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WUTHERING HEIGHTS
Emily Bronte

OVERVIEW OF EMILY BRONTË

Emily Bronte has become mythologized both as an individual and as one of the
Brontë sisters. She has been cast as Absolute Individual, as Tormented Genius, and
as Free Spirit Communing with Nature; the trio of sisters–Charlotte, Emily, and
Anne–have been fashioned into Romantic Rebels, as well as Solitary Geniuses.
Their lives have been sentimentalized, their psyches psychoanalyzed, and their
home life demonized. In truth, their lives and home were strange and often
unhappy. Their father was a withdrawn man who dined alone in his own room;
their Aunt Branwell, who raised them after the early death of their mother, also
dined alone in her room. The two oldest sisters died as children. For three years
Emily supposedly spoke only to family members and servants. Their brother
Branwell, an alcoholic and a drug addict, put the family through the hell of his
ravings and threats of committing suicide or murdering their father, his physical
and mental degradation, his bouts of delirium tremens, and, finally, his death.

As children, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne had one another and books as
companions; in their isolation, they created an imaginary kingdom called Angria
and filled notebooks describing its turbulent history and character. Around 1831,
thirteen-year old Emily and eleven-year old Anne broke from the Angrian fantasies,
which Branwell and Charlotte had dominated, to create the alternate history of
Gondal. Emily maintained her interest in Gondal and continued to spin out the
fantasy with pleasure till the end of her life. Nothing of the Gondal history remains
except Emily's poems, the references in the journal fragments by Anne and Emily,
the birthday papers of 1841 and 1845, and Anne's list of the names of characters
and locations.

Little is known directly of Emily Brontë. All that survives of Emily's own words
about herself is two brief letters, two diary papers written when she was thirteen
and sixteen, and two birthday papers, written when she was twenty-three and
twenty-seven. Almost everything that is known about her comes from the writings
of others, primarily Charlotte. Even Charlotte's novel, Shirley, has been used as a
biographical source because Charlotte created Shirley, as she told her biographer
and friend Elizabeth Gaskell, to be "what Emily Brontë would have been had she
been placed in health and prosperity."

Often Wuthering Heights is used to construct a biography of Emily's life,

personality, and beliefs. Edward Chitharn equates Emily, the well-read
housekeeper of the family home, with Nelly based on the similarity of their roles
and the similarity of their names, "Nelly" being short for "Ellen" which is similar to

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Emily's pseudonym "Ellis." The supposed anorexia of Catherine, who stops eating
after Edgar's ultimatum, and of Heathcliff, who stops eating at the end, is used as
proof of Emily's anorexia; support for this interpretation is found in the tendency of
all four Brontë siblings not to eat when upset. Alternately, Emily's supposed
anorexia is used to explain aspects of the novel. Katherine Frank characterizes
Emily as a constantly hungry anorexic who denies her constant hunger; "Even more
importantly," Frank asks, "how was this physical hunger related to a more
pervasive hunger in her life–hunger for power and experience, for love and
happiness, fame and fortune and fulfilment?" Well, one expression of these hungers
is the intense focus on food, hunger, and starvation in Wuthering Heights .
Furthermore, the kitchen is the main setting, and most of the passionate or violent
scenes occur there.

Similarly, Emily's poems are used to interpret her novel, particularly those poems
discussing isolation, rebellion, and freedom. Readings of Wuthering Heights as a
mystical novel, a religious novel, or a visionary novel call on "No coward soul is
mine," one of her best poems. The well known "Riches I hold in light esteem" is cited
to explain her choice of a reclusive lifestyle, as is “A Chainless Life." The fact that
many of these poems were written as part of the Gondal chronicles and are
dramatic speeches of Gondal characters is blithely ignored or explained away. (In
1844 Emily went through her poems, destroying some, revising others, and writing
new poems; she collected them and clearly labeled the Gondal poems.)

The poems and Wuthering Heights have also been connected. The editor of her
poems, C.W. Hatfield, sees the same mind at work in both, and Charles Morgan
perceives in them "the same unreality of this world, the same greater reality of
another... and a unique imagination."

Summary
Wuthering Heights is related as a series of narratives which are themselves told to the narrator,
a gentleman named Lockwood. Lockwood rents a fine house and park called Thrushcross Grange
in Yorkshire, and gradually learns more and more about the histories of two local families. This is
what he learns from a housekeeper, Ellen Dean, who had been with one of the two families for all
of her life:
In around 1760, a gentleman-farmer named Earnshaw went from his farm, Wuthering Heights, to
Liverpool on a business trip. He found there a little boy who looked like a gypsy who had
apparently been abandoned on the streets, and brought the child home with him, to join his own
family of his wife, his son Hindley, his daughter Catherine, a manservant named Joseph, and Ellen,
who was very young at the time and working as a maid. Earnshaw named the boy Heathcliff after
a son of his who had died. All the other members of the household were opposed to the
introduction of a strange boy, except for Catherine, who was a little younger than Heathcliff and
became fast friends with him. Hindley in particular felt as though Heathcliff had supplanted him,
although he was several years older and the true son and heir. Hindley bullied Heathcliff when he

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could, and Heathcliff used his influence over Earnshaw to get his way. Heathcliff was a strange,
silent boy, who appeared not to mind the blows he received from Hindley, although he was in fact
very vindictive. Earnshaw's wife died. Hindley was sent away to college in a last attempt to turn him
into a worthy son, and to ease pressures at home.
After some years, Earnshaw's health declined and he grew increasingly alienated from his family: in
his peevish old age he worried that everyone disliked Heathcliff simply because Earnshaw liked
him. He did not like his daughter Catherine's charming and mischievous ways. Finally he died, and
Catherine and Heathcliff were very grieved, but consoled each other with thoughts of heaven.

Hindley returned, now around twenty years old. Heathcliff was about twelve and Catherine was
eleven. Hindley was married to a young woman named Frances, to the surprise of everyone at
Wuthering Heights. Hindley used his new power as the head of the household to reduce Heathcliff
to the level of a servant, although Heathcliff and Catherine continued their intimacy. Catherine
taught Heathcliff her lessons and would join him in the fields, or they would run away to the moors
all day to play, never minding their punishments afterward.

One day they ran down to the Grange, a more civilized house where the Lintons lived with their
children Edgar, thirteen, and Isabella, eleven. Catherine and Heathcliff despised the spoiled, delicate
Linton children, and made faces and yelled at them through the window. The Lintons called for help
and the wilder children fled, but Catherine was caught by a bulldog and they were brought inside.
When the Lintons found out that the girl was Miss Earnshaw, they took good care of her and threw
Heathcliff out.

Catherine stayed at the Grange for five weeks, and came home dressed and acting like a proper
young lady, to the delight of Hindley and his wife, and to Heathcliff's sorrow––he felt as though she
had moved beyond him. Over the next few years, Catherine struggled to both maintain her
relationship with Heathcliff, and socialize with the elegant Linton children.

