Class Blog

The chastisement against Catherine is present throughout the novel but begins with her father, Earnshaw. The father compares Cathy to her brother, saying that because she is worse behaved than him her father cannot love her, “‘Nay, Cathy,’ the old man would say, ‘I cannot love thee, thou’rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God’s pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee!’” (43). This reveals Earnshaw instructs Catherine to be better behaved than her brother in order to receive his approval; thus Catherine is set to the expectation of better behavior than her brother while he, in general, gets to roam free. Dean also comments on Catherine’s “tongue always going—singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same”, indicating the family’s displeasure and chastising of Catherine when she speaks (42). 

While the family is not fond of Catherine when she runs her mouth, Catherine is not fond of Isabella. She speaks about how she treats Isabella, in general, with respect regardless and does not feel burning jealousy towards her, she “never feel[s] hurt at the brightness of Isabella’s yellow hair, and the whiteness of her skin…the fondness all the family exhibit for her” (98). Catherine notes Dean’s fondness for Isabella as well when she mentions the family’s liking for her, as many in the family feel opposition to Catherine for her constant rambling. However, Catherine claims she feels no jealousy towards her. Additionally, she mentions “it pleases her brother to see us cordial”, revealing again the pressure the family places on Catherine to get along with family members and expecting her to bite her tongue (98). On the other hand, the men in the family do not face the same type of pressure and freely express their aggressive opinions towards each other. In an attempt to speak positively of Heathcliff, Catherine is met with aggression and opposition as Edgar begins to cry at the sound of the man’s name. Catherine’s indication of her husband and Heathcliff’s behavior, while she is expected to act cordial with Isabella, becomes a turning point for Catherine’s mental state as she begins to realize her lack of control of her own life.

Furthermore, Catherine perceives her connection with Heathcliff as the two being a part of a singular soul, as she claims “‘I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being’” (82). For Catherine to watch Heathcliff court and marry Isabella, while she is still criticized by Dean and Heathcliff to bite her tongue about her opinions on the situation, Catherine believes the state of her soul is at risk of being lost to her. Thus, the criticism for Catherine to restrain her speech and the loss of a part of her soul lead to Catherine’s descent into insanity in an attempt to maintain what she believes is rightfully hers.

“They shut the house door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people. She made no stay at the stairs’-head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to warn her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again. When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour’s, to be removed from the sound of our ‘devil’s psalmody,’ as it pleased him to call it. I told them I intended by no means to encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had never broken his fast since yesterday’s dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr. Hindley that once.”

Excerpt From: Emily Bronte. “Wuthering Heights (Barnes & Noble Classics Series).” Apple Books.

It is in this excerpt that Emily Brontë’s use of gothic terminology and imagery inverts the reader’s understanding of what is good and what is evil. After throwing hot apple sauce in Edgar’s face, Heathcliff is confined to the estate’s attic. In this scene, what happens “above” and “below” confounds the reader’s usual understanding of good, evil and their respective locations (based on religious doctrine). Usually, things that are associated with “light” and “goodness” are elevated to parallel the location of Heaven or divinity. However, the joy and festivities are happening behind the “house door below”. In this way, the activity that one would register as joyful and lighthearted is occurring on a lower physical plane in proximity to “hell” and “darkness”. Conversely, Catherine must ascend a set of stairs to retrieve Heathcliff from the attic in which he is imprisoned. The situation of Heathcliff’s imprisonment can be likened to darkness and evil, as Heathcliff is perceived by the people of the estate, but the elevation of the room in which he is confined indicates otherwise. Additionally, “the skylight” that peaks through the cracks of the garret indicates that there is a subliminal battle between “light” and “dark” forces. While the plot itself influences the reader’s initial understanding of Heathcliff as evil and the people of Thrushcross Grange as good and joyful, the location of each of these scenarios inverts our understanding of their respective characters and likeness to good and evil.

In addition to the elements of location, certain terms and phrases used in this excerpt indicate the impure nature of the people who were responsible for Heathcliff’s confinement. The word “communion” is used to describe the conversation that occurs between Catherine and Heathcliff in the attic. While this is a general term that describes an intimate gathering between people, it also evokes the thought of Christian practice, especially the biblical story of The Last Supper, the final dinner between Jesus and the apostles before his crucifixion. In addition, Catherine refers to the festivities that are occurring downstairs as “‘devil’s psalmody,'” further indication of the evil nature of the celebration and its participants.

In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is a prime example of the Other, perhaps one of the most potent in all Victorian literature. However, due to both her early relationship with Heathcliff and her drastic break from it, Catherine is also a form of the Other in the novel. Through Catherine’s delirious speech to Nelly during her fatal illness, Brontë uses the framework of the Gothic to convey the impossibility of escaping her role as the Other.

