Wuthering Heights/Duality Essay, Research Paper

Emily Bront ’s controversial novel Wuthering Heights is the tale of two very different families living in two different houses, living two extremely different lives. Catherine is the character that draws them together.

The attempt to house two radically different natures within the same body is demonstrated in Catherine’s two houses of residence, her attraction to Heathcliff and Linton, and in her contrasting behavior throughout the novel.

Wuthering Heights is the home in which Catherine grew up. It is a formidable structure that “the architect had the foresight to build strong” because of both the psychological and physical storms it had to endure. Corners of the home were “guarded with large jutting stones.” The house its self is not a pleasant place to be. “No descent person came near” because of the somewhat frightening nature of the house. The “infernal house” is “primitive (in) structure” and has “grotesque carvings” which led people to view the house as an eerie structure. The inhabitants of Wuthering Heights are not much more accepted by society either. Heathcliff and Catherine are wild, unrefined, and harsh. They play out of doors barefoot and Catherine is not well-mannered at all. Heathcliff is perfectly comfortable wearing the same dirty clothes all the time. The names “Heathcliff” and “Catherine” are harsh- sounding. Even the dogs of the house are also unpleasant, being described as “liver-colored bitch pointer surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies.” As a whole, Wuthering Heights symbolizes hate, anger, and jealousy. However, Thrushcross Grange is a completely different place. Thrushcross Grange is the house where Catherine stays for five weeks while her ankle heals. It is a house built for comfort, and just to weather storms, as Wuthering Heights is. The house’s features are much softer than Wuthering Heights’. The grounds are well-kept, with flower beds and a manicured lawn. The inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange are much more refined than those of Wuthering Heights. Isabella and Edgar Linton are well-behaved and gentle. In fact, they refused to admit Heathcliff into their home because of his wild, rambunctious nature; contrary to their polite, calm nature. The inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange are superficial and materialistic, caring about the tangible things in life. In contrast to Wuthering Heights, the residents of this house have much lighter-sounding names Edgar and Isabella. However different those two houses are, Catherine is able and willing to live in both of them, which displays her dual nature as far as where she resides. Duality is suggested because she is able to live in these two places that are so opposite from each other. Not only is Catherine able to live in both places, but she is comfortable in doing so. She likes each house for different reasons. At Wuthering Heights, life is wild and free and she does not have to worry about minding her manners. However, at Thrushcross Grange, she is on her best behavior and acts like a lady. That is fine with Catherine because when she acts like a lady, people tell her how beautiful she is and she has “fine clothes and flattery . . . instead of (being) a wild hatless savage.” It is Bront ’s imagination, emotional power, and figures of speech that make the characters relate so closely to their surroundings. The contrast between houses is more than physical, rather the two houses represent the people who live in them. Bront made Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights as one, making them both cold, dark, and menacing, similar to a storm. She also made Thrushcross Grange parallel with the Lintons, which has more of a welcoming , peaceful setting. The personality of both houses is warm and draws in the reader. The contrast between these two houses adds much meaning to the novel, and without it, Wuthering Heights would not be the complex novel that it is.

Another aspect of Catherine’s dual nature is revealed through the two men she loves. The mere physical appearances of these two men begin to hint at her duality in the way of romance. Heathcliff is seen as a “gypsy plough boy” by those at Thrushcross Grange. He is not as clean as Edgar Linton is and the whole house regards him as no more than a gypsy. Heathcliff has “dusky fingers” and “thick uncombed hair.” Nelly says of his clothing, “Therefore not to mention his clothes which had seen three months mire in the dust.” However dirty and unkempt Heathcliff may seem to the rest of the people, he revels in his filth. He is proud of it. The “brute of a lad” says, “I like to be dirty and I will be dirty,” when Catherine teases him about his appearance. Edgar Linton is the opposite of Heathcliff. He has “light hair,” “fair skin,” “blue eyes,” and an “even forehead.” He dressed up properly and behaved the same way. Heathcliff was envious because Edgar was everything that he was not. Concerning the behavior of the two men, Heathcliff was very jealous-hearted and cares about no one but himself and Catherine. Heathcliff wishes he were “dressed and behaved half as well” as Edgar or even had a chance of being “as rich as he will be.” All Heathcliff cares about is money, and he is jealous and hateful toward Edgar for having it. Edgar, on the other hand, is a bit more practical than Heathcliff is. Money does not really matter to him because it has always been there for him and it is nothing new. He provides for his daughter and spreads the wealth, while Heathcliff keeps his money for himself. Loving two very different men suggests Catherine’s duality. Edgar is like “frost” while Heathcliff is like “fire.” Catherine shares something in common with each man, making it easier for her to love both of them. Like Heathcliff, she lives her life based on emotions, yet a part of her nature alludes to Edgar’s personality when she marries him for practicality. Edgar is seen as “beautiful fertile valley” because he gives so much of himself and he is unselfish, but Heathcliff is “hilly coal country” because he is hard, selfish, and uncompromising. Catherine’s ability to love them both shows she almost has two different personas. Each being taken on depending upon the man she is with at the moment.

Catherine’s behavior changes after she goes to Thrushcross Grange. The boisterous, unladylike activities she partook in at Wuthering Heights are frowned upon and not at all acceptable at Thrushcross Grange. Her formal training has taught Catherine that what goes on at Wuthering Heights is wrong. For instance, when she sees Heathcliff for the first time since her training, she teases and taunts him about his filthy appearance. It is the same way she used to look, but she is dressed in nice clothes now and she is clean so, in her eyes, it gives her reason to poke fun at Heathcliff. Before her transformation at the Grange, Catherine didn’t even wear shoes. Now, she wears shoes, full dresses, and bonnets to protect her curls. As a resident of Wuthering Heights, Catherine and trouble are always hand in hand. She is a mischievous and difficult child to deal with. She commonly put all of the others in the house “past [their] patience” and is described as a “wild wicked slip.” Even as her father dies Catherine is still behaving badly. As Catherine gets older her wild nature turns to a cruel nature. She is a refined lady, and she encourages everyone else to be refined also. She says to Nelly, “I hate you to fidget in my presence” and because Nelly persist in doing so, Catherine “snatches her cloth and pinches her hand.” Catherine has also been quite cruel to Hareton, so much so that he calls her “Wicked Aunt Cathy.” When first making the transition from a “wild hatless savage” to a woman with “much improved” manners, Catherine views her playmate, Heathcliff with a haughty manner and she teases him. Before she left, she was like Heathcliff’s other half. They did things such as “escape the wash house and have a ramble at liberty.” Now, Catherine would take part in no such activity. She went from being a mischievous, ill-mannered child to a cruel, well-mannered woman.

Fundamentally, Bront ’s Wuthering Heights is a tale of two very different households that produce two very different type of people. Catherine is the character that draws them together, changing from a product of one house to a product of the other. She almost adopts two separate personalities in the way that she goes about connecting the ideas of the two houses in her own mind. Through the connection of these two homes, she has fallen in love with two men, who are as differnt as night and day. Catherine has also managed to changer her behavior, doing almost a complete 180 when it comes to manners and the treatment of the people around her.