Wuthering Heights Essay, Research Paper

Character

Heathcliff- this character is a genuinely evil person. He is dark and cruel. He is violently passionate, meaning he loves as strongly as he hates. He is a creature about whose past is unknown. A dark, dirty beggar, he was picked up on the Liverpool streets by Mr. Earnshaw and brought to the secluded part of the world known as the moors, where he has ample space to work out his destiny. He has a strong will and is steadfast.

Most of the characters in this novel are masters of their fate. They know what they want and go after it. They overcome all obstacles to immerse themselves in love.

The minor characters in this novel are interesting. They portray little barriers and problems for the major characters.

Setting

The setting of this novel is Yorkshire, England. This is a prime setting for the novel because of all of its romantic qualities. If this story were to be set in a very unromantic place, it would not have had the same effect. Physical elements are very important in such an emotional story such as ?Wuthering Heights?.

Theme

Wuthering Heights is a psychological study of a man torn between love and hate. The author raises such questions such as ?can love overcome hatred?? Emily Bronte heaves these mysterious questions that have plagued mankind for all of existence at the reader and makes him/her question their own values. The way she portrays this question is through Heathcliff. She allows the reader to witness evilness and love through a character. The reader gets to experience these emotions indirectly through the words and thoughts of a complicated man. After finishing this amazing story, the reader realizes that the author has worked her way into their mind and has planted a very important seed.

Point of View

The story is told through Nelly, who is the servant who has been a housekeeper both at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. She is a healthy, bustling, intelligent and thoroughly practical woman. The other narrator is Lockwood, who is a tenant at Thrushcross Grange at the beginning of Nelly?s narration. He is a curious, mild and polite gentleman. The point of view switches between the two throughout the story.

Style

?Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down.

?I wish I could hold you,? she continued bitterly, ?till we were both dead! I shouldn?t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn?t you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, ?That?s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I?ve loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!? Will you say so Heathcliff??

?Don?t torture me till I am as mad as yourself,? cried he, wrenching his head free and grinding his teeth.

The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.

?Are you possessed with a devil,? he pursued savagely, ?to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded on my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You