WH notes

Question 1

Emily

Answer 1

• worked briefly as a teacher and governess
• lived for a brief period in Brussels
• not truly as secluded as it seems
• returned to Haworth and became increasingly reclusive
• the sisters tried to start a school - didn’t take off
  
  • published poetry
  • and then adopted the pseudonyms and published
    
    • Wuthering Heights - Emily
    • Agnes Grey - Anne
    • Jane Eyre - Charlotte
• 1848 - Bramwell (brother) died
  
  • possible inspiration for Hindley
  • probably due to alcoholic poisoning

Question 2

Issues of the Time

Answer 2

• psychosis
• the other
• inheritance
• treatment of women
  
  • no custody rights
  • victims of divorce
  • physical containment
  • women struggle for autonomy and freedom
  • Isabella, Nelly, Cathy
• socio-economic issues
  
  • class
  • inheritance
  • relationships
  • Cathy’s connections and choice between Heathcliff and Edgar
• harsh realities
  
  • high mortality rates
    - particularly infant rates
    - life is considered transient
    poets and writers therefore search for a new level of passion or heightened living in order to compensate this

Question 3

The Brontë Sisters

Answer 3

• 1818-1848
• died of TB
• Wuthering Heights - 1847
• Brontë sisters/Bell brothers
  
  • Emily - Ellis
  • Charlotte - Curren
  • Anne - Acton
• choice for male pseudonyms
  
  • desire to be taken seriously
  • views on women writers at the time
  • all three sisters flaunt the stereotypes of women
• Wuthering Heights
  
  • sexually explicit
  • transgressive
  • subversive
  • challenges social norms
• lived in a relatively uninhabited Yorkshire moors
  
  • wild open land
  • Haworth Parsonage
  • not necessarily as hermit-like as it is supposed
  • isolate and wild
  • Yorkshire moors feature heavily
    - the character’s view and interaction with the moors
  • none of the sisters idealise nature
    
    • depiction of nature as dangerous, oppressive
    • some characters they revel in it
• all wrote slightly subversive novels - troubling to common morality
• other people often struggled to put the sisters’ lives together with their books

Question 4

Rev Brontë - religious background

Answer 4

• father
  
  • autodidact = person who educated himself
  • placed a great deal of emphasis on education and self-betterment
    
    • social mobility and enabling
    • Heathcliff
  • ordained as Anglican reverend
  • awarded permanent post at Haworth
  • believe in the importance in educating his daughters - done by father and aunt, then formal schooling
    
    • strong emphasis on development of intellectual life
• sisters’ religious views
  
  • react against strict Calvinism
  • oppressive reaction to people’s desire to enjoy life - e.g. Joseph
    
    • satirisation of religious fanaticism
  • doctrine of predestination
    
    • goes against free will
    • one is walking a path already laid out
    • in Wuthering heights
      
      • the problems of free will and choice
      • the tension of constraint and over freedom

Question 4

Nature

Answer 4

• wild, untamed nature
  
  • opposite to ideals of the 18th century
  • physical manifestation of Heathcliff and Cathy’s love
    
    • they are doubly tied to it through their constant presence on the moors
• charged with emotion and energy
  
  • the pathetic fallacy
  • ‘pathos’ - that which rouses emotion
  • the connection between the physical world and the emotions of the characters
    
    • e.g. thunder, sunshine

Question 5

The Houses

Answer 5

• the two become symbols for the ideas which each family represents
  
  • Earnshaws - Wuthering Heights
    
    • untamed, wild, dark, subversive
    • anti-pastoral imagery
  • Lintons - Thrushcross Grange
    
    • civilised, restrained, socially acceptable
• opposition between these ideals
• the physical distance between the houses across the moors
  
  • the ways in which the families mix
  • marriage becomes not only a joining of houses, but also an amalgamation of the ideals which each group represents
• Heathcliff’s ownership of both
  
  • domination of the volatile, passionate and yet desolate existence which he follows
• the physical entrapment of the characters
  
  • physical and figurative containment of ideas
• the houses’ physical descriptions also mirror the ideas which they apparently stand for

