Wuthering Heights: Plot, Characters And Topics

June 5, 2021 by Essay Writer

Introduction

Wuthering Heights is the work of Emily Bronte, one of Bronte’s sisters. This book describes the story of the hero, gipsy’s outcast, Heathcliff, who was adopted by the old master of the villa, went out to get rich because of humiliation and love failure, and retaliated against the landowner Linton and his children who married his girlfriend Katherine when he came back. The real permanent artistic charm of Wuthering Heights is the information and enigma only contained in the book. No matter the structure of the novel, the image of the characters and the narrative skills, it has always been the object of study by western scholars. There are many different opinions and emerge one after another.

Introduction to Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is a story between two English families (Earnshaw and Linton). Many years ago, the story happened in a beautiful but desolate wilderness in northern England. This is a story of love and hate, a devil’s revenge, a love that transcends life and death, and a life that cannot be forgiven. The two protagonists are Heathcliff and Catherine. Their love and hatred together destroy all their happiness. The plot of the whole story is actually unfolded through three parts: the first part describes the childhood life of Heathcliff and Catherine, the second part describes the Revenge of Heathcliff, and the third part describes the death of Heathcliff. Wuthering Heights will be hailed as ‘the most peculiar novel’ by later generations and will become a unique gem in the history of British literature in the 19th century. Until now, it is still admired by numerous readers with its magnificent and moving brilliance and deeply marveled at its extraordinary artistic charm.

Understanding of Wuthering Heights

After reading this book, I have three implications:

The unfortunate man has healed his childhood all his life.

In this book, many people are suffering. From the old master of the villa to his children, to the third generation, the most stable one is probably the maid, the narrator. In the book, the old master can’t give a pair of children full of father love. Son Hindley sees his father bringing back a homeless child, and worries about the division of father love. This anxiety is not seen by his father. Instead, his father is better to the homeless child, and Hindley begins to abandon himself. This idea led him to marry a sick wife and drink like a father after marriage. No matter his wife or children, he only used his violence against Heathcliff to vent his childhood dissatisfaction, which also laid the seeds for later revenge. As the only daughter of the manor, Catherine was not well educated by the noble lady. Her father allowed her to run with Heathcliff. She was attracted by Cliff’s tenacious and wild vitality. Just as the long Princess of Samsung in South Korea was led by the ex husband of the bodyguard, the spirit gradually embarked on a life path of passionate operation. She had a good family background, but she was growing up like a poor girl, lacking both love and money, so later she made such a decision in the matter of marriage, because she felt that by doing so, she could get both Linton’s money and Clive’s love. When Clive came back later, she wanted to do both. Maybe some people said that she was too greedy, but she was really lack of money and love. She had a double sense of hunger. She could not live without either. So, she can only risk walking the steel wire, and finally both of them are lost, just like the fish lost water, and the young will go back to the wild. Her daughter, Katie, is the opposite of her, because she is protected by her father so well that she still lives in a fairy tale when she is a teenager. In today’s words, the standard virgin heart doesn’t understand the dangers of the human heart, and she is easily pulled into the devil’s cave by the devil, without any attempt to resist. Until after marriage, unable to return to heaven, can only rely on willful temper to resist, and finally temperament has become the same as the person she hates. Therefore, children should be protected as much as possible. When they are over ten years old, it is better to let them know a little about human suffering, which is better than people’s evil. Just like children living in a sterile environment, if they encounter a little bacteria, they will be unable to resist and fall ill. Proper frustration education can increase children’s immunity. It’s the same with Linton. His mother’s education and father’s education are just like ice and fire. His heart is torn and he dies in agony in contradiction. Heathcliff, also a victim, has no parents since childhood. He wanders around and is bullied. At a young age, he has developed an iron will. How hard can he do this? He was adopted by old Sean and abused by the young master. Later, he came because he thought that Catherine was good to him, suffered from hunger and was reluctant to leave, How rare was the warmth that the little light brought to him, but the last little light was gone. So I completely exiled myself and began to set foot on the road of no return. If he had the same family and property as Linton when he was a child, how could he have taken such an extreme road?

The secret of marriage happiness – choose what I love, love what I choose.