Frances gave birth to a son, Hareton, and died soon after of tuberculosis. Hindley gave in to wild
despair and alcoholism, and the household fell into chaos. Heathcliff was harshly treated, and came
to hate Hindley more and more. Edgar Linton fell in love with Catherine, who was attracted by his
wealth and genteel manners, although she loved Heathcliff much more seriously. Edgar and
Catherine became engaged, and Heathcliff ran away. Catherine fell ill after looking for Heathcliff all
night in a storm, and went to the Grange to get better. The Linton parents caught her fever and died
of it. Edgar and Catherine were married when she was 18 or 19.
They lived fairly harmoniously together for almost a year––then Heathcliff returned. He had
mysteriously acquired gentlemanly manners, education, and some money. Catherine was overjoyed
to see him, Edgar considerably less so. Heathcliff stayed at Wuthering Heights, where he gradually
gained financial control by paying Hindley's gambling debts. Heathcliff's relationship with the
Linton household became more and more strained as Edgar grew extremely unhappy with
Heathcliff's relationship with Catherine. Finally there was a violent quarrel: Heathcliff left the
Grange to avoid being thrown out by Edgar's servants, Catherine was angry at both of the men, and
Edgar was furious at Heathcliff and displeased by his wife's behavior. Catherine shut herself in her
room for several days. In the meantime, Heathcliff eloped with Isabella (who was struck by his
romantic appearance) by way of revenge on Edgar. Edgar could not forgive Isabella's betrayal of
him, and did not try to stop the marriage. Catherine became extremely ill, feverish and delirious,
and nearly died though she was carefully tended by Edgar once he discovered her condition.

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A few months later, Catherine was still very delicate and looked as though she would probably die.
She was pregnant. Heathcliff and Isabella returned to Wuthering Heights, and Isabella wrote to
Ellen describing how brutally she was mistreated by her savage husband, and how much she
regretted her marriage. Ellen went to visit them to see if she could improve Isabella's situation. She
told them about Catherine's condition, and Heathcliff asked to see her.

A few days later, Heathcliff came to the Grange while Edgar was at church. He had a passionate
reunion with Catherine, in which they forgave each other as much as possible for their mutual
betrayals. Catherine fainted, Edgar returned, and Heathcliff left. Catherine died that night after
giving birth to a daughter. Edgar was terribly grieved and Heathcliff wildly so––he begged
Catherine's ghost to haunt him. A few days later, Hindley tried to murder Heathcliff, but Heathcliff
almost murdered him instead. Isabella escaped from Wuthering Heights and went to live close to
London, where she gave birth to a son, Linton. Hindley died a few months after his sister Catherine.

Catherine and Edgar's daughter, Cathy, grew to be a beloved and charming child. She was brought
up entirely within the confines of the Grange, and was entirely unaware of the existence of
Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, or her cousin Hareton there. Once she found the farmhouse while
exploring the moors, and was upset to think that such an ignorant rustic as Hareton could be
related to her. Ellen ordered her not to return there and explained about Heathcliff's feud with
Cathy's father, Edgar.

Isabella died when Linton was about twelve years old, and Edgar went to fetch him to the Grange.
Linton was a peevish and effeminate boy, but Cathy was pleased to have a playmate. That very day,
however, Heathcliff sent Joseph to fetch his son to Wuthering Heights, and when Cathy woke up the
next morning her cousin was gone. Though sad at first, she soon got over it, and continued her
happy childhood.

On her sixteenth birthday, Cathy and Ellen strayed onto Heathcliff's lands, and he invited them into
Wuthering Heights to see Linton. Cathy was pleased to renew her acquaintance, and Heathcliff was
eager to promote a romance between the two cousins, so as to ensure himself of Edgar's land when
he died. When they returned home, Edgar forbade Cathy to continue visiting there, and said that
Heathcliff was an evil man. Cathy then began a secret correspondence with Linton, which became
an exchange of love letters. Ellen found out and put an end to it.

Edgar became ill. Heathcliff asked Cathy to return to Wuthering Heights because Linton was
breaking his heart for her. She did so, and found Linton to be a bullying invalid, but not without
charm. Ellen fell ill as well and was unable to prevent Cathy from visiting Wuthering Heights every
day. Cathy felt obliged to help Linton, and despised Hareton for being clumsy and illiterate. Ellen
told Edgar about the visits when she found out, and he forbade Cathy to go any more.

Edgar was in poor health and didn't know about Linton's equally bad health and bad character, so
he thought it would be good for Cathy to marry him––since Linton and not Cathy would most likely
inherit the Grange. A system was fixed up in which Linton and Cathy met outside. Linton was
increasingly ill, and seemed to be terrified of something––as it turned out, his father was forcing
him to court Cathy. Heathcliff feared Linton would die before Edgar did, so eventually he all but
kidnapped Cathy and Ellen, and told them Cathy couldn't go home to see her dying father until she
married Linton. Cathy did marry Linton, and escaped in time to see Edgar before he died.

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After Edgar's funeral (he was buried next to his wife) Heathcliff fetched Cathy to Wuthering Heights
to take care of Linton, who was dying, and to free up the Grange so he could rent it out (to
Lockwood, in fact). Heathcliff told Ellen that he was still obsessed by his beloved Catherine, and had
gone to gaze at her long-dead body when her coffin was uncovered by the digging of Edgar's grave.

Cathy had to care for Linton alone, and when he died, she maintained an unfriendly attitude to the
household: Heathcliff, Hareton (who was in love with her), Joseph, and Zillah, the housekeeper. As
time passed, however, she became lonely enough to seek Hareton's company, and began teaching
him to read.
This is around the time of Lockwood's time at the Grange. He leaves the area for several months,
and when he returns, he learns that while he was gone:

Heathcliff began to act more and more strangely, and became incapable of concentrating on the
world around him, as though Catherine's ghost wouldn't let him. He all but stopped eating and
sleeping, and Ellen found him dead one morning, with a savage smile on his face. He was buried
next to Catherine, as he had wished. Hareton grieved for him, but was too happy with the younger
Cathy to be inconsolable. When the novel ends, Hareton and Cathy plan to marry and move to the
Grange.

Character List
Catherine Earnshaw
Mr. Earnshaw's daughter and Hindley's sister. She is also Heathcliff's foster sister and love
interest. She marries Edgar Linton and has a daughter, also named Catherine. Catherine is
beautiful and charming, but she is never as civilized as she pretends to be. In her heart she
is always a wild girl playing on the moors with Heathcliff. She regards it as her right to be
loved by all, and has an unruly temper. Heathcliff usually calls her Cathy; Edgar usually
calls her Catherine.

Cathy Linton
The daughter of the older Catherine and Edgar Linton. She has all her mother's charm
without her wildness, although she is by no means submissive and spiritless. Edgar calls
her Cathy. She marries Linton Heathcliff to become Catherine Heathcliff, and then marries
Hareton to be Catherine Earnshaw.

Mr. Earnshaw
A plain, fairly well-off farmer with few pretensions but a kind heart. He is a stern father to
Catherine. He takes in Heathcliff despite his family's protests.

Edgar Linton
Isabella's older brother, who marries Catherine Earnshaw and fathers Catherine Linton. In
contrast to Heathcliff, he is a gently bred, refined man, a patient husband and a loving

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father. His faults are a certain effeminacy, and a tendency to be cold and unforgiving when
his dignity is hurt.

Ellen Dean
One of the main narrators. She has been a servant with the Earnshaws and the Lintons for
all her life, and knows them better than anyone else. She is independent and high-spirited,
and retains an objective viewpoint on those she serves. She is called Nelly by those who are
on the most egalitarian terms with her: Mr. Earnshaw, the older Catherine, and Heathcliff.

Frances Earnshaw
Hindley's wife, a young woman of unknown background. She seems rather flighty and
giddy to Ellen, and displays an irrational fear of death, which is explained when she dies of
tuberculosis.

Hareton Earnshaw
The son of Hindley and Frances; he marries the younger Catherine. For most of the novel,
he is rough, rustic, and uncultured, having been carefully kept from all civilizing influences
by Heathcliff. He grows up to be superficially like Heathcliff, but is really much more sweet-
tempered and forgiving. He never blames Heathcliff for having disinherited him, for
example, and remains his oppressor's staunchest ally.

Hindley Earnshaw
The only son of Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw, and Catherine's older brother. He is a bullying,
discontented boy who grows up to be a violent alcoholic when his beloved wife, Frances,
dies. He hates Heathcliff because he felt supplanted in his father's affections by the other
boy, and Heathcliff hates him even more in return.