Question 6

First look at TG

Answer 6

• Nelly’s account of C&H’s first sight
• displaced from nature
  
  • nature has been pushed far away
  • bourgeoise
• the rooms
  
  • opulence
  • crimson furnishing
  • silver and glass chandeliers
  • chains
• dangers within the softness
• the Linton children
  
  • have so much and yet are unhappy
    - inability to be content
    - foreshadows Cathy’s life
  • atavistic nature has still not been averted, despite the veneer
  • Heathcliff says that he will never begrudge Cathy something like Edgar does Isabella

Question 8

Power of the Subjective and the Visionary

Answer 8

• to construct an alternate reality
• subjectivity as inescapable
  
  • much more realistic
  • no omniscient voice as a guide
    - narration is a series of subjective responses
    - readers also entrapped by these accounts
    - although characters may leave, but the reader remains trapped

Question 9

Gothic Conventions

Answer 9

• strong strain of Romanticism
• 1773 - An Enquiry into those Kinds of Distress which Excite Agreeable Sensations
  
  • the dichotomy of disgust and desire
• association to transgression
• investigation of the grotesque and psychotic - the abhorrent
• sensational aspects
• extreme psychological states
  
  • landscape of the mind
  • madness, obsession, morbidity
  • the question of civilised behaviour
    
    • when and how easily does one regress to a more ‘primitive’ state
    • is it more natural?

Question 10

Gothic Tropes

Answer 10

• haunted castles/monasteries
• dilapidated houses
• grim landscapes
• innocent and persecuted heroines
• guilty secrets
• evil villains
• graves and desecration thereof
• vampires
• horror
• taboo
  
  • necrophilia
  • incest
• supernatural
• violence
• black and white morality

Question 11

Conventions in WH

Answer 11

• role of the supernatural
  
  • but it becomes part of the psychological
  • nothing occurs that cannot be explained in psychological terms
• more realistic setting
  
  • does not go for the exotic
  • novel is both about the Yorkshire moors but also an altered world where the gothic elements are prevalent

Question 12

Narrative Structure

Answer 12

• reader entrapped in the subjectivity of each narrator and narrative structure
• highly partial and subjective accounts
• shifts between accounts
• enigmatic aspects are never cleared up
  
  • Heathcliff’s mysteries
• novel emphasises the construction of story-telling
  
  • how a reality is constructed and manipulated
• both Nelly and Lockwood live in a slightly more mundane world
  
  • therefore C&H’s relationship and passion is filtered through the narratives before it gets to the readers
• Lockwood
  
  • south of England
  • city dweller
  • finds the wildness of the North alien to him
• Nelly Dean
  
  • lived there all her life
  • but outsider due to status as a servant
  • made to do things which she doesn’t want to
  • duplicitous
  • doesn’t always provide information
    - doesn’t tell E about C’s illness
    - C: “played traitor, she is my hidden enemy”

Question 13

Duality and Doubles

Answer 13

• subjective narration
  
  • alienation of the narrators to their stories
• past and present
  
  • causal relationship
  • the circular narrative - return to the beginning
  • difficulty of breaking the patterns
    
    • possible breaking away from circularity
  • narration moving between past and present narratives
• doubling
  
  • two narrators
  • two houses
  • two families
  • two Catherine’s
• Heathcliff
  
  • inner duality
  • entrapment within the self

Question 15

Heathcliff and Isabella

Answer 15

• the lead up to the marriage
  
  • Heathcliff tries to charm her
  • Cathy is upset at the thought
    
    • presents I as a canary (fragile songbird) and H as a wilderness
    • two different worlds
    • mutually exclusive, despite the veneer
  • not a rough diamond
    
    • pitiless/brutish, primitive/elemental impulses
    • idea that H has no moral bedrock
      
      • he is amoral - doesn’t internalise any true form of morality, merely acts to satisfy a specific end or desire
    • describes him as an epitome of the fallen man in all its negative aspects
  • Isabella doesn’t take Cathy’s words as truth
    
