Wuthering Heights Themes
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?- Created by: Zoe
- Created on: 16-05-13 18:26
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- Themes in Wuthering Heights
- Love
- Central the novel
- Cathy's choice between Heathcliff and Edgar
- 'I love all his looks'
- 'As everybody loves'
- 'It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff'
- 'the greatest woman of the neighbourhood'
- 'I can aid Heathcliff to rise'
- Cathy's choice between Heathcliff and Edgar
- Explored from a number of perspectives
- Domestic
- Interesting how the domestic 'ideal' is thwarted by illness and death
- 'her perilous illness'
- 'I want to frighten him'
- 'I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own'
- 'assumed the aspect of death'
- Interesting how the domestic 'ideal' is thwarted by illness and death
- Maternal
- Social
- '...need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother'
- Edgar's social role as 'the master' and dominant patriarch
- '...need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother'
- Romantic
- Religious
- Transcendent
- 'I am Heathcliff'
- 'I cannot live without my soul'
- 'Oh, my life!'
- 'Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same'
- 'my love for Heathcliff is...necessary'
- Domestic
- Bronte fuses idealised romance with gothic fantasy and horror
- 'dashing'
- 'haunt me'
- 'I won't rest until you are with me. I never will!'
- Narcissism characterises Heathcliff and Isabella's relationship
- Heathcliff's love of Cathy corrupts into a lust for revenge
- His passion leads him to transgress powerful social taboos
- 'I struck one side of the coffin loose'
- 'disturb the dead'
- His passion leads him to transgress powerful social taboos
- When Cathy is unable to reconcile her passion for Heathcliff with her marriage to Edgar, she resorts to self destruction
- 'I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own'
- 'grinding her teeth'
- Gilbert and Gubar - insanity is a result of her imprisonment
- 'stretched herself out stiff'
- Gilbert and Gubar - insanity is a result of her imprisonment
- 'stretched herself out stiff'
- 'ghastly countenance'
- Explored through profoundest acts of violence
- Central the novel
- Nature and Culture
- Represented through the two houses
- Wuthering Heights = nature
- Thrushcross Grange = culture
- Nature often represented as brutal
- 'Time stagnates here'
- 'black frost'
- As a man of culture, Lockwood is completely incapable of reading the signs of nature
- 'I was sick exceedingly'
- Nature is neither legible nor representable
- Culture seen as equally dangerous and violent
- Landscape linked to emotional state
- Nature is hardly ever directly represented
- Homans argues that indirect methods are used to repress nature's more threatening aspects
- Represented through the two houses
- Morality
- Conventional
- Institutionalised
- Joseph
- The restrictive voice of the social convention that intrudes upon this house of nature
- Regulates and judges
- Pious, restrictive, domineering and legislative
- Authenticity
- Being true to yourself
- 'Why am I so changed?'
- Link with Identity
- 'Catherine Earnshaw - Catherine Heathcliff - Catherine Linton'
- 'I am Heathcliff'
- Catherine's marriage to Edgar = extreme act of bad faith
- Being true to yourself
- Self interest
- Nelly Dean
- Withholds or reveals her knowledge
- Seemingly arbitrary yet it invariably influences the novel's events
- 'You knew your mistress's nature and you encouraged me to harass her'
- 'And not to give me one hint of how she h she has been'
- 'I will have some to exhibit to pap!'
- 'my betrayal of her confidence'
- Withholds or reveals her knowledge
- Nelly Dean
- Conventional
- Education
- Denial of education is a form of social punishment and humiliation
- 'degradation'
- 'Oh, you dunce!'
- Hareton learning to read has both positive and negative implications
- On the one hand he acquires the social skills required for the union with Cathy
- On the other hand he seems to lose power (incl. sexual power) in his submission to this option
- Could be seen to repeat Catherine's coice to trade in authentic selfhood for social privilege
- Lockwood prides himself on his educational standing, but repeatedly misreads his environment and companions
- 'your amiable lady'
- 'whatever relation he bore'
- Reading dignifies Nelly Dean and gives her social status
- Denial of education is a form of social punishment and humiliation
- Love
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