Heathcliff
A foundling taken in by Mr. Earnshaw and raised with his children. Of unknown descent, he
represents wild and natural forces which often seem amoral and dangerous for society. His
almost inhuman devotion to Catherine is the moving force in his life, seconded by his
vindictive hatred for all those who stand between him and his beloved. He is cruel but
magnificent in his consistency, and the reader can never forget that at the heart of the
grown man lies the abandoned, hungry child of the streets of Liverpool.
Isabella Linton
Edgar's younger sister, who marries Heathcliff to become Isabella Heathcliff. Her son is
named Linton Heathcliff. Before she marries Heathcliff, she is a rather shallow-minded
young lady, pretty and quick-witted but a little foolish (as can be seen by her choice of
husbands). Her unhappy marriage brings out an element of cruelty in her character: when
her husband treats her brutally, she rapidly grows to hate him with all her heart.

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Joseph
A household servant at Wuthering Heights who outlives all his masters. His brand of
religion is unforgiving for others and self-serving for himself. His heavy Yorkshire accent
gives flavor to the novel.
Dr. Kenneth
The local doctor who appears when people are sick or dying. He is a sympathetic and
intelligent man, whose main concern is the health of his patients.

Mr. and Mrs. Linton

Edgar and Isabella's parents. They spoil their children and turn the older Catherine into a
little lady, being above all concerned about good manners and behavior. They are
unsympathetic to Heathcliff when he is a child.

Linton Heathcliff
The son of Heathcliff and Isabella. He combines the worst characteristics of both parents,
and is effeminate, weakly, and cruel. He uses his status as an invalid to manipulate the
tender-hearted younger Catherine. His father despises him. Linton marries Catherine and
dies soon after.

Lockwood
The narrator of the novel. He is a gentleman from London, in distinct contrast to the other
rural characters. He is not particularly sympathetic and tends to patronize his subjects.
Zillah
The housekeeper at Wuthering Heights after Hindley's death and before Heathcliff's. She
doesn't particularly understand the people she lives with, and stands in marked contrast to
Ellen, who is deeply invested in them. She is an impatient but capable woman.

Juno
Heathcliff's dog.

Skulker
The Lintons' bulldog. Skulker attacks Cathy Earnshaw on her first visit to Thrushcross
Grange.

Michael
The Lintons' stable boy.

Mr. Green
A lawyer in Gimmerton who briefly becomes involved with executing Edgar Linton's estate.

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THEMES IN WUTHERING HEIGHTS

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
theme–this despite the fact that other kinds of love are presented and that
Catherine dies half way through the novel. The loves of the second generation, the
love of Frances and Hindley, and the "susceptible heart" of Lockwood receive scant
attention from such readers. But is love the central issue in this novel? Is its motive
force perhaps economic? The desire for wealth does motivate Catherine's marriage,
which results in Heathcliff's flight and causes him to acquire Wuthering Heights, to
appropriate Thrushcross Grange, and to dispossess Hareton. Is it possible that one of
the other themes constitutes the center of the novel, or are the other themes
secondary to the theme of love? Consider the following themes:

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.

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 yeoman or respectable farming class (Hareton) was being destroyed by the
economic alliance of the newly-wealthy capitalists (Heathcliff) and the traditional
power-holding gentry (the Lintons).

Striving for transcendence [transcendence: passing beyond a human limit,

existing above and independent of this world].
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.

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. Edgar's
ultimatum that Catherine must make a final choice between him or Heathcliff restricts

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Catherine's identity by forcing her to reject an essential part of her nature; with loving
selfishness Edgar 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
(as her husband and legal overseer), and later he imprisons both Cathy and Nellie;
also, Cathy is isolated from the rest of the household after her marriage to Linton by
Healthcliff's contempt for and hatred of them.

Study of childhood and the family.

The hostility toward and the abuse of children and family members at Wuthering
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 partiality to his own advantage, making no return of affection.
Mr. Earnshaw's disapproval of Catherine hardens her and, like many mistreated
children, she becomes rebellious. Despite abuse, Catherine and Heathcliff show the
strength of children to survive, and abuse at least partly forms the adult characters
and behavior of Catherine and Heathcliff and forges an important bond between
them.

The effects 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. Is all their suffering inflicted by others or by outside forces, like the
death of Hindley's wife, or is 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 become vindictive, and Edgar turns
into a 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 Hagan right that "Wuthering Heights is such a
remarkable work partly because it persuades us forcibly to pity victims and
victimizers alike"?

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. Confinement 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

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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.

Displacement, dispossession, and exile.

Heathcliff enters the novel possessed of nothing, 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, 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 (Heathcliff's son) 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.

Communication and understanding.

The narrative structure of the novel revolves around communication and
understanding; Lockwood is unable to communicate with or understand the
relationships at Wuthering Heights, and Nelly enlightens him by communicating the
history of the Earnshaws and the Lintons. Trying to return to the Grange in a
snowstorm, Lockwood cannot see the stone markers which outline the road. A
superstitious Nellie refuses to let Catherine tell her dreams; repeatedly Nellie does not
understand what Catherine is talking about or refuses to accept what Catherine is
saying, notably after Catherine 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.

The fall.
Recently a number of critics have seen the story of a fall in this novel, though from
what state the characters fall from or to is disputed. 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? Is Wutheirng Heights or Thrushcross
Grange the fallen world? Is the fall from heaven to hell or from hell to heaven? Does
Catherine really lose the Devil/Heathcliff (this question arises from the assumption
that Brontë is a Blakeian subbversive and visionary)? The theme of a fall relies
heavily on the 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 of being expelled from heaven and deliriously
sees herself an exile cast out from the "heaven" of Wuthering Heights–a literal as well
as a symbolic fall. Heathcliff, like Satan, is relentless in his destructive pursuit of

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revenge. Inevitably the ideas of expulsion from heaven, exile, and desire for revenge
have been connected to Milton's Paradise Lost and parallels drawn between Milton's
epic and Brontë's novel; Catherine's pain at her change from free child to imprisoned
adult is compared to Satan's speech to Beelzebub, "how changed from an angel of
light to exile in a fiery lake."

Literacy
Throughout the novel, reading and literacy are shown to be sources of both power and
pleasure. Heathcliff purposely keeps Hareton uneducated as a way to control the young
man and to get revenge on Hareton's father, Hindley. Likewise, Cathy gives books to her
servant, Michael, to convince him to deliver her love letters to Linton. The graffiti
at Wuthering Heights at the beginning of the novel also serves as a kind of dominion; by
carving their names into the wall, Catherine Earnshaw and her daughter ensure that their
spirits will always preside over the crumbling house. However, the characters also derive
significant pleasure from reading; it is one of Cathy's few solaces during her miserable first
months at Wuthering Heights, and it eventually serves as a pretext for her to bond with
Hareton.
Solitude
For a novel that draws its plot from the vicissitudes of interpersonal relationships, it is
notable how many of the characters seem to enjoy solitude. Heathcliff and Hindley both
state their preference for isolation early in the novel, and Lockwood explains that solitude
is one of the reasons he chose to move to the remote Thrushcross Grange. Each of these
characters believes that solitude will help them get over romantic disappointments:
Heathcliff becomes increasingly withdrawn after Catherine's death; Hindley becomes
crueler than ever to others after he loses his wife, Frances; and Lockwood's move to the
Grange was precipitated by a briefly mentioned romantic disappointment of his own.
However, Brontë ultimately casts doubt on solitude's ability to heal psychic wounds.
Heathcliff's yearning for Catherine causes him to behave like a monster to people around
him; Hindley dies alone as an impoverished alcoholic; and Lockwood quickly gives up on
the Grange's restorative potential and moves to London.
Doubles
Given the symmetrical structure of Wuthering Heights, it follows naturally that Brontë
should thematize doubles and doubleness. Catherine Earnshaw notes her own "double
character" (66) when she tries to explain her attraction to both Edgar and Heathcliff, and
their shared name suggests that Cathy Linton is, in some ways, a double for her mother.
There are also many parallel pairings throughout the novel that suggests that certain
characters are doubles of each other: Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella, Hareton
and Cathy, and even Hindley and Ellen (consider the latter's deep grief when Hindley dies,
and that they are 'milk siblings'). Catherine's famous insistence that "I am Heathcliff" (82)
reinforces the concept that individuals can share an identity.
Self-knowledge
Brontë frequently dissociates the self from the consciousness––that is, characters have to
get to know themselves just as they would another person. This becomes a major concern