    • possibility of self-interest
    • C’s love for him
      
      • the dangers of such a relationship

Question 16

Hareton and Catherine

Answer 16

• parts of their parents
  
  • but approach the relationship differently
  • break in the pattern
    
    • although he is also treated with cruelty etc.
    • he doesn’t develop as Heathcliff does
    • suggests ability to rise above one’s environment
      - although he has a similar upbringing
      - Hareton alway knew who he was

Transformation of WH
Lockwood finds the place more open and welcoming
fruit trees and flowers
cheerful fire

Question 18

Identity of Male Characters

Answer 18

• Edgar
  
  • genteel
    
    • ‘insipid paltry creature’ - Ch. 14
• Heathcliff
  - primitive
• Linton
  
  • weak
• Hindley
  
  • the idiot
• Hareton
  
  • common sense

Question 21

Heathcliff’s death

Answer 21

• Nelly’s duplicity
  
  • doesn’t tell the doctor that he hasn’t eaten in 4 days
  • possibility that H committed suicide by starvation
  • doesn’t hide everything from everyone
• Hareton demonstrates his love for Heathcliff, despite their relationship
  
  • his grief springs naturally from his heart
• ambiguity of his death
  
  • another circular development
    
    • he leaves life the way he enters it
    • the ghosts of C&H
    • the little boy who sees them
• supernatural aspect can be accounted for
  
  • perhaps simply childhood fears and stories from others
• the graves
  
  • H’s still bare
  • new gravestone
    
    • suggestion that it will always remain bare
  • bucolic (pastoral)
  • wonders how anyone could imagine unquiet slumbers
    - shortly after the boy sees the ghosts
    - Lockwood can’t imagine it
    - just because he can’t, doesn’t mean anyone else can’t
    - contrast to the sight of Cathy’s ghost
• ‘slumbers’
  
  • is it an eternal rest, or a sleep before they wake

Question 23

Heathcliff’s life - start

Answer 23

• arrival
  
  • duality
    
    • regard it as a gift from God, but his complexion makes him look like spawn of the Devil
  • conferred identities
    
    • gypsy
    • brat
    • devil
    • use of the ‘it’
  • manipulation of the reader’s emotions
    - sympathy for the child
• only ‘Heathcliff’
  
  • only one name
  • singularity, unusualness
  • blank history
    
    • no family or background
  • a name given to him
    
    • says nothing about his true origins
  • reference to nature
    
    • heath - the moors
    • cliff - danger of falling
  • named after a dead child
    
    • new level of cuckoo bird syndrome
      emphasisess Hindley’s rejection

Question 24

Heathcliff’s life - return

Answer 24

• visits TG to see Cathy
  
  • Edgar doesn’t know how to treat him
    - social mobility
    - Cathy counteracts him
    - puts H on the same class as she is
    - associates herself with H not E
• Heathcliff’s transformation
  
  • a different person has appeared
  • no longer a scruffy servant
  • now suggests gentry-like status
  • perhaps has been in the army
  • although the marks of degradation have disappeared physically
    
    • they are still there in his head
    • H is plays the game of society for personal advancement
      
      • the play for Cathy
    • ferocity remains

Question 27

Heathcliff

Answer 27

• upbringing
• later actions
• indebted to tradition of gothic villain
  
  • but goes beyond it
    
    • Romantic hero
      
      • rebels against established norm
      • echoes of Milton’s Satan and Dr Faustus
      • outsider, loner, alien to society
        
        • foundling
      • enigma
        
        • cannot be absorbed into status quo
        • becomes symbol of the overall duality
          
          • morally suspect
          • charismatic
          • cuckoo bird
          • the usurper
• raises questions of nature and nurture
  
  • society corrupts
    
    • contrast to Augustan fallen man and transformational quality of society

Question 29

Cathy’s choice

Answer 29

• her acquaintance with the Linton’s
  
  • “full of ambition” - p.81
  • adopts a double character
    
    • without complete conscious choice
    • adapts to each situation she is faced with
      
