Wuthering Heights

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Wuthering Heights

• Emily Bronte

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• Into which genre can Wuthering Heights be
  categorized?

Is Wuthering Heights a Gothic novel? Romantic
literature?
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Gothic and Romantic

• Gothic

• Romantic

• A genre that creates terror and suspense,
  usually set in an isolated castle, mansion, or
  monastery populated by mysterious or threatening
  individuals. The term Gothic is also applied to
  medieval architecture, and Gothic fiction almost
  inevitably exploits claustrophobic interior
  architecture in its plottingoften featuring
  dungeons, crypts, torture chambers, locked rooms,
  and secret passageways.

• A late-eighteenth to early-nineteenth century
  movement that emphasized beauty for beautys
  sake, the natural world, emotion, imagination,
  the value of a nations past and its folklore,
  and the heroic roles of the individual and the
  artist.

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Elements of Gothic Literature

• Setting in a castle
• potentially ruined or haunted may be occupied or
  abandoned
• often contains secret passages, trap doors,
  secret rooms, dark or hidden staircases, and
  possibly ruined sections
• may be near or connected to caves, which lend
  their own haunting flavor with their branchings,
  claustrophobia, and mystery
• An atmosphere of mystery and suspense
• work is pervaded by a threatening feeling,
• a fear enhanced by the unknown.
• plot itself often built around a mystery,
• such as unknown parentage, a
• disappearance, or some other inexplicable
• event

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Elements of Gothic Literature

• An ancient prophecy
• connected with the castle or its inhabitants
  (either former or present).
• usually obscure, partial, or confusing. "What
  could it mean?"
• Omens, portents, visions
• character may have a disturbing dream vision, or
  some phenomenon may be seen as a portent of
  coming events
• Supernatural or otherwise inexplicable events
• dramatic, amazing events occur,
• such as ghosts or giants walking, or
• inanimate objects coming to life.
• In some works, the events are ultimately
• given a natural explanation, while in others
• the events are truly supernatural.

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Elements of Gothic Literature

• High, even overwrought, emotion
• The narration may be highly sentimental, and the
  characters are often overcome by anger, sorrow,
  surprise, and especially, terror.
• Characters suffer from raw nerves and a feeling
  of impending doom.
• Crying and emotional speeches are frequent.
  Breathlessness and panic are common.

• Women in distress
• As an appeal to the pathos and sympathy of
  the reader, the female characters often face
  events that leave them fainting, terrified,
  screaming, and/or sobbing. A lonely, pensive,
  and oppressed heroine is often the central
  figure of the novel, so her sufferings are even
  more pronounced and the focus of attention. The
  women suffer all the more because they are
  often abandoned, left alone (either on purpose
  or by accident), and have no protector at times.

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Elements of Gothic Literature

• Women threatened by a powerful, impulsive,
  tyrannical male
• One or more male characters has the power, as
  king, lord of the manor, father, or guardian, to
  demand that one or more of the female characters
  do something intolerable. The woman may be
  commanded to marry someone she does not love (it
  may even be the powerful male himself) or commit
  a crime.

• The metonymy of gloom and horror
• Metonymy is a subtype of metaphor, in which
  something is used to stand for something with
  which it is closely related. For example, the
  film industry likes to use metonymy as a quick
  shorthand, so we often notice that it is raining
  in funeral scenes. Note that the following
  metonymies for "doom and gloom" all suggest some
  element of mystery, danger, or the supernatural.

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Examples of Metonymy

• wind, especially howling
• rain, especially blowing
• doors grating on rusty hinges
• sighs, moans, howls, eerie sounds
• footsteps approaching
• clanking chains
• lights in abandoned rooms
• gusts of wind blowing out lights
• characters trapped in a room
• doors suddenly slamming shut

• ruins of buildings
• baying of distant dogs (or wolves?)
• thunder and lightning
• crazed laughter

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Elements of Gothic Literature