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when Catherine Earnshaw decides against her better judgment to marry Edgar Linton; she
is self-aware enough to acknowledge that she has a 'double character' and that Heathcliff
may be a better match for her, but she lacks the confidence to act on this intuition. Self-
knowledge also affects how characters get to know others; Isabella knows how violent
Heathcliff is, but is unable to acknowledge this because she believes herself capable of
controlling him.
Disease and contagion
Disease and contagion––specifically consumption, or as it's known today, tuberculosis––are
inescapable presences in Wuthering Heights. Isabella becomes sick after meeting
Heathcliff, and Catherine Earnshaw indirectly kills Mr. and Mrs. Linton by giving them her
fever. Even emotional troubles are pathologized much like physical illnesses; consider how
Catherine's unhappy marriage and Heathcliff's return contribute to the 'brain fever' that
leads to her death. Perhaps most importantly, Lockwood falling ill is what motivates Ellen
to tell the story in the first place. The prominence of disease in the novel is a physical
indicator of the outsize influence that individuals have on each other in Brontë's world––
getting too close to the wrong person can literally lead to death.
Sibling relationships
Sibling relationships are unusually strong in the Earnshaw and Linton families. Indeed, the
novel's most prominent relationship––the love between Catherine and Heathcliff––begins
when the two are raised as siblings at Wuthering Heights. It is never entirely clear whether
their love for each other is romantic or the love of extremely close siblings; although
Catherine expresses a desire to marry Heathcliff, they are never shown having sex and their
union seems more spiritual than physical. After Catherine's death, Heathcliff gets revenge
on Edgar for marrying Catherine by encouraging Isabella to marry him and then
mistreating her. Given that Emily Brontë is thought to have had no friends outside of her
own family (although she was very close to her brother Branwell and her sisters Anne and
Charlotte), it is perhaps unsurprising that close sibling relationships are a driving force in
her only novel.
Humanity versus nature
Brontë is preoccupied with the opposition between human civilization and nature. This is
represented figuratively in her descriptions of the moors, but she also ties this conflict to
specific characters. For example, Catherine and Heathcliff resolve to grow up "as rude as
savages" (46) in response to Hindley's abuse, and Ellen likens Hindley to a "wild-beast"
(73). The natural world is frequently associated with evil and reckless passion; when
Brontë describes a character as 'wild,' that character is usually cruel and inconsiderate––
take for example Heathcliff, Catherine Earnshaw, and Hindley. However, Brontë also
expresses a certain appreciation for the natural world; Linton and Cathy Linton's ideas of
heaven both involve peaceful afternoons in the grass and among the trees. Likewise,
Hareton is actually a very noble and gentle spirit, despite his outward lack of civilization
and his description as a "rustic" (299).

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WUTHERING HEIGHTS AS SOCIO-ECONOMIC NOVEL

The novel opens in 1801, a date Q.D. Leavis believes Brontë chose in order "to fix its
happenings at a time when the old rough farming culture, based on a naturally
patriarchal family life, was to be challenged, tamed and routed by social and cultural
changes; these changes produced Victorian class consciousness and ‘unnatural' ideal
of gentility." In 1801 the Industrial Revolution was under way in England; when
Emily Brontë was writing in 1847, it was a dominant force in English economy and
society, and the traditional relationship of social classes was being disrupted by
mushroom-new fortunes and an upwardly-aspiring middle class. A new standard for
defining a gentleman, money, was challenging the traditional criteria of breeding and
family and the more recent criterion of character. This social-economic reality
provides the context for socio-economic readings of the novel.

Is Brontë supporting the status quo and upholding conventional values? Initially the
answer would seem to be "no." The reader sympathizes with Heathcliff, the gypsy
oppressed by a rigid class system and denigrated as "imp" or "fiend." But as
Heathcliff pursues his revenge and tyrannical persecution of the innocent, the danger
posed by the uncontrolled individual to the community becomes apparent. Like other
novels of the 1830s and 40s which reveal the abuses of industrialism and overbearing
individualism, Wuthering Heights may really suggest the necessity of preserving
traditional ways.

This is not the way Marxist critics see the novel. For Arnold Kettle, the basic conflict
and motive force of the novel are social in origin. He locates the source of Catherine
and Heatcliff's affinity in the (class) rebellion forced on them by the injustice of
Hindley and his wife Frances.

He, the outcast slummy, turns to the lively, spirited, fearless girl who
alone offers him human understanding and comradeship. And she, born
into the world of Wuthering Heights, senses that to achieve a full
humanity, to be true to herself as a human being, she must associate
herself totally with him in his rebellion against the tyranny of the
Earnshaws and all that tyranny involves.
In Kettle's view, Catherine's death inverts the common standards of bourgeois
morality and so has "revolutionary force." Heathcliff is morally ruthless with his
brutal analysis of the significance of Catherine's choosing Edgar and her rejecting the
finer humanity he represents. Despite Heathcliff's implacable revenge, we continue
to sympathize with him because he is using the weapons and values (arranged

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marriages, accumulating money, and expropriating property) of Victorian society

against those with power; his ruthlessness strips them of any romantic veneer. As a
result, he, too, betrays his humanity. Through the aspirations expressed in the love
of Cathy and Hareton, Heathcliff recognizes some of the quality of his love for
Catherine and the unimportance of revenge and property; he thereby is enabled to
regain his humanity and to achieve union with Catherine. "Wutherng Heights then,"
Kettle concludes, "is an expression in the imaginative terms of art of the stresses and
tensions and conflicts, personal and spiritual, of nineteenth-century capitalist
society."

Writing nearly twenty-five years later, Marxist Terry Eagleton posits a complex and
contradictory relationship between the landed gentry and aristocracy, the traditional
power-holders, and the capitalist, industrial middle classes, who were pushing for
social acceptance and political power. Simultaneously with the struggle among these
groups, an accommodation was developing based on economic interests. Though the
landed gentry and aristocracy resisted marrying into first-generation capitalist wealth,
they were willing to mix socially and to form economic alliances with the
manufacturers and industrialists. The area that the Brontës lived in, the town of
Haworth in West Riding, was particularly affected by these social and economic
conditions because of the concentration of large estates and industrial centers in West
Riding.

Proceeding from this view of mid-nineteenth century society, Eagleton sees both class
struggle and class accommodation in Wutheirng Heights. Heathcliff, the outsider, has
no social or biological place in the existing social structure; he offers Catherine a non-
social or pre-social relationship, an escape from the conventional restrictions and
material comforts of the upper classes, represented by the genteel Lintons. This
relationship outside society is "the only authentic form of living in a world of
exploitation and inequality." It is Heathcliff's expression of a natural non-social mode
of being which gives the relationship its impersonal quality and makes the conflict
one of nature versus society. Heathcliff's connection with nature is manifested in his
running wild as a child and in Hindley's reducing him to a farm laborer. But
Catherine's marriage and Hindley's abuse transform Heathcliff and his meaning in the
social system, a transformation which reflects a reality about nature–nature is not
really "outside" society because its conflicts are expressed in society.

