Wuthering Heights 2

Wuthering Heights – Critic’s Reviews Essay, Research Paper

The “problem” of Wuthering Heights is the “problem” of Catherine Earnshaw and

Heathcliff. How has the relationship between these two characters been read over the last 150 years. To what extent has cultural context varied these reading and how, in particular, has it influenced your own reading.

Wuthering Heights has been the subject of much criticism throughout its history as critics and historians alike try to discover Bronte’s meaning and intentions behind the work. The controversial relationship of Catherine and Heathcliff has puzzled and fascinated critics since its publication in 1847. Many agree that the focus of the novel lies in the dominance of Catherine and Heathcliff s relationship on the entire generations of Linton s and Earnshaw s but disagree on how that relationship should be viewed. Contemporary reviews reflected the immorality they saw in the play, due to the Victorian conventions of novels at the time. As times have progressed and society became more evolved we saw the

novel in a different light to those that were first established. The modern era romanticised the novel through focussing on imagery; animal, natural and barrier. In post-modern terms the novel is seen to reveal a number of themes relating to family dysfunction, social and class struggles, gender and race.

The relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff is to say the least, passionate and tempestuous and fraught with problems which occurred due to the social conventions and boundaries of the time. Catherine is forced to marry Edgar Linton because she has no prospects of a future if she marries Heathcliff. As she tells Nelly (p.76) she loves Edgar only because he “is handsome and pleasant to be with”, “young and cheerful” and “because he loves me”. The spiritual nature of the relationship also confused the Victorians as did the dramatic emotion with which they expressed their love for one another. Cathy’s death, through her control of appetite comes about as a result of the frustration anger she feels for both Heathcliff and Edgar, because they have caused her so much pain in forcing her to choose between her duty and propeitry (Edgar) and her one true love (Heathcliff).

In the early years of it’s publication Wuthering Heights was described as “a disagreeable story despite it s power and cleverness” (Atheneum, 1847) and a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors (Graham s Lady Magazine, 1848). Although the critics recognised Bronte’s talent as a writer they did not approve of the themes of the novel nor the behaviour of the main characters. As far as they could see, there was no moral framework to the story nor did Bronte end up ultimately condemning the lovers for their profane relationship.

Middle-class Victorians saw the book as un-Christian because it rejected the idea of Heaven and instead created a new place where Cathy and Heathcliff could be together, even in death. This place, along the moors, symbolised freedom from society s boundaries in life, and in death, represented a place stronger and more natural than the Christian Heaven . It has been argued recently that Bronte rejected patriarchal Christianity in the novel simply because, at her time, it was unsympathetic to women like her. There has been no suggestion, however, that Bronte was anything but a devout Christian.

As a Victorian novel, Bronte promptly defies the protocol of authorship at the time by constructing her two main and most memorable characters with qualities that were considered quite inappropriate for a proper lady or gentleman to have. Through the eyes of Nelly, the main narrator, Heathcliff is presented as vindictive, vengeful and violent while Cathy is considered selfish and vain. The Victorians also saw their love as a destructive, demonic, intensely erotic and incestual, rather than a spiritual bond as it ends up consuming the lives of everyone around them, people such as Linton and the younger Catherine whom the Victorians approved of.

Later critics, particularly after Victorianism, became infatuated with the Gothic aspects of the novel. The ghosts, dreams and the supernatural element in Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship was discussed and debated by various critics as they argued that Catherine and Heathcliff transcended reality into this other world in the moors where they could finally be together. Derek Traversi in the Dublin Review, 1949 speaks of the spirit of metaphysical passion and a consuming desire for a completeness unattainable – separated from theological differences altogether remote from that of a St. John of the Cross .

The modern critics which viewed the novel in their timeframe from about 1914 to 1960 explained the relationship by focusing on such features such as animal and barrier imagery and symbolism, time sequence, narrative methods and comparisons of the characters to aspects of nature. In particular, Lord David Cecil s theory on the storm and calm influenced many modern critics with regards to their views on nature and Wuthering Heights. E.M Forster from his article Prophecy from the book Aspects of the Novel, 1927 says Wuthering Heights is filled with sound – storm and rushing wind -a sound more important than words and thoughts. Great as the novel is, one cannot afterwards remember anything by Heathcliff and the elder Catherine. The