This book refers to a lot of events in the Victorian Era, because when we see social

class, was not appropriate in terms of relationship characters but also characters shaped

according to status. These features have a effect in determining person’s position in society.

Character’s life and theirs acts, speech, clothing, education decide to their position. There

were three main classes; upper class, the middle class, and the lower class. We see this in the

novel for instance marriages should make according to heritages and people act according to

this. Book shows the tragedy of Catherine and Heathcliff as a direct result of their big love but

it didn’t result a good end result of class differences and wrong choice. But we actually have a

question this story right or wrong because narrator talks about actions and so maybe narrator

isn’t real and so we think this problem. Emily shows us the social aspects of living in the

Victorian Period in Wuthering Heights. Generally when we see the area people think that if I

have money I will be find the happy life or others but this book shows us this is not a good

idea if you love a lower class person. Social class differences play an important role in the

plot of Wuthering Heights. As Heathcliff was born an orphan, he does not have a social

identity or class like Pride and prejudice’s character William. Mr. Earnshaw brought him from
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Liverpool as he is a orphan as he could not bear to see people who died in the streets. But

when Heathcliff leaves and returns richer, his class has changed thanks to these results.

Xiaoyan Tong says:

After three years of absence, Heathcliff comes back totally different. He is now

wealthy, refined and assertive, and his vengeance is well planned. Obviously, he

earlier had left because of the fact that he had neither money nor social status. Not

being treated well by others, he has decided to get back at those people who have

treated him badly. He has prepared a plan of revenge on them. (232)

Hindley always behave the Heatchliff badly and this reasons result to revenge to

heatchliff. Hindley has a huge social downfall. Hindley is a respected gentleman’s son and

when he comes home to Wuthering Heights after college, he has a new bride and importance

in the community. When he returns to Wuthering Heights, he continues to behave badly to

Heathcliff but although this he has still has a great deal of power. When his wife dies, he

starts to lose his sanity and “degenerates into an animal”.

Through the novel, Heathcliff constantly changes his social status and wants to

dominate everything. Heatchliff who lives in the streets of Liverpool starts as a nameless

orphan. Mr. Earnshaw, who is a respected gentleman, takes Heathcliff away from Liverpool

to the countryside in northern England and raises him as his own. Thanks to Mr. Earnshaw,

Heathcliff changes his social class from the lower class to the upper class as a country

gentleman. The residents of Wuthering Heights rejects Heathcliff especially Hindley. When

Heatchliff is rejected by Catherine, he leaves Wuthering Heights to change into a wealthy and

also he wants to be a gentleman but we see the status, money couldn’t came happy life to be a

gentleman. He loves Catherine, his love becomes an obsession and he tries to prove himself to

her. This event represents his desire for power and status. Catherine has everything which

Heatchliff wants such as power, and recognition from society. As he loses his love, he feels a
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need to be wealthier. Before Catherine died, he focuses on revenge because he always thinks

that I will approach all thinks what she has. After she dies he decides to more powerful.

Emily Bronte says in Wuthering Heights: “If all else perished, and he remained, I should still

continue to be; and if all else remained, and he was annihilated, the universe would turn to a

mighty stranger (67)”.

After the dies her father Catherine was not accept by her family, anybody does not

accept him in Earnshaw family. After marriage with Edgar and Catherine and Heathcliff

changed to Catherine and he wants to be blood and bad events for theirs. As he is excluded,

his perspective starts to change and he tries to take revenge. The social class conflicts added

to Heathcliff's rage because he had been rejected by his love due to his social class and also

Edgar’s. It drove Heathcliff's ambition to become wealthier after Catherine married Edgar

instead of him. The social contrast between Heathcliff and Edgar, along with Catherine's want

to be wealthy, finally resulted in her marrying the man she was less happy with. These are two

features, which are necessary for a woman to be a proper option for marrying into a wealthy

family. During Victorian Era Women generally base on their husbands and so they don’t go

somewhere without money other things or they dot decide their own ideas, so Catherine

would choose the road, and marry Edgar Linton for him rich life and status. Actually it

became a bad conflict for Catherine, because even though she thought Edgar could offer her

what she wanted, he could not because money didn’t give her happy. Emily Bronte says in