However, Heathcliff the adult becomes a capitalist, an expropriator, and a predator,

turning the ruling class's weapons of property accumulation and acquisitive marriage
against them. Society's need to tame/civilize the unbridled capitalist is handled in the
civilizing of Hareton. Hareton represents the yeoman class, which was being

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degraded. In adopting the behavior of the exploiting middle classes, Heathcliff works
in common with the capitalist landowner Edgar Linton to suppress the yeoman class;
having been raised in the yeoman class and having acquired his fortune outside it, he
joins "spiritual forces" against the squirearchy. Thus, he represents both rapacious
capitalism and the rejection of capitalist society. However, because the capitalist class
is no longer revolutionary, it cannot provide expression for Heathcliff's rejection of
society for a pre-social freedom from society's restraints. From this impossibility
comes what Eagleton calls Heathcliff's personal tragedy: his conflictive unity
consisting of spiritual rejection and social integration. Heathcliff relentlessly pursues
his goal of possessing Catherine, an obsession that is unaffected by social realities. In
other words, the novel does not fully succeed in reconciling or finding a way to
express all Heathcliff's meanings.

Eagleton acknowledges that ultimately the values of Thrushcross Grange prevail, but
that Brontë's sympathies lie with the more democratic, cozy Wuthering Heights. The
capitalist victory over the yeomanry is symbolized by the displacement of Joseph's
beloved currant bushes for Catherine's flowers, which are in Marxist terms "surplus
value." With Heathcliff's death a richer life than that of Thrushcross Grange also dies;
it may be a regrettable death–but it is a necessary death because the future requires a
fusion of gentry and capitalist middle class, not continued conflict.

PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF WUTHERING

HEIGHTS
A Freudian interpretation
A Jungian interpretation
Monomania: a nineteenth century
interpretation

Psychological analyses of Wuthering Heights abound as critics apply modern psychological theories to
the characters and their relationships,

A FREUDIAN INTERPRETATION

The most common psychological readings are Freudian interpretations. Typical of Freudian
readings of the novel is Linda Gold's interpretation. She sees in the symbiosis of Catherine,
Heathcliff, and Edgar the relationship of Freud's id, ego, and superego. At a psychological level,
they merge into one personality with Heathcliff's image of the three of them buried (the
unconscious) in what is essentially one coffin. Heathcliff, the id, expresses the most primitive
drives (like sex), seeks pleasure, and avoids pain; the id is not affected by time and remains in

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the unconscious (appropriately, Heathcliff's origins are unknown, he is dark, he runs wild and is
primitive as a child, and his three year absence remains a mystery). Catherine, the ego, relates to
other people and society, tests the impulses of the id against reality, and controls the energetic id
until there is a reasonable chance of its urges being fulfilled. Edgar, the superego, represents the
rules of proper behavior and morality inculcated by teachers, family, and society; he is civilized
and cultured. As conscience, he compels Catherine to choose between Heathcliff and himself.

In Freud's analysis, the ego must be male to deal successfully with the world; to survive, a
female ego would have to live through males. This Catherine does by identifying egotistically
with Heathcliff and Edgar, according to Gold. Catherine rejects Heathcliff because a realistic
assessment of her future with him makes clear the material and social advantages of marrying
Edgar and the degradation of yielding to her unconscious self. Her stay at Thrushcross Grange
occurs at a crucial stage in her development; she is moving through puberty toward
womanhood. She expects Edgar to accept Heathcliff in their household and to raise him from
his degraded state; this would result in the integration of the disparate parts of her personality–
id, ego, and superego–into one unified personality. Confronted by the hopelessness of
psychological integration or wholeness and agonized by her fragmentation, she dies.

Gold carries her Freudian scrutiny to the second generation; the whole history of both
generations of Earnshaws, Lintons, and Heathcliffs may be read as the development of one
personality, beginning with Catherine Earnshaw and ending with Catherine Linton Heathcliff
Earnshaw. The second Cathy has assimilated and consolidated the id/Heathcliff and the
superego/Edgar through marriages with Hareton and Linton.

JUNGIAN INTERPRETATIONS

Jungian readings also interpret the relationship of Catherine and Heathcliff as aspects of one
person; those aspects may be the archetype of the shadow and the individual or the archetypes
of the animus/anima and the persona. These interpretations are derived from Jung's distinction
between the collective unconscious and the personal unconscious. The collective unconscious is
inherited, impersonal, and universal. The content of the collective unconscious is mainly
archetypes; some archetypes occur in a particular society or time period, others are the same in
all societies and times. The archetypes may find expression in myth and fairy tales. The most
common and influential archetypes are the shadow, the animus, and the anima. Every human
being also has a personal unconscious, in which material is stored that was once conscious but
has been forgotten or repressed. The personal unconscious adapts archetypes based on the
individual's experiences. The personal unconscious finds expression in dreams and metaphor.

The shadow. In the collective unconscious, the shadow is absolute evil. In the personal
unconscious, the shadow consists of those desires, feelings, etc. which are unacceptable,
perhaps for emotional or for moral reasons. The shadow is generally equated with the dark side
of human nature. The shadow is emotional, seems autonomous because uncontrollable, and
hence becomes obsessive or possessive. Heathcliff, then, can be seen as Catherine's shadow–he
represents the darkest side of her, with his vindictiveness, his sullenness, his wildness, and his
detachment from social connections. She rejects this part of herself by marrying Edgar, thereby
explaining Heathcliff's mysterious disappearance. But Heathcliff, the shadow, refuses to be

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suppressed permanently; Jung explains that even if self-knowledge or insight enables the
individual to integrate the shadow, the shadow still resists moral control and can rarely be
changed. Cathy's efforts to integrate Heathcliff into her life with Edgar are doomed; her
inability to affect Heathcliff's behavior can be seen in his ignoring her prohibition about
Isabella. The resurfaced Heathcliff obsessively seeks possession of Catherine to insure his own
survival.

The animus and the anima. What Jung calls the persona is the outer or social self that faces
the world. The animus is the archetype that completes women, that is, it contains the male
qualities which the female persona lacks. The animus generally represents reflection,
deliberation, and ability for self-knowledge and is male. Similarly, the anima represents the
female traits that a man's persona lacks, generally the ability to form relationships and be
related, and it is female. The relationship of the anima/animus to the individual is always
emotional and has its own dynamic, because, as archetypes, the anima and animus are
impersonal forces. The individual is rarely aware of his anima/her animus. In some of its
aspects, Jung says, the animus is the "demon-familiar." The animus of a woman and the anima
of a man take the form of a "soul-image" in the personal unconscious; this soul-image may be
transferred to a real person who naturally becomes the object of intense feeling, which may be
passionate love or passionate hate. "Wherever an impassioned, almost magical, relationship
exists between the sexes, it is invariably a question of a projected soul-image." When a man
projects his anima onto a real women or a woman projects her animus onto a man, a triad arises,
which includes a transcendent part. The triad consists of the man, the woman, and the
transcendent anima/animus. Not surprisingly, the object of the projection will be unable to live
out the lover's animus or anima permanently.

Now to apply Jung's theory to Catherine, for whom Heathcliff is the animus, and to Heathcliff,
for whom Catherine is the anima. For Catherine, Heathcliff expresses anger and hostility,
freedom, command, irresponsibility, rebellion, and spontaneity. For Heathcliff, Catherine is
beauty, love, status, and belonging. The projection of their soul-images explains their profound
sense of connection or identity with each other, e.g., Catherine's "I am Heathcliff" speech and
Heathcliff's references to Catherine as his soul and his life. The element of transcendence in the
projection is expressed in Catherine's vision of something, some life, beyond this one, in her
view of existence after death, in Heathcliff's longing to see Catherine's ghost, and their life
together after death. And is there any question about Heathcliff's being a "demon-familiar"?

