Wuthering Heights- Characters & Themes
- Created by: safiya
- Created on: 05-04-15 11:48
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- Wuthering Heights
- Heathcliff
- Enters the Earnshaw household as an orphan without any previous parentage, Mr Earnshaw introduces him as being "dark... almost as if it came from the devil"
- Outsider, impossible for him to fit in. He's determined to get control of both the Heights & Grange
- The Landlord of Grange
- When back from 3 year absence, he physically trsnsformes. No longer beaten-down street kid. Nelly, "a tall, athletic, well formed man.
- Violence
- He can be a beast. Comes across through his numerous threats & violent acts.
- Uses violence as means of expression for love&hate. Classic victim turned perpetrator, having been beaten on by Hindley for most of childhood.
- Is he capable of sympathy for anyone but Catherine is highly questionable.
- It is questionable if he is capable of sympathy for anyone but Catherine, he seized, and thrust [Isabella] from the room; returned muttering "I have no pity! I have no pity!"
- He can be a beast. Comes across through his numerous threats & violent acts.
- Heathcliff & Catherine
- Painfully recall, H leaves his beloved Cathy after overhearing her say it would degrade her to marry him & also to elevate herself socially.
- Their love remains immature, since they were only ever "together" as young children.
- Cathy says to Nelly, "I am Heathcliff" the nature of their love
- "My love for H resembles the eternal rocks beneath" H is foundation of everything and long lasting.
- I'll try to break their hearts by breaking mine" C resorts to self destruction in love & passion for H; refusing food, working herself up while carrying Edgars child
- Catherine's death increases his obsession- he has her grave dug up so he can catch one last glance.
- H can be horrible, although easy to pity him. He finds perf love & she marries Edgar Linton.
- Does Brontë intend for us to like Heathcliff as much as we do?
- Enters the Earnshaw household as an orphan without any previous parentage, Mr Earnshaw introduces him as being "dark... almost as if it came from the devil"
- Family
- Instead of bringing comfort & peace, they are source of violence, alienation, jealousy, and greed
- Heathcliff's new siblings won't share beds, and they make faces and spit at him.
- Heathcliff is never accepted into either Earnshaw or Linton family, he gets revenge by taking everything they own.
- Lockwood, "I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle.
- Lockwood remains outsider-he believes he has chance with the young Catherine.
- Supernatural
- Ghost of Catherine Linton attempts to come into Wuthering Heights through window
- The moors, the people, and Wuthering Heights itself all infused with supernatural elements, we have much more than conventional haunted house.
- As child, Heathcliff is teased for being dark and unnatural representative of the supernatural
- Dead characters refuse to leave the living alone, and living accept that deceased find ways of coming back to haunt them.
- Heathcliff
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