In her lament to Nelly, Catherine speaks plaintively and earnestly about the state she finds herself in. It is plain she regrets her choice to leave the Heights, “’…I had been wrenched…and been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger, an exile and outcast thenceforth from what had been my world…” (Brontë 125). By marrying Edgar Linton to escape her perception of a “dehumanizing” attachment to Heathcliff, Catherine has only persisted in again othering herself, just in a different setting. She identifies herself as a “stranger”, “exile”, and “outcast”, plainly demonstrating the detachment she feels from the life she has chosen for herself. However, in bemoaning the loss of her past, Catherine also represents that former status as Other. She says, “I wish I were out of doors. I wish I were a girl again, half savage, and hardy, and free…” (125). Her use of the word “savage” particularly emphasizes her perception of the otherness of her past as well as her present. Heathcliff, her former “all in all” (125), is also described as savage or less than human throughout the novel, mirroring Catherine’s vision of herself. Earlier in the novel, she declares “I am Heathcliff” (Brontë 82), suggesting that her original perception as herself as the Other stemmed from her association with Heathcliff; she is now realizing that she cannot escape this Otherness as she holds this attachment with her always. Despite Catherine’s best efforts to escape her liminal existence at Wuthering Heights, she only succeeds in thrusting herself into a different form of liminality, a very Gothic concept. The Gothic, as described by Richard Altick, “…is obsessed with establishing and policing borders, with delineating strict categories of being” (Altick xii). When one doesn’t fall into a category of being, they become an Other. The border between Catherine’s past and present is impermeable, but the border of her future as Mrs. Linton also remains closed–once Heathcliff’s return reinforces their relationship–resulting in “the abyss” (125) of liminality. Aided by this Gothic border trope, Brontë solidifies the line between Catherine’s wild childhood and her role as a wife. She is alienated into no man’s land, an internal crisis which is so powerful that it culminates in her illness, and eventual death.

“…He’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man” is what Catherine Linton says about her supposed friend to her sister-in-law in Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights (Brontë, 103). This isn’t the first instance in the novel where the male lead, Heathcliff, is described as inhuman. Throughout the novel, Heathcliff has shown that he is a detestable person, but so have other characters. For instance, Hindley Earnshaw shares many of the same qualities as Heathcliff, but is not described in the same dehumanizing way. 

Class and racial distinctions provide an easy explanation for this phenomenon. Heathcliff eventually gains a large amount of wealth, but he doesn’t start off that way. When he is kidnapped from Liverpool, he is seen as an orphan. His parentage and ancestry is unknown. As well, he is described as having a darker complexion, implying that he is not English. Roger Luckhurst speaks on this matter in his introduction of the book Late Victorian Gothic Tales. He describes a fear of the other that plays a role in many gothic novels. Heathcliff is that other. With his unknown origin, he is seen and described as a mysterious, un-English creature. 

Catherine isn’t the only character to describe Heathcliff this way, though her words tend to be harsher than others. When he is first brought to Wuthering Heights, the entire Earnshaw family other than the father instantly dislike him. Once Mr. Earnshaw dies, he is cast out and verbally abused by Hindley. These actions are what lead to Heathcliff’s negative behavior. It is highly doubtful that he would act this way if he was treated with kindness as a child rather than contempt. The Earnshaw’s contain colonialist attitudes so much so that even though Catherine considers Heathcliff her closest friend, she continues to call him things such as “an unrefined creature” and claim that he is “without cultivation” (Brontë, 102). These beliefs are the reason Heathcliff has such a detestable personality.

In the “Gothic motifs” video, John Bowen states that “at the heart of Gothic fiction is the question of power.” And it is clear that women in Wuthering Heights have little control or power over their life, no matter how strong headed or upper-class they are. Mrs. Earnshaw cannot do anything about her husband deciding to adopt Heathcliff. Catherine Earnshaw still decides to marry Edgar Linton despite her love for Heathcliff because it is the “right” thing for a young woman like her to do. Isabella Linton stays with Heathcliff for awhile after finding out how horrible he is, until she runs away after a violence confrontation between Heathcliff and Hindley and lives in London alone with her child until her death, playing straight with the theme of power and women mentioned by Bowen.

Yet, women in Wuthering Heights also seem to hold some sort of power over the men in their lives. Mrs. Earnshaw’s death starts Hindley’s spiral in hatred toward Heathcliff. Frances Earnshaw’s death marks the ruin of the Earnshaw’s household. Catherine’s death not only makes Edgar into a hermit, resulting in the younger Catherine’s innocence and unawareness around her family situation, but also drives Heathcliff to be more determined to enact his revenge on the living.