MONOMANIA: A NINETEENTH CENTURY THEORY

An entirely different approach is taken by Graeme Tytler, who applies nineteenth-century psychological
theory to the novel. In Brontë's day, an obvious label for Heathcliff would have been monomaniac, a
term which is today equated with obsession but was in the nineteenth century a specific disorder with
clearly defined symptoms and progression. Graeme Tytler theorizes that Heathcliff fits the
contemporary medical diagnosis of monomania, as defined by Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol, one of
the founders of modern psychiatry. Esquirol defined monomania as "the disease of going to extremes,
of singularization, of one-sidedness." The application of this definition to Heathcliff is too obvious to

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need further comment; equally relevant to a diagnosis of Heathcliff is Esquirol's listing of the causes of
monomania:

Monomania is essentially a disease of the sensibility. It reposes altogether upon the affections, and its
study is inseparable from a knowledge of the passions. Its seat is in the heart of man, and it is there
that we must search for it, in order to possess ourselves of all its peculiarities. How many are the cases
of monomania caused by thwarted love, by fear, vanity, wounded self-love, or disappointed ambition.

Tytler distinguishes stages in the development of Heathcliff's monomania. Heathcliff shows a

predisposition to monomania up to and slightly after Catherine's death in such behavior as his
single-minded determination to be connected to her after her death. It is, however, not until
eighteen years or so after her death that he shows signs of insanity. Much of what he says and
does after Chapter 29 is symptomatic of monomania–hallucinations, insomnia, talking to
himself or to Catherine's ghost, his preoccupation at meals and in conversation, his sighs and
moans, his harsh treatment of Cathy and Hareton, and his being haunted by Catherine's image.

Wuthering Heights as a Religious Novel

Wuthering Heights is not a religious novel in the sense that it supports a particular
religion (Christianity), or a particular branch of Christianity (Protestantism), a
particular Protestant denomination (Church of England). Rather, religion in this novel
takes the form of the awareness of or conviction of the existence of a supreme being
or spirit-afterlife.

An overwhelming sense of the presence of a larger reality moved Rudolph Otto to

call Wutheirng Heights a supreme example of "the daemonic" in literature. Otto was
concerned with identifying the non-rational mystery behind all religion and all
religious experiences; he called this basic element or mystery the numinous. The
numinous grips or stirs the mind so powerfully that one of the responses it produces is
numinous dread, which consists of awe or awe-fullness. Numinous dread implies
three qualities of the numinous: its absolute unapproachability, its power, and. its
urgency or energy. A misunderstanding of these qualities and of numinous dread by
primitive people gives rise to daemonic dread, which is the first stage in religious
development. At the same time that they feel dread, they are drawn by the fascinating
power of the numinous. Otto explains, "The daemonic-divine object may appear to the
mind an object of horror and dread, but at the same time it is no less something that
allures with a potent charm, and the creature, who trembles before it, utterly cowed
and cast down, has always at the same time the impulse to turn to it, nay even to make
it somehow his own." Still, acknowledgment of the "daemonic" is a genuine religious
experience, and from it arise the gods and demons of later religions. It has been
suggested that Gothic fiction originated primarily as a quest for numinous dread,
which Otto also calls the mysterium tremendum.

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For Derek Traversi the motive force of Brontë's novel is "a thirst for religious
experience,"which is not Christian. It is this spirit which moves Catherine to exclaim,
"surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of
yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here?
(Ch. ix, p. 64). Out of her–and Brontë's–awareness of the finiteness of human nature
comes the yearning for a higher reality, permanent, infinite, eternal; a higher reality
which would enable the self to become whole and complete and would also replace
the feeling of the emptiness of this world with feelings of the fulness of being
(fullness of being is a phrase used by and about mystics to describe the aftermath of a
direct experience of God). Brontë's religious inspiration turns a discussion of the best
way to spend an idle summer's day into a dispute about the nature of heaven. Her
religious view encompasses both Cathy's and Linton's views of heaven and of life, for
she sees a world of contending forces which are contained within her own nature. She
seeks to unite them in this novel, though, Traversi admits, the emphasis on passion
and death tends to overshadow the drive for unity. Even Heathcliff's approaching
death, when he cries out "My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself"
(Ch. xxxiv, p. 254), has a religious resonance.

Thomas John Winnifrith also sees religious meaning in the novel: salvation is won by
suffering, as an analysis of references to heaven and hell reveals. For Heathcliff, the
loss of Catherine is literally hell; there is no metaphoric meaning in his claim
"existence after losing her would be hell" (Ch. xiv, p. 117). In their last interview,
Catherine and Heathcliff both suffer agonies at the prospect of separation, she to
suffer "the same distress underground" and he to "writhe in the torments of hell" (XV,
124). Heathcliff is tortured by his obsession for the dead/absent Catherine. Suffering
through an earthly hell leads Healthcliff finally to his heaven, which is union with
Catherine as a spirit. The views of Nelly and Joseph about heaven and hell are
conventional and do not represent Brontë's views, according to Winnifrith.

Wuthering Heights as a Metaphysical Novel

Metaphysics is the "branch of speculative inquiry which treats of the first principles of
things, including such concepts as being, substance, essence, time, space, cause,
identity, etc.; theoretical philosophy as the ultimate science of Being and Knowing"
(OED). Dorothy Van Ghent finds evidence, at one level of Wuthering Heights, of
metaphysical exploration:

the book seizes, at the point where the soul feels itself cleft within and
in cleavage from the universe, the first germs of philosophic thought,

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the thought of the duality of human and nonhuman existence, and the
thought of the cognate duality of te psyche.
The novel presents the collision between two types of reality, restrictive civilization
and anonymous unrestrained natural energies or forces. This collision takes the form
of inside/domestic versus outside/nature, human versus the "other," the light versus
the dark within the soul. The novel repeatedly shows efforts to break through or
cross the boundary of separation of the various dualities, like Lockwood's breaking
the window in his dream or the figure of two children who struggle for union
(Catherine and Heathcliff, Cathy and Linton, Cathy and Hareton). The two kinds of
realities are, in Van Ghent's reading, both opposed and continuous There is a
continuous movement to break through the constraint of civilization and personal
consciousness and also a movement toward "passionate fulfillment of consciousness
by deeper ingress into the matrix of its own and all energy." In other words, the
impetus of life is toward unifying the dark and the light, the unknown and the
known, the elemental and the human.

Catherine and Heathcliff, Van Ghent explains, are violent elementals who express the
flux of nature; they struggle to be human and assume human character in their
passion, confusions, and torment, but their inhuman appetites and energy can only
bring chaos and self-destruction. The second generation presents the childish romance
of Cathy and Linton and the healthy, culturally viable love of Cathy and Hareton. The
adult love of Cathy and Hareton involves a sense of social and moral responsibilities
in contrast to the asocial, amoral, irresponsible, and impulsive child's love of
Catherine and Heathcliff. Van Ghent calls their love a "mythological romance"
because "the astonishingly ravenous and possessive, perfectly amoral love of
Catherine and Heathcliff belongs to that realm of the imagination where myths are
created"; a primary function of myth being to explain origins, practices, basic human
behavior, and natural phenomena. The two kinds of love (childish and adult) and the
two generations are connected by Heathcliff in his role first as demon-lover and
finally as ogre-father and by the two children figure.

