\u201cHowever, Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquility. She kept wandering to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which permitted no response, and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road; where, heedless of my expostulations, and the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash around her, she remained, calling at intervals, and then listening, and then crying outright. She beat Hareton, or any child, at a good, passionate fit of crying.\u201d<\/p>\n
-Wuthering Heights, page 85<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One thing I continually notice as I read is that yes, Wuthering Heights is violent, but that violence is just as often self-inflicted as it is directed at others. Not only this, but the said self-inflicted violence is often done for the sake of another. Upon learning Heathcliff has run away after overhearing her, Catherine subjects herself to the storm brewing outside. Nothing forces her to do this besides her own frustration at herself. She may think Heathcliff will return if he sees her shivering in the rain, and if this is the case, she is certainly not taking \u201ca permanent situation on one side of the wall\u201d for her own sake. Whether she recognizes that is another matter. She appears so wrapped up in her own misery and concern that she forgoes her own health and safety. This goes beyond physical torment and also includes mental anguish too- Catherine is willing to marry Will for Heathcliff\u2019s sake more so than her own.<\/p>\n
Words such as \u2018agitation\u2019, \u2018growling\u2019, \u2018crying\u2019 and \u2018wandering\u2019 stand out, likening Catherine\u2019s actions to those of a petulant child. The oncoming storm acts as the sublime- nature being something terrifying- a parallel display of power that outshines the power Catherine has when she uses her anger or despair against others. Catherine is strong, or perhaps forceful, because of her habit of lashing out and acting without care or thought for others, but the storm whittles her character down to its bare essentials- an emotionally charged child with little direction and no safe outlet. The point is driven home by the final sentence of the paragraph, where it is noted she throws tantrums better than any other actual child. She is a young woman who seems to have too much emotion, and that is all that drives her as she oscillates between emotional extremes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cHowever, Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquility. She kept wandering to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which permitted no response, and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road; where, heedless of my expostulations, and the growling thunder, … Continue reading Self-inflicted Violence in Wuthering Heights<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4980,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4980"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}