However, Catherine is shown to have more power over men than just through her death. In chapter XI of volume I, after the confrontation between Edgar and Heathcliff, Catherine tells Nelly that “if [she] cannot keep Heathcliff for [her] friend – if Edgar will be mean and jealous, [she]’ll try to break their hearts by breaking [her] own” (116) and how she is aware that Edgar “has been discreet in dreading to provoke” her (117). Her statements show that she is aware of the power she holds over Heathcliff and Edgar. She knows that if she is miserable, they will be too, thus, making them more incline to let her do what she wants. While it does not always work, it still makes them think twice when they know that are about to do something that will upset her. Moreover, Catherine also states that breaking her own heart is “a deed to be reserved for a forlorn hope” and she would not take Edgar by surprise by doing so (116-117). For her, breaking her own heart is a last-ditch effort to gain power and punish the men that push her into the corner with their behaviors. And by not wanting Edgar to be surprise when she does so, Catherine seems to want the men to know that it is them that push her to do this act.

In conclusion, I think that Catherine uses her rage and emotional outbursts as a way to gain control and power over the men in her life, especially Heathcliff and Edgar. And she ultimately triumphs over them in her death, as her grave is not in the chapel nor in any household graveyard but on a hill by the moor (170), where she is free from the institution and society that create many of her sufferings.

“I want to know what I should do. Today, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I have given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me what it ought to have been.” (49) 

I will be analyzing this quote from Wuthering Heights through the lense of Victorian social norms, and how the novel comments on and transgresses those norms. To begin with, this quote has a number of literary elements that work to create a sense of urgency and desperation on the part of Catherine in her appeal for Nelly’s advice. For example, Emily Bronte uses the repetition of the idea that there is a “correct” choice for Catherine to make when responding to Edgar’s proposal. The words “should” and “ought” show Catherine’s desire to adhere to what is considered socially correct, and her anxiety around how to judge her actions so that they fit these norms. Additionally, the phrase “consent or denial” presents a binary choice that does not allow for deliberation on Catherine’s part. She does not think that she has the option to think about a marriage proposal after receiving it, and this is due to societal expectations. In Victorian times, women were often only valued as wives and mothers, so there would have been a lot of pressure on Catherine to get married soon, especially now that she is at what was then considered an appropriate age. Therefore, so far, the passage has shown an adherence to these Victorian social norms, by illustrating Catherine’s desire to meet them as well as her perceived lack of choice in the matter. 

However, paradoxically, this passage then goes on to show a departure from these same norms, and this contributes to the ways in which the novel and its characters stray from what was generally expected. To show this, it is important to note the context in which Catherine says these words. She is talking to Nelly Dean, her family servant, and asking for her advice. Catherine is from a moderately wealthy family, as shown by the fact that they can afford to have servants. Additionally, during this time, social classes were much more rigid than they are today. This meant that there was often not a lot of interaction between servants and their employers on a personal level, including in the context of asking a servant for their advice on a crucial life decision. It can be argued that this situation does not represent a drastic defiance of social norms, because Catherine does not have many other female influences in her life, and Nelly was probably the most convenient person for her to consult. However, there is another layer to the transgression of social norms. Catherine is being quoted here by Nelly in her story to Mr. Lockwood. Given that social classes were so rigid, it would probably have been unusual for a servant to tell stories about their employers to this extent. Therefore, this passage is used as a way to show the novel’s lack of regard for these social norms.  

Given this evidence, I conclude that this passage was meant to argue that Victorian social norms are unnecessary and did not need to be observed. Between Catherine’s flagrant disregard for Nelly’s position as her servant and Nelly’s disregard for her employers’ privacy and dignity, the novel presents a clear rebellion against the norms of the time. Additionally, the story would not have happened without this disregard, so I think it is reasonable to conclude that this was Bronte’s purpose in writing. 

In 19th century England, anxieties about protecting family property became so pervasive that ancestral claims were a common factor in many Victorian novels. This fact is especially true in Wuthering Heights, a novel which circulates around two ancestral homes. In one moment in the first book, the audience is attuned to Mr. Linton’s apprehensions about his property. In this passage, both Nellie and Edgar express anxiety about how quickly Catherine will recover because they are desirous for an heir for the Linton line.  

