wuthering heights

Wuthering Heights Coursework

Introduction

Emily Bronte’s life has been repeatedly reflected in Wuthering Heights. Her brother died from drinking too much alcohol which is reflected by Hindley Earnshaw as he started to drink heavily after Frances died. Her mother died of cancer and her father died of old age and grief, which is shown with Mrs Earnshaw who became ill and Mr Earnshaw who died old age and the problems between Hindley and Heathcliff. Emily’s sister died of TB and pregnancy related complications, Catherine and Frances both died after giving birth to their children.

Wuthering Heights was written in 1845. It was to express Emily Bronte’s love and feelings. In those times women were restricted from many privileges such as writing books due to them being ‘inferior’. For Emily Bronte to be able to put across her feelings in her book she had to use the pseudonym name ‘Ellis Bell’.

She set Wuthering heights in her home town of Yorkshire and that is why some of characters have a Yorkshire dialect e.g. Joseph. In her book she uses Pathetic Fallacy which means she changes the weather to reflect the feelings of the actors and an example of this is when Heathcliff overhears Nelly and Catherine talking and he runs away. When Catherine goes to find him there is a dangerous storm and she falls ill. This represents the characters mood and their negative storm of emotions

The main characters of Wuthering heights are Hindley Mr Earnshaw’s son, Catherine Hindley’s sister, Heathcliff Catherine’s childhood lover, Edgar Catherine’s Husband and Nelly is the Maid at Thrushcross Grange who places an important part in this book as she is the link between everybody and she narrates the story.

There is no particular genre of this book but the main ones are Love, Revenge and social class

Many things in this book are to blame for the separation of Cathy and Heathcliff and the following are a few:

This is a preview of the whole essay

Many things in this book are to blame for the separation of Cathy and Heathcliff and the following are a few:

Social Class is the reason for the separation because when Cathy returned to Wuthering heights as a lady and Heathcliff was like a slave due to Hindley’s harsh treatment towards him she felt that it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff. Fate is another reason for this and the top three things are: 1. Mr Earnshaw finding Heathcliff in Liverpool, 2. Catherine getting bit by the dogs at Thrushcross Grange and 3. Heathcliff overhearing Catherine and Nelly talking. These three events were put there to keep the story moving and go to a next stage in the book. Family is one of the main reasons for the separation of Heathcliff and Catherine because Hindley degrades Heathcliff and Edgar also fought with Heathcliff many time causing Catherine to get ill. Catherine and Heathcliff themselves are to blame because if Catherine did not marry Edgar and if Heathcliff did not run away then their relationship would have been stronger.

Who or What is to blame for the separation of Heathcliff and Catherine?

Many things and people are to blame for the separation of Heathcliff and Catherine. The social class between Catherine and Heathcliff after the degradation by Hindley. Fate places a major role in this book with the three main events which happens in the book, these are: 1. Mr Earnshaw finding Heathcliff in Liverpool, 2. Catherine getting bit by the dogs at Thrushcross Grange and 3. Heathcliff overhearing Catherine and Nelly talking. These three events were put there to keep the story moving and go to a next stage in the book. Family trouble and even Heathcliff and Catherine themselves. Throughout the coursework I will be explaining and explaining points that lead to the separation of Heathcliff and Catherine.

Social class is a main theme in the book and a cause in the separation. Near the beginning of Wuthering Heights Hindley enslaves Heathcliff and stops his learning and limits his rights. Due to this Heathcliff becomes very dirty and is a slave. When Catherine returns from Thrushcross Grange she has become a lady and is shocked to see Heathcliff in his state quoting “The gypsy brat”. This clearly shows that her first impressions of Heathcliff in this state are negative. At this point she still loves Heathcliff but likes Edgar too and tells Nelly “do not talk of our separation, it is not practical”. In Catherine’s room she talks to Nelly about how she love Heathcliff but she says she it would degrade her to marry him and how it would be a disgrace to marry him now. Heathcliff overhears only half of the conversation, he only hears her explaining to Nelly how it would degrade her to marry him and it would be a disgrace and then runs away but then Catherine describes her love which rooted in childhood for Heathcliff, “My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly I am Heathcliff.” This speech shows how deep Catherine and Heathcliff’s love for each other really is. This speech shows that no matter what happens there would always be love between them. However, Heathcliff ran away for three years and in that time he became wealthy and he became in higher class, also in that time Catherine married Edgar Linton. She chose to marry him because she found out how it was to be treated like a lady and how the higher class live. In conclusion due to Hindley’s degradation of Heathcliff there was a social class difference between him and Catherine pushed them further away from each other.

Fate is the supposed power or force that predetermines events, in this book there are main three events. Right at the beginning of the book Mr. Earnshaw goes to Liverpool and finds Heathcliff, he is in a terrible state because he was a poor orphan and Mr Earnshaw takes him in and treats him like his own son this shows his good heart. Hindley became very jealous of Heathcliff as he became Mr Earnshaw’s favourite son. This is the reason Hindley enslaved Heathcliff when he came back from college and the Theme of Revenge began. Mr Earnshaw bringing back Heathcliff is fate and without this happening the book could no longer go on and Catherine would not have met Heathcliff. Before Hindley came back from college due to his bad behaviour Catherine and Heathcliff ran away together to Thrushcross Grange. They were looking at the Linton’s and laughing at how spoilt they were. They had been spotted and the dogs were let out, Catherine was bitten by the dogs and Heathcliff was sent home to Wuthering Heights. Catherine had to stay as she was recognized by Edgar as one of the neighbours and was given treatment. Hindley allowed her to stay there because he was planning revenge upon Heathcliff and this way she will be far apart from him In this case her getting bitten by the dogs is fate because if she hadn’t been bitten then she wouldn’t have been taken in and wouldn’t have met Edgar. If this was the case then she and Heathcliff would have been together still. Catherine came back from Thrushcross grange and saw Heathcliff looking scruffy and was shock. In her room she was talking to Nelly about how she loved Heathcliff and says “My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly I am Heathcliff.” However she says that she cannot marry Heathcliff because of the way he looks she says it would be a disgrace and it would degrade her to marry him. Heathcliff over hears them talking and he runs away for three years. Heathcliff over hearing only half of the conversation, the negative half is fate because by him doing so he allows Catherine and Edgar to get married and their relationship gets stronger and her with Heathcliff they become further apart.

Hindley is one of the main people to blame for the separation of Catherine and Heathcliff; he started it off by his degradation of Heathcliff as revenge for Hindley’s isolation from is father in his childhood. He made him a slave at Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff became dirty and looked scruffy. This pushed Catherine and Heathcliff further away due to the social class difference. Edgar also distributed to the separation by having conflicts with Heathcliff and the main fight caused Catherine to get ill and eventually die. When Edgar fought with Heathcliff and made her choose between him and Heathcliff. She went into a fit and locked herself in her room for four days without eating, she became ill and then later died after giving birth to her daughter Cathy.

Heathcliff played a part in his separation with Catherine by running away for three years. As he was away Catherine married and she was having a baby. When he came back she had no choice but to stay with Edgar since they were married. Also he married Isabella who was Edgar’s sister; he married her to get revenge on Edgar.

Catherine also is to blame because she married Edgar and she drove herself away from Heathcliff. When Catherine says that Heathcliff broke her heart he replies “I have not broken your heart, you have broken it and doing that you have broken mine.”

WORD COUNT: 1,544