Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights, wrote by Emily Bronte, was published
in 1847. It was her only novel and her masterpiece and was a highly imaginative
and dramatic presentation of a tragic story. However
it was not an immediate success because was considered by some critics and
readers too violent, morbid, wild, immoral and brutal. The novel revolves
around the t 353j95d wo houses, Wuthering
Heights and Thrushcross
Grange, respectively inhabited by the Earnshaws and the Lintons. The plot of Wuthering Heights starts in a conversation with Mrs
Dean, the housekeeper at the Grange and former servant at Wuthering Heights,
Mr Lockwood learns the story of the two families, and reports in the diary that
he writes to himself. Thus the book begins with the
end of the story, and presents two-first person narrators: the housekeeper, who
witnesses the events and tells them to Mr Lockwood, and Mr Lockwood himself,
who reports in his diary both what he hears from her and what he actually sees
in his visits to Wuthering
Heights. The hero is
Heathcliff, a foundling, brought up by old Mr Earnshaw, who considered him one
of his children (his children were Catherine and Hindley). He falls in love
with Catherine, but he was in continuous conflict with Hindley. This conflict
coincided with the girl's stormy nature and lost lifelong. Only death will
bring peace and the two families will restore their union through the surviving
heirs. The novel shows love, humiliated by pride, under the power of
love-hatred Catherine and Heathcliff torture each other: theirs passion
develops into destructive energy. Symbolism plays an important role in the
novel: the novel is built around the contrast between
the two houses and the two families. Wuthering
Heights on the bare hills
tossed by storms reflects the destructive energy of its occupants, while
Thrushcross Grange,the home of the Lintons, surrounded
by vegetation in the peaceful, soft valley, reflects their conception of life,
based on stability. The general background is the desolate scenery of the Yorkshire moors, the wind, the
storms are all reflected in the psychological conflicts of the characters. The
elemental, primitive force of nature, omnipresent, frames the action and
emphasises the wild passion of Heathcliff and Catherine.
Another feature of the book is the absence of moral
condemnation. In fact Emily Bronte has a special vision of life: good and evil
are manifestations of the same energy.Love is the positive force that triumphs
in the end: Heathcliff and Catherine are united in
death, whereas the love between Hareton and Cathy exorcises the demons that
have so long possessed Wuthering
Heights.
Reading Wuthering Heights, we can see the Emily's intellectual strength and
boldness, joined to extreme sensitivity. Her one novel has been defined "a cry
from the heart and soul".
