WH notes Flashcards
1
Q
Emily
A
- 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
2
Q
Issues of the Time
A
- 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
- high mortality rates
3
Q
The Brontë Sisters
A
- 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
4
Q
Rev Brontë - religious background
A
- 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
4
Q
Nature
A
- 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
5
Q
The Houses
A
- 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
- Earnshaws - Wuthering Heights
- 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
6
Q
First look at TG
A
- 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
- have so much and yet are unhappy
8
Q
Power of the Subjective and the Visionary
A
- 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
9
Q
Gothic Conventions
A
- 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?
10
Q
Gothic Tropes
A
- 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
11
Q
Conventions in WH
A
- 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
12
Q
Narrative Structure
A
- 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”
13
Q
Duality and Doubles
A
- 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
15
Q
Heathcliff and Isabella
A
- 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
16
Q
Hareton and Catherine
A
- 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
18
Q
Identity of Male Characters
A
- Edgar
- genteel
- ‘insipid paltry creature’ - Ch. 14
- genteel
- Heathcliff
- primitive - Linton
- weak
- Hindley
- the idiot
- Hareton
- common sense
21
Q
Heathcliff’s death
A
- 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
- another circular development
- 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
23
Q
Heathcliff’s life - start
A
- 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
- duality
- 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
- new level of cuckoo bird syndrome
24
Q
Heathcliff’s life - return
A
- 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
- Edgar doesn’t know how to treat him
- 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
27
Q
Heathcliff
A
- 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
- Romantic hero
- but goes beyond it
- raises questions of nature and nurture
- society corrupts
- contrast to Augustan fallen man and transformational quality of society
- society corrupts
29
Q
Cathy’s choice
A
- 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
30
Q
Obstacles to Cathy’s choice
A
- her soul is convinced she is wrong
- Romanticism
- secular usage of religious ideas
- her dreams
- Romanticism
- 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
31
Q
Cathy’s Ghost
A
- 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
32
Q
Heathcliff and Cathy
A
- 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
33
Q
Hareton and Catherine
A
- 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