This excerpt features multiple words which appear to have multiple meanings. We begin the passage with “waited,” which could mean tended to, as Nellie is her nurse, or waited on with temporal impatience. Moving further in the passage, “Mr. Linton’s heart would be gladdened, and his lands secured from a stranger’s gripe, by the birth of an heir” (Brontë 135). These two duplicities work hand in hand with one another to create an unstated, but stifling nervousness surrounding Linton’s concern with his land tied subtly with the culturally discussed duties of a proper Victorian woman. Where one might expect that Linton would be glad of his wife’s company once she gets well, waiting anxiously because she is sick and would hate to lose a companion. Instead, she is subtly rushed in her recovery because Linton has external expectations for their marriage. The fact that at this moment she cannot carry out her essentially contracted duties is a source of worry for the husband, especially as evidenced by the fact that he may not be gladdened by his wife’s renewed health, but by her ability to satisfy his conventional need for an heir to assume his place in the Linton line. 

Looking further into Catherine’s essential position of indebtedness, we may examine another, more clearly stated duplicity. Nellie muses, “there was double cause to desire it, for on her existence depended that of another” (Brontë 135). Even Nellie, clearly indoctrinated into the prevailing ideology surrounding womanhood and marriage, admits that Catherine’s sole purpose in healing is to bring another (possibly more pleasant) life into the world. Her existence is diminished for want of a better, possibly male heir, and she becomes obsolete in the process. Inheritance was so fraught that the thought of investing an entire family line in a very shade of a person yet to come into existence remains the dominant frame of consideration when a woman is deathly ill. In this way, Victorian ghosts hold promise unsurpassed.  

Linton and Nellie are only able to half-mask their anxieties with their thinly veiled double meanings. Ultimately, they are deeply concerned with “the Other.” Roger Luckhurst’s quotation defining the Gothic can also be aptly applied to these concerns as Linton’s Other is, “the undamming of dark forces that rush into and insidiously undermine the order of everyday life” (xi). Because of the family that Linton married into, perhaps his true concern is the dispositions of his neighbors who are not the gentlest of folk. Because of this relation, perhaps another, less obvious fear that permeates Linton’s conscience is a question of matrilineal inheritance, and exactly what traits the child could display from Catherine’s family, and therefore what that may do to his property. Once again in this aspect, Catherine is reduced to nothing should she bring forth an “unacceptable heir” for Linton: someone who would upset the perfection of his gentry familial line. Not only does the child’s existence depend upon her, but her entire worth depends on his. 

I am interested in what the ideal male marriage partner is according to Victorians.  On page 57, Heathcliff tells Nelly “I wish I had light hair and fair skin, and was dressed, and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!” in reference to Edgar Linton.  Readers know from earlier in the book that Heathcliff has darker skin and hair, and is too poor to dress well.  As Catherine shows interest in Edgar, Heathcliff becomes jealous.  Rather than character, Heathcliff thinks Edgar’s advantages over him that attract Catherine are appearance and wealth.  His beliefs are even supported on page 78 when Catherine admits to Nelly that her reason for wanting to marry Edgar is that “he is handsome…And he will be rich,” and Catherine desires to be “the greatest woman of the neighborhood.”  These separate disclosures to Nelly indicate that the standards for a Victorian male partner are that he must be handsome and rich.  However, Victorian standards of being handsome include having “fair” skin and “light” hair, hinting that their visions of beauty are inherently racist and biased toward a Eurocentric beauty standard.  This conclusion is evidenced by Victorian era pseudosciences like physiognomy, which claimed that one’s outer appearance indicated one’s inner character, and provided excuses to be racist and colorist, deeming those with darker skin “unworthy” and even “uncivilized.”  Because Heathcliff has darker skin than Edgar, he is a less desirable marriage partner for Catherine.  In addition to racism, Victorians also perpetuate classism.  Heathcliff is poor, has unrefined behaviors, and dresses shabbily.  In contrast, Edgar is richer and posher.  This difference once again makes Edgar a more desirable husband.  This instance of classism is clearly not a rare occurrence unique to Catherine because In Mary Barton, Mary almost marries Henry Carson for the same reason.  Mary and Catherine are justified in wanting to escape a lower class lifestyle, but the people they truly connect with, Jem and Heathcliff, are cruelly cast aside because they seemingly cannot provide the ladies with a lavish future.  Emily Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell both emphasize that a rich lifestyle is widely yearned for among  Victorian people, and that marrying into wealth is a quick way to ensure obtaining one.  However, both authors also stress that marrying a man for his money ends poorly compared to marrying for love.  Mary is happier with Jem, and Catherine is unable to forget Heathcliff.  To Victorians, their strict rules and standards often take precedence over true desires, two of those standards being the racist and classist ones that determine whether a man is worth marrying.  Brontë and Gaskell highlight the consequences of conforming to Victorian expectations and marrying for status over love, as well as reveal that the ideal Victorian male marriage partner can still leave their wife unsatisfied and unhappy.