{"id":945,"date":"2022-10-25T23:05:49","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T23:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=945"},"modified":"2022-12-01T20:40:41","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T20:40:41","slug":"siblings-the-drivers-of-gothic-hauntings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2022\/10\/25\/siblings-the-drivers-of-gothic-hauntings\/","title":{"rendered":"Siblings: The Drivers of Gothic Hauntings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sibling relationships in Victorian novels are complicated, to say the least. Both Wuthering Heights<\/em> and Great Expectations<\/em> show different aspects of those complex relationships. Wuthering Heights <\/em>is more explicit about the relationship between adoptive siblings with the infatuation between Catherine and Heathcliff and the mutual hate between Heathcliff and Hindley. However, when it comes to the relationship between Catherine and Hindley, who are siblings by blood, there are not much to it. Or to put it more precisely, the relationship is not explicitly shown to the readers. We can only pick up pieces of information from here and there from Nelly\u2019s narrations, but it is not the focus of the story. One example of this is the fact that Hindley is invited to Catherine\u2019s funeral, but he never comes or gives any excuse to not come (170, end of vol.2 ch.2).<\/p>\n

Like Wuthering Heights<\/em>, sibling relationships are not so great in Great Expectations<\/em>. However, relationships between blood-related siblings are shown more clearly. Pip is raised \u201cby hand\u201d by his blood sister. Despite its abrupt end right before the start of his expectations, the abuse by his sister still traumatizes deep down. This trauma, and arguably his affection to her as his only known living blood relative, leads to his visions of his sister\u2019s haunting spirit after her death (278, Ch. 35). Interestingly, there is another brother-sister pair where the sister haunts the brother: Miss Havisham and her brother, Arthur. Arthur is Miss Havisham\u2019s half-brother that comes from an affair by their father. He also holds \u201ca deep and mortal grudge against her\u201d because he believes that she influences their father, even when most of the faults of his downfall and debts are his (180, Ch. 22). This is the grudge that leads him to work with Compeyson to defraud Miss Havisham. Yet, when all is said and done, on his deathbed, Arthur hallucinates his half-sister coming to him for revenge and taking him to his death (348-349, Ch. 42). He is haunted by Miss Havisham, even though that she is still alive. Thus, like Pip, Arthur is not haunted by his sister\u2019s actual ghost, but by the idea of her mixing with his own emotions. While Mrs. Joe haunts Pip with the trauma of abuse from the past and their blood relation, Miss Havisham haunts Arthur with the grudge and possible guilt he has after deceiving her. On the opposite side, while they are not sibling by blood, Pip\u2019s relationship with Joe, his brother in-law, can also be applied here. Pip\u2019s upbringing is influenced by Joe\u2019s personalities. Even after separated from Joe to live in London and being cruel to him, Pip is still \u201chaunted\u201d by Joe, his characters, and what he stands for.<\/p>\n

Thus, essentially, it is the sibling relationships, whether blood-related, adoptive, or in-laws, that seems to drive the plot and story of Wuthering Heights <\/em>and Great<\/em> Expectations<\/em>. In the former, the whole story begins because Catherine and Heathcliff love each other. In the latter, it is Joe\u2019s affection and compassion that allows Pip to be kind and considerate to the convict, which then leads to his great expectations. Furthermore, it is the hate that Arthur has for Miss Havisham that kicks start the chain of events leading to Estella\u2019s adoption and the convict\u2019s meeting with Pip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sibling relationships in Victorian novels are complicated, to say the least. Both Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations show different aspects of those complex relationships. Wuthering Heights is more explicit about the relationship between adoptive siblings with the infatuation between Catherine and Heathcliff and the mutual hate between Heathcliff and Hindley. However, when it comes to … Continue reading Siblings: The Drivers of Gothic Hauntings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4978,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344620],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945","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\/4978"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}