      • decorum and civility - TG
      • wildness - WH
• her decision
  
  • she accepts, yet still asks Nelly’s advice
  • Nelly’s advice
    - catechisms - religious teachings
    - ‘doctrines’ of love
    - Nelly peals away the false reasons
    - Cathy’s motivation
    - wealth
    - status
    - pride
    - relative isolation of her world
    - the other eligible bachelors may never come her way

Question 30

Obstacles to Cathy’s choice

Answer 30

• her soul is convinced she is wrong
  
  • Romanticism
    - secular usage of religious ideas
    - her dreams
• dreams are fundamental and powerful in the shaping of selfhood and consciousness
  
  • the colour of one’s mind becomes altered
  • the dream
    
    • dreams she was in heaven
    • believes that she doesn’t belong
    • is flung out by the angels
    • its meaning
      - purgatorial spirit
      - Heathcliff is her soulmate
      - therefore, WH is her heaven
      - a Milton Lucifer figure
      - self-expulsion from actual paradise in order to go to a personal paradise
• degradation of marrying Heathcliff
  
  • can’t escape the claims and expectations of society
  • attempts at self-justification
  • believes that if she marries Edgar, she can help Heathcliff rise in society
• soulmates
  
  • mutual souls
  • “he’s more myself than I am”
• the soul
  
  • transcendence
  • relationships that are pitched at such a high level of emotion - absolutes
  • “I am Heathcliff”
  • the foreshadowing of her ghost
  • if he dies then the universe would be annihilated

Question 31

Cathy’s Ghost

Answer 31

• gothic tropes
• childlike image
  
  • importance of children
  • Victorian new conception of childhood
    
    • no longer considered little adults
    • sentimentalisation of childhood
    • vulnerability of children and cruelty that can be placed upon them
  • perhaps chosen to symbolise the desire to return to the wild childhood on the moors
  • duality - desire for both childhood and societal happiness
    
    • failure of logic - or logic of dreams
    • desire to bring the child and adult together
    • her marriage is the thing which drove her away from WH
• purgatorial imagery
  
  • the restless spirit
  • unfinished business
• Lockwood slits the ghost’s wrists on broken pane
  
  • atavistic violence
  • original, ‘primitive’ state
    
    • civilisation is a thin veneer
• choice to appear to Lockwood
  
  • can’t/won’t go to Heathcliff
  • choice validates H’s bitterness/violence

Question 32

Heathcliff and Cathy

Answer 32

• extremely volatile and intense relationship
  
  • occupies a relatively small part of the novel
  • is offset in intensity by other calmer relationships and more calculating narrators
• depicted as an irresistible passion of love
• see themselves as a single soul
  
  • separated into two bodies
  • constantly searches for fulfilment
    
    • the creation of a collective identity
    • which possible causes the death of the singular
      
      • this may also explain the effects which Heathcliff experiences after Cathy’s death
• as children they disdain society
  
  • yet Cathy eventually yields to the expectations of society
  • her marriage to Edgar is a result of the belief that she should enjoy and pursue particular ideals
• dangers of their mutual volatility
  
  • monomania - particularly in Heathcliff
  • entrapment within the self (whether individual or collective)
    
    • results in the inability to view the world from anyone else’s point of view
    • the self becomes a prison
      
      • and due to its constant reinforcement in the process of identity creation
      • it becomes the most difficult prison to break free from
    • the belief that one can bend the world according to one’s individual will
      - the problem arises when the world resists - which side inevitably submits to the whims of the other?
      - too much free will?
      - the inability to reign in one’s consciousness and the results thereof
      - psychological/emotional paralysis
      - psychotic outbursts towards others who attempt to constrain the freedom
• their relationship seems semi-incestuous due to the closeness of their relationship
  
  • whether platonic or not
  • the lure of the taboo
  • the physical manifestation of one soul in two bodies

Question 33

Hareton and Catherine

Answer 33

• more relaxed & experiential form of relationship
• closer to Augustan ideals of experience and reason
• although less intense, they form a more balanced and long-lasting relationship
  
  • they are the only couple that gets their ‘happily ever after’
• technically closer to each other biologically
  
  • they seem to have escaped the unsightly sheen of Heathcliff and Cathy