Catherine's Ghost in Wuthering Heights

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  • Catherine's Ghost in Wuthering Heights
    • Overlap with his dream which has a strong theme of morality
      • Trope of the Uncanny in the Gothic
        • The ghost is mistaken for a branch several time
      • But this reading, he thinks he has control over his subconscious
        • "Why did I think Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times"
      • Ironic: his hellish dream becomes into his reality. A place of escape from nightmares
      • Also he literally is sleeping in a coffin - a tell tale sign of death and disrupting the dead? Such as Catherine?
    • Presentation of Catherine's Ghost
      • 'Child's face' - trying to encapsulate the past Catherine Earnshaw rather than Linton. Is this what haunts Wuthering Heights/Heathcliff - regret?
      • Despite Catherine being at home on the moors with Heathcliff she has got 'lost' just as Lockwood has
        • She has 'come home' to Wuthering Heights. The place where she was a child. Link to the past
      • Although ghosts are initially presented as a subliminal thing, something that human's cannot grasp. This ghost has physical attributes
        • "I pulled its wrists on to the broken pane (...) till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes"
          • A physical reminder of the Ghost's presence. Adapting supernatural tropes in the Gothic?
      • Adds a sense of realism through hearing the voice of the ghost
        • "I'm come home, I'd lost my way on the moor!"
        • "Let me in - let me in!"
        • "Twenty years I've been a waif for twenty years"
    • Presentation of Lockwood
      • Althoguh initially being presented as perfectly civilised, takes a drastic change
      • "Terror made me cruel" - the effect of trauma even on the best of people
      • "The intense horror of nightmare came over me" - He is scared and instinctively acts out of violence
      • He is the one to physically hurt a young girl even if it is a ghost
      • Disrespectful to the Catherine whom he believes in a 'minx' - he corrects himself though
    • Presentation of Heathcliff
      • He is mortified at the concept of anyone staying in Cathy's room - "I've a good mind to turn them out of this house"
      • He replies to Lockwood's perception of Catherine with 'savage vehemence'
      • His masculine, unfeeling exterior is broken down by the Ghost and at the concept of being reunited with Catherine even in a different form
        • "gush of grief"
        • "Oh! My heart's darling! Hear me this time, Catherine"

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