Several couples in the story are not satisfied with each other. Catherine and Linton got married out of rational consideration, as well as her own identity and future material life security. This is not wrong in itself. Since she has figured out what she wants, it’s good to remember her original intention. If Heathcliff doesn’t come back in her whole life, maybe she can live a peaceful life, just like two snails in a glass bottle. They are the best candidates for each other’s vision. But as soon as Clive came back, the balance broke, and Catherine began to lose her balance. She felt that she could have a better choice. Like Britney in the moon and sixpence, if she didn’t meet Strickland, she would have a peaceful life with Elliot. Maybe everyone has a warehouse of explosives in their heart. If they don’t meet the fuse that can ignite them, they can also be safe for a lifetime. If they meet, it’s hard to say whether they are lucky or unlucky. Choosing what I love is not the most difficult, the most difficult is to love what I choose, that is, for the rest of my life, I will continue to cultivate feelings with my partner, appreciate each other’s advantages, appreciate each other’s efforts, help them grow together and become better myself. The operation after marriage may be more valuable than the choice with wide eyes before marriage. Linton is not a passionate person, but he was born well, gentle and generous, which is his advantage. He knows everything about Catherine, does not do anything to hurt Catherine, but quietly self-healing. Because of the preconceptions, because of the love, Catherine is blind to the advantages of Linton, just like Zhang Ailing said that every man has his own white rose and red rose. In this book, for Catherine, Linton is the white rose and Clive is the red rose. Catherine has no ability to persuade herself, love what I choose, cherish what she has and get a sense of inner balance. If Clive had been chosen, in a few years, she would have felt that she had chosen wrong.

Character decides fate

In the book, Catherine said more than once that Clive is herself, because both of them are full of passion, and their dialogue is vital. Linton and her sister Isabella are another kind of personality, belonging to the gentle and restrained, calm and restrained type. Like the Linton brothers and sisters who meet Catherine and Clive, like sheep who meet wolves, it’s hard not to be hurt. So there is an old saying in China that birds of a feather flock together and people flock together. But Catherine and Clive are crazy, controlling and possessive, which is hard for ordinary people to bear. Like fireworks, they look brilliant and attractive from afar, but if they are too close, they are easily burned, and they often fall in love and kill each other. Katie’s innocence, Linton’s weakness, Hindley’s self abandonment, and some suffering are due to some flaws in our character. Many tragedies are caused by our character. If we deal with the same thing individually, the outcome may be different. Character has the influence of environmental factors, more importantly, our own subjective choice, also known as willpower. In the same suffering environment, some people sink and some people rise up, which has a lot to do with the inner choice. And character will affect our choices in life. For example, little Katie Mingming has already felt the abnormality and eccentricity of little Linton, but she still has to go to the fire pit without telling her father.

Conclusion

This paper mainly introduces Wuthering Heights, which is discussed from two aspects. Firstly, it briefly expounds the plot and outline of Wuthering Heights, and then gives readers some insights on the text content. Wuthering Heights seems to be a ‘strange’ novel. When it was published, it once entered a ‘low tide’ period. It was only half a century later that Wuthering Heights was gradually accepted by the world, until today’s honor. Its success is not achieved overnight, but the product of a certain number of years. At one time, the author of Wuthering Heights was regarded as a ‘extraordinary person’ by others. He had no love experience, was not good at social intercourse, but had certain emotional factors to reserve. The so-called life always inadvertently gives you a heavy blow, but also in the secret gives a sweet rain, nurturing the injured psychology.

  1. Reference
  2. Miles P. (1990) Inroduction ‘Wuthering Heights’: Popular Memory/Critical Debate. In: Wuthering Heights. The Critics Debate. Palgrave, London
  3. Gorsky S R .(1999)’I’ll Cry Myself Sick’: Illness in Wuthering Heights[J]. Literature & Medicine, 18(2):173-191.
  4. Margaret, Homans.(1978)Repression and Sublimation of Nature in Wuthering Heights. Pmla.
  5. Axelrod M. (1999) The Poetics of Climate in Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. In: The Poetics of Novels. Palgrave Macmillan, London.
  6. Chitham E. (2001) The Three Housekeepers of Wuthering Heights. In: The Birth of Wuthering Heights. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

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