Emily Brontë as a Mystic

Though the word mysticism is often used vaguely to indicate occultism or

spiritualism, it has a very specific meaning in Christianity and Western culture.
Evelyn Underhill defines mysticism as "the direct intuition or experience of God" or
"the life which aims at union with God" and a mystic as "a person who has, to a
greater or less degree, such a direct experience–one whose religion and life are

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centered, not merely on an accepted belief or practice, but on that which he regards as
first-hand personal knowledge." If her use of "God" is expanded to include a higher
presence or force and spiritual reality, her definition includes most discussions of
Brontë as a mystic. The mystic traditionally goes through three stages–purgation, a
purification of the individual and disengagement from worldly affairs; illumination,
conviction of God's power and surrender to His will; and union with God. Typically
mystics experience oceanic feelings during union with God. Ellen Moers defines
oceanic feelings as alluding "to the sensation of selflessness and release from the flesh
and to the comprehension of the universal Oneness that are often experienced on the
open seas." Moers believes that for Brontë the expanse of the moors created oceanic
feelings, as can be seen in her poems and novel.

Claims that Brontë is a mystic are often based primarily–and even entirely–on her
poems. Lines like these from "High waving heather, 'neath stormy blasts" are cited to
prove her mysticism or at least her mystical leanings:

Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending,

Man's spirit away form its drear dungeon sending,
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.
Relying entirely on the poems, Caroline F.E. Spurgeon identifies Emily Brontë as an
unusual type of mystic:
In her poems her mysticism is seen principally in two ways: in her
unerring apprehension of values, of the illusory quality of material
things, even of the nature she so loved, together with the certain vision
of the one Reality behind all forms. This, and her description of ecstasy,
of the all-sufficing joy of the inner life of one who has tasted this
experience, mark her out as being among those who have seen, and
who know. In The Prisoner, the speaker, a woman, is "confined in triple
walls," yet in spite of bolts and bars and dungeon gloom she holds
within herself an inextinguishable joy and unmeasured freedom
brought to her every night by a ‘messenger'.
Other ideas that also qualify her, in Spurgeon's eyes, as a mystic are the fact that
Brontë knows that ordinary things hold the secret of the universe and that she has a
sense of the continuousness of life and the oneness of God and man, as expressed in
"No coward soul is mine":

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O God within my breast

Almighty ever-present Deity
Life, that in me hast rest
As I Undying Life, have power in Thee!...

With wide-embracing love

Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though Earth and moon were gone

And suns and universes ceased to be
And thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

Similarly, Winifred Gerin reads "On a sunny brae alone I lay" as a description of a
mystical experience in which every detail is sharply defined in terms of sight,
sensation, and hearing. The "glittering spirits," who sing to the poet of the ecstasy of
being, reveal that death, far from being the tragedy of life, is its one certain bliss.
Some of the mystical ideas that Spurgeon and Gerin identify can also be found
in Wuthering Heights, particularly in the speeches of Catherine and Heathcliff, and
critics regularly support claims of mysticism in the novel by referring to the poems.

THE ENGLISH GOTHIC NOVEL: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

The English Gothic novel began with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto(1765),
which was enormously popular and quickly imitated by other novelists and soon
became a recognizable genre. To most modern readers, however, The Castle of
Otranto is dull reading; except for the villain Manfred, the characters are insipid and
flat; the action moves at a fast clip with no emphasis or suspense, despite the
supernatural manifestations and a young maiden's flight through dark vaults. But
contemporary readers found the novel electrifyingly original and thrillingly
suspenseful, with its remote setting, its use of the supernatural, and its medieval
trappings, all of which have been so frequently imitated and so poorly imitated that
they have become stereotypes. The genre takes its name from Otranto's medieval–or
Gothic–setting; early Gothic novelists tended to set their novels in remote times like
the Middle Ages and in remote places like Italy (Matthew Lewis's The Monk, 1796) or
the Middle East (William Beckford's Vathek, 1786).

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What makes a work Gothic is a combination of at least some of these elements:

• a castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not (the castle plays such a key role that
it has been called the main character of the Gothic novel),
• ruined buildings which are sinister or which arouse a pleasing melancholy,
• dungeons, underground passages, crypts, and catacombs which, in modern
houses, become spooky basements or attics,
• labyrinths, dark corridors, and winding stairs,
• shadows, a beam of moonlight in the blackness, a flickering candle, or the
only source of light failing (a candle blown out or, today, an electric failure),
• extreme landscapes, like rugged mountains, thick forests, or icy wastes, and
extreme weather,
• omens and ancestral curses,
• magic, supernatural manifestations, or the suggestion of the supernatural,
• a passion-driven, wilful villain-hero or villain,
• a curious heroine with a tendency to faint and a need to be rescued–
frequently,
• a hero whose true identity is revealed by the end of the novel,
• horrifying (or terrifying) events or the threat of such happenings.

The Gothic creates feelings of gloom, mystery, and suspense and tends to the
dramatic and the sensational, like incest, diabolism, necrophilia, and nameless
terrors. It crosses boundaries, daylight and the dark, life and death, consciousness
and unconsciousness. Sometimes covertly, sometimes explicitly, it presents
transgression, taboos, and fears–fears of violation, of imprisonment, of social chaos,
and of emotional collapse. Most of us immediately recognize the Gothic (even if we
don't know the name) when we encounter it in novels, poetry, plays, movies, and TV
series. For some of us–and I include myself– safely experiencing dread or horror is
thrilling and enjoyable.

Elements of the Gothic have made their way into mainstream writing. They are found
in Sir Walter Scott's novels, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre , and Emily
Brontë's Wuthering Heights and in Romantic poetry like Samuel Coleridge's
"Christabel," Lord Byron's "The Giaour," and John Keats's "The Eve of St. Agnes." A
tendency to the macabre and bizarre which appears in writers like William Faulkner,
Truman Capote, and Flannery O'Connor has been called Southern Gothic.

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THE GOTHIC AND WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Whether or not Wuthering Heights should be classified as a Gothic novel (certainly it

is not merley a Gothic novel), it undeniably contains Gothic elements.

In true Gothic fashion, boundaries are trespassed, specifically love crossing the
boundary between life and death and Heathcliff's transgressing social class and family
ties. Brontë follows Walpole and Radcliffe in portraying the tyrannies of the father
and the cruelties of the patriarchal family and in reconstituting the family on non-
patriarchal lines, even though no counterbalancing matriarch or matriarchal family is
presented. Brontë has incorporated the Gothic trappings of imprisonment and escape,
flight, the persecuted heroine, the heroine wooed by a dangerous and a good suitor,
ghosts, necrophilia, a mysterious foundling, and revenge. The weather-buffeted
Wuthering Heights is the traditional castle, and Catherine resembles Ann Radcliffe's
heroines in her appreciation of nature. Like the conventional Gothic hero-villain,
Heathcliff is a mysterious figure who destroys the beautiful woman he pursues and
who usurps inheritances, and with typical Gothic excess he batters his head against a
tree. There is the hint of necrophilia in Heathcliff's viewings of Catherine's corpse and
his plans to be buried next to her and a hint of incest in their being raised as brother
and sister or, as a few critics have suggested, in Heathcliff's being Catherine's
illegitimate half-brother.

A FEMINIST THEORY OF THE GOTHIC

AND WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Ellen Moers has propounded a feminist theory that relates women writers in general
and Emily Brontë in particular to the Gothic. Middle-class women who wanted to
write were hampered by the conventional image of ladies as submissive, pious, gentle,
loving, serene, domestic angels; they had to overcome the conventional patronizing,
smug, unempowering, contemptuous sentimentalizing of women by reviewers like
George Henry Lewes, who looked down on women writers:

Women's proper sphere of activity is elsewhere [than writing]. Are

there no husbands, lovers, brothers, friends to coddle and console? Are
there no stockings to darn, no purses to make, no braces to
embroider? My idea of a perfect woman is one who can write but
won't. (1850)

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Those women who overcame the limitations of their social roles and did write found
it more difficult to challenge or reject society's assumptions and expectations than
their male counterparts. Ellen Moers identifies heroinism, a form of literary
feminism, as one way women circumvented this difficulty. (Literary feminism and
feminism may overlap but they are not the same, and a woman writer who adopts
heroinism is not necessarily a feminist.) Heroinism takes many forms, such as the
intellectual or thinking heroine, the passionate or woman-in-love heroine, and the
traveling heroine. Clearly all the Brontë sisters utilize the passionate heroine,
whether knowingly or not, to express subversive values and taboo experiences
covertly.