Wuthering Heights:

My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I’m well

aware, as winter changes the trees – my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks

beneath – a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly I am Heathcliff – he’s

always, always on my mind – not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure

to myself – but, as my own being. (67) 

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We see this conversation actually Catherine is so regret because she fells herself alone

and so he dies end of the novel. Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross grange, they are

different to each other. In Wuthering Heights, defined distinctions between Wuthering

Catherine talks to Nelly about her marriage with Edgar. She tells her that she will raise

her social status by marrying Edgar although she does not love him. Her true love is Heatchlif

but Catherine says she cannot marry him because it would degrade her. She marries the man

who has money and takes part in a class, but she loves the man without class or money.

Mina Urgan says: “When Heathcliff wanted to enter the hall, Edgar Linton says it

would be better for this man to eat with the servants in the kitchen (1148).”

Marxist theory. People will do whatever it takes to raise their social position in Karl Marx

theory. After Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley starts to behave badly and this actually shows us

psychological critics because people who didn’t see affection from their parents behave this

character. Hindley behaved bad Heathcliff and starts to treat him as a servant. When Mr.

Earnshaw was alive, Heathcliff was treated as a middle class person, but after he died Hindley

started to treat him as a servant, because he didn’t believe that an uneducated, poor man could

rise to the middle class in such a short period of time. As Catherine married Edgar for the

money and social class, Heathcliff also married Isabella for her money or his revenge but

actually Isabella is an allegory in this book because we saw generally Catherine and

Heathcliff actions. Heathcliff used Isabella to gain power and not to love her. The use of

Isabella in order to gain social power follows the Marxist theory of laboring to gain power.

Heathcliff does this because he doesn’t wants to be treated as a servant, but wants to be

treated as a high class man. Heathcliff starts in the poor class, rises to middle class, lowers to

lower class, and rises to high class, acting like a dictator.

In conclusion, thanks to the social class, Catherine decides to marry Edgar, but she

does not love him. Actually author punished the character because she leant that result of her
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choice ın the world nobody or nothing good than real love. Catherine says that she would

have decided to marry Heathcliff if he was more civilized and had a better social status.

Herbert Goldstone says :

The two narrators tell a certain amount of the story and then stop at strategic points

and these stops structure the book in clearly patterned incidents as well as prepare for major

climaxes. For example, one break in Mrs. Dean's narrative occurs at the end of chapter nine

with Catherine (176). We see actually this book an objective way because Nelly who is

narrator in the book talk about characters in the novel maybe this novel shows readers to

characters .

I think the author shows us "if a person didn’t see a good affection his or her parents or

anyway he or she shows this problem revenge or in a brutal way or environmental factors

making it worse?” In the formation of the Heathcliff's cruel character, but we see this event a

two sides the bad memories had Heathcliff make this bad behaves and in his childhood years

were a major factor. These factors made him brutal actually Heathcliff both justified and

brutal. Heathcliff cannot reach his love, he is a combative character and he tries to eliminate

this obstinacy by harming his environment. He tries to remove the pain of the status

difference from the people who treat him badly throughout his childhood.
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Works Cited

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights, Dionis Yayınları, 2016.

Tong, Xiaoyan. “Heathcliff’s Freedom in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights”,

Brontë Studies

The Journal of the Brontë Society. vol.41, no. 3, pp. 229-38, 2016. Goldstone.

Herbert. Wuthering Heights Revisited, The English Journel vol. 48, no. 4

Urgan, Mina. İngiliz Edebiyatı Tarihi. Yapı Kredi Yayınları, 1991.