Literary Context

Question 1

common critical reading of Heathcliff as a Byronic Hero

Answer 1

based on poetic qualities of the novel
The archetype of the Byronic hero is similar in many respects to the figure of the traditional Romantic hero. Both Romantic and Byronic heroes tend to rebel against conventional modes of behavior and thought and possess personalities that are not traditionally heroic.

Question 2

The strong sexual undercurrents in both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre and the supernatural elements are both in part aspects of the vampire archetype Charlotte and Emily Brontë use. As visionary literature in the sense Jung uses the term, both novels thus compensate for contemporary collective psychic imbalance–specifically for Victorian prudery, prejudice

Question 3

influence of the Gothic genre

Answer 3

-parallels drawn with Shelley’s Frankenstein, with theme of divided and monstrous self being played out in the character of Heathcliff

-uncannny weather

Question 4

Gothic pt.2

Question 5

the literary influence of fictional realism

Answer 5

plots have fluidity and the characters are endowed with psychological social or natural authenticity
-literature has a moral obligation to be true

Question 6

Women and society : “Wuthering Heights’ and “Mrs Dalloway”

Answer 6

• Catherine’s choice between life of convention, security, civil passivity and emotional starvation VS life of passion, insecurity and spiritual ruin

-Clarissa Dalloway also chooses to marry conventionally (her authentic life spent imaginatively drawn to themes of love and madness)

Question 7

Bronte’s psychological realism can be seen setting the benchmark for Virginia Woolf’s personalised “stream of consciousness”

Answer 7

disconnect between social lives of main female characters and their interior lives us destabilising -> conventions of society operate to make women ill