What subversive values and taboo experiences does Emily Brontë express with her
passionate heroine Catherine? Moers sees subversion in Brontë's acceptance of the
cruel as a normal, almost an energizing part of life and in her portrayal of the erotic in
childhood. The cruelty connects this novel to the Gothic tradition, which has been
associated with women writers since Anne Radcliffe . The connection was, in fact,
recognized by Brontë's contemporaries; the Athenaeum reviewer labeled the Gothic
elements in Wuthering Heights "the eccentricities of ‘woman's fantasy'" (1847).
Moers thinks a more accurate word than eccentricities would be perversities. These
perversities may have originated in "fantasies derived from the night side of the
Victorian nursery–a world where childish cruelty and childish sexuality come to the
fore." Of particular importance for intellectual middle-class women who never
matured sexually was the brother-sister relationship. In childhood, sisters were the
equal of their brothers, played just as hard, and felt the same pleasures and pains; girls
clung to this early freedom and equality, which their brothers outgrew, and displaced
them into their writing:

Women writers of Gothic fantasies appear to testify that the physical

teasing they received from their brothers–the pinching, mauling, and
scratching we dismiss as the unimportant of children's games–took on
outsize proportions and powerful erotic overtones in their adult
imaginations. (Again, the poverty of their physical experience may have
caused these disproportions, for it was not only sexual play but any kind
of physical play for middle-class women that fell under the Victorian
ban.)

Moers applies this principle to the Brontës' chronicles of Angria and Gondal, which
the sisters collaborated on with their brother. Their turbulent sagas are filled with
unbridled passions, imprisonment, adultery, incest, murder, revenge, and warfare.

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Thus the uncensored fantasies of Angria and Gondal, whose imaginative hold Emily
never outgrew, may have provided an outlet for the sisters' imaginations, passions,
and aspirations; fostered their intellectual and artistic equality with their brother; and
provided the model for Emily's impassioned Heathcliff and Catherine as well as for
Charlotte's Rochester.

THE ROMANTIC NOVEL

Robert Kiely raises the question, in The Romantic Novel in England, Is there actually
an English romantic novel? He skirts answering his own question by suggesting that
some novels are influenced by Romanticism and incorporate the same style and
themes that appear in Romantic poetry and drama. In his discussion, the
term romantic novel is often equated with the romance, with the Gothic novel, and
with the romantic elements in a novel. Kiely regards Wuthering Heights as a model of
romantic fiction; it contains these romantic/Gothic elements which charterize the
romantic novel:

• The dynamic antagonism or antithesis in the novel tends to subvert, if not to

reject literary conventions; often a novel verges on turning into something
else, like poetry or drama. In Wuthering Heights, realism in presenting
Yorkshire landscape and life and the historical precision of season, dates, and
hours co-exist with the dreamlike and the unhistorical; Brontë refuses to be
confined by conventional classifications.
• The protagonists' wanderings are motivated by flight from previously-chosen
goals, so that often there is a pattern of escape and pursuit. Consider
Catherine's marriage for social position, stability, and wealth, her efforts to
evade the consequences of her marriage, the demands of Heathcliff and
Edgar, and her final mental wandering.
• The protagonists are driven by irresistible passion–lust, curiosity, ambition,
intellectual pride, envy. The emphasis is on their desire for transcendence, to
overcome the limitations of the body, of society, of time rather than their
moral transgressions. They yearn to escape the limitations inherent to life and
may find that the only escape is death. The longings of a Heathcliff cannot be
fulfilled in life.
• Death is not only a literal happening or plot device, but also and primarily a
psychological concern. For the protagonists, death originates in the
imagination, becomes a "tendency of mind," and may develop into an
obsession.

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• As in Gothic fiction, buildings are central to meaning; the supernatural, wild

nature, dream and madness, physical violence, and perverse sexuality are set
off against social conventions and institutions. Initially, this may create the
impression that the novel is two books in one, but finally Thrushcross Grange
and Wuthering Heights fuse.
• Endings are disquieting and unsatisfactory because the writer resists a
definitive conclusion, one which accounts for all loose ends and explains away
any ambiguities or uncertainties. The preference for open-endedness is,
ultimately, an effort to resist the limits of time and of place That effort helps
explain the importance of dreams and memories of other times and location,
like Catherine's delirious memories of childhood at Wuthering Heights and
rambles on the moors.

ROMANTICISM AND THE BRONTËS

Romanticism, the literary movement traditionally dated 1798 to 1832 in England,

affected all the arts through the nineteenth century. The Brontës were familiar with the
writings of the major romantic poets and the novels of Sir Walter Scott. When
Charlotte Brontë, for instance, wanted an evaluation of her writing, she sent a sample
to the romantic poet Southey. The romantic elements in the Brontës' writings are
obvious. Walter Pater saw in Wuthering Heights the characteristic spirit of
romanticism, particularly in "the figures of Hareton Earnshaw, of Catherine Linton,
and of Heathcliff–tearing open Catherine's grave, removing one side of her coffin, that
he may really lie beside her in death–figures so passionate, yet woven on a
background of delicately beautiful, moorland scenery, being typical examples of that
spirit."

As the details of their lives became generally known and as Jane Eyre and Wuthering
Heights received increasingly favorable critical attention, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne
were cast in the role of Romantic Rebels. Contributing to the Romantic Rebels Myth
was the association of Romanticism and early death; Shelley having died at 29, Byron
at 36, and Keats at 24. Branwell died at the age of 31, Emily at 30, and Anne at 29; to
add to the emotional impact, Branwell, Emily, and Anne died in the space of nine
months. The Romantic predilection for early death appears in Wuthering Heights;
Linton is 17 when he dies; Catherine, 18; Hindley, 27; Isabella, 31; Edgar, 39;
Heathcliff, perhaps 37 or 38.

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ROMANTIC ELEMENTS IN WUTHERING HEIGHTS

The major characteristics of Romanticism could be extrapolated from a reading

of Wuthering Heights:

• the imagination is unleashed to explore extreme states of being and

experiences.
• the love of nature is not presented just in its tranquil and smiling aspects but
also appears in its wild, stormy moods,
• nature is a living, vitalizing force and offers a refuge from the constraints of
civilization,
• the passion driving Catherine and Heathcliff and their obsessive love for each
other are the center of their being and transcend death,
• so great a focus is placed on the individual that society is pushed to the
periphery of the action and the reader's consciousness,
• the concern with identity and the creation of the self are a primary concern,
• childhood and the adult's developing from childhood experiences are
presented realistically,
• Heathcliff is the Byronic hero; both are rebellious, passionate, misanthropic,
isolated, and wilful, have mysterious origins, lack family ties, reject external
restrictions and control, and seek to resolve their isolation by fusing with a
love object,
• Hareton is the noble savage and, depending on your reading of the novel, so is
Heathcliff,
• Brontë experiments with the narrative structure (the Chinese-box structure in
which Lockwood narrates what Nelly tells him, who repeats what others told
her),
• the taste for local color shows in the portrayal of Yorkshire, its landscape, its
folklore, and its people,
• the supernatural or the possibility of the supernatural appears repeatedly.

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