• The vocabulary of the gothic.
• The constant use of the appropriate vocabulary
  set creates the atmosphere of the gothic.
• Mystery diabolical, enchantment, ghost, goblins,
  haunted, infernal, magic, magician, miracle,
  necromancer, omens, ominous, portent,
  preternatural, prodigy, prophecy, secret,
  sorcerer, spectre, spirits, strangeness,
  talisman, vision
• Fear, Terror, or Sorrow afflicted, affliction,
  agony, anguish, apprehensions, apprehensive,
  commiseration, concern, despair, dismal, dismay,
  dread, dreaded, dreading, fearing, frantic,
  fright, frightened, grief, hopeless, horrid,
  horror, lamentable, melancholy, miserable,
  mournfully, panic, sadly, scared, shrieks,
  sorrow, sympathy, tears, terrible, terrified,
  terror, unhappy, wretched
• Surprise alarm, amazement, astonished,
  astonishment, shocking, staring, surprise,
  surprised, thunderstruck, wonder
• Haste anxious, breathless, flight, frantic,
  hastened, hastily, impatience, impatient,
  impatiently, impetuosity, precipitately, running,
  sudden, suddenly
• Anger anger, angrily, choler, enraged, furious,
  fury, incense, incensed, provoked, rage, raving,
  resentment, temper, wrath, wrathful, wrathfully
• Largeness enormous, gigantic, giant, large,
  tremendous, vast

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Elements of Romantic Literature

• Emphasis of imagination and emotion over reason
  and formal rules
• Intuition and natural feelings guide conduct
  instead of rational rules
• Awe of nature is emphasized
• country life idealized ills of society due to
  urbanization
• the love of nature is not presented just in its
  tranquil and smiling aspects but also appears in
  its wild, stormy moods,
• Respects primitivism values common, natural
  man and childhood
• Hareton is the noble savage, and, depending on
  your reading of the novel, so is Heathcliff
• When does the rift between Heathcliff and
  Catherine become evident?

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Elements of Romantic Literature

• Interest in Medieval past, the supernatural, the
  mystical, the Gothic, and the exotic
• the supernatural or the possibility of the
  supernatural appears repeatedly.
• Attraction to rebellion and revolution,
  especially concerned with human rights,
  individualism, and freedom from oppression
• so great a focus is placed on the individual that
  society is pushed to the periphery of the action
  and the reader's consciousness
• often elevates the achievements of the
  misunderstood, heroic individual outcast

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Elements of Romance

• Emphasis on introspection, psychology,
  melancholy, and sadness
• Heathcliff is the Byronic hero both are
  rebellious, passionate, misanthropic, isolated,
  and willful, have mysterious origins, lack family
  ties, reject external restrictions and control,
  and seek to resolve their isolation by fusing
  with a love object,

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Heathcliff Hero or Villain?
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Antihero

• Protagonist or notable figure conspicuously
  lacking heroic qualities
• Opposite of the archetypal hero, potentially
  antithesis

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Byronic Hero

• a man proud, moody, cynical, with defiance on
  his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of
  his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of
  strong and deep affection (Lord Byron (George
  Gordon) from The Poetry Foundation)
• Rebel who does not possess heroic virtue and
  has many dark qualities
• Usually isolated from society as a wanderer or
  is in exile
• Moody by nature or passionate about a particular
  issue
• Does not matter if social separation is imposed
  by external force or self-imposed
• Emotional and intellectual capacities superior to
  average man
• With regard to intellectual capacity,
  self-respect, and hypersensitivity, he is larger
  than life
• Force him to be arrogant, confident, abnormally
  sensitive, and extremely conscious of himself
  may force rebellion against life itself
• Rejects the values and moral codes of society and
  is often unrepentant by societys standards

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Byrons Conrad

• That man of loneliness and mystery,
• Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh
  (I, VIII)
• He knew himself a villainbut he deem'dThe rest
  no better than the thing he seem'dAnd scorn'd
  the best as hypocrites who hidThose deeds the
  bolder spirit plainly did.He knew himself
  detested, but he knewThe hearts that loath'd
  him, crouch'd and dreaded too.Lone, wild, and
  strange, he stood alike exemptFrom all affection
  and from all contempt (I, XII)
• Excerpts from Lord Byrons The Corsair

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Byronic Heroes

• Twilights Edward Cullen

• Harry Potters Severus Snape

Jane Eyres Mr. Rochester
Gone with the Winds Scarlett OHara
Buffy the Vampire Slayers Angel
The Dark Knights Batman
V is for Vendettas V
Phantom of the Operas Phantom
Pirates of the Caribbean's Captain Jack Sparrow
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Catherine Earnshaw LintonCathy
Catherine Linton Earnshