Wuthering Heights

Theme: Dark, destructive, gothic elements

Biographical Information:
% Emily's mother and two sisters died at a young age, brother Branwell also died from drug use
and drinking
% The surviving children grew up in isolation, were cut off from local goings on by their social
class, and were thrown mostly on their own company
% Emily's father was chronically depressed and ate his meals alone
% Emily embraced death; her own death was considered a form of passive suicide
% Gaskell's Life included scenes that had Emily pummeling her disobedient dog into submission
with her bare hands and cauterizing a bite from a strange dog with a red hot kitchen iron
% Another biography proposed that Emily had been "a member of that beset band of women who
can find their pleasure only in women"
% In A Chainless Soul, Frank makes a plausible case for diagnosing Emily as suffering an
anorexic's death by starvation
% The closeness between Emily and her brother Branwell led to speculations about a possible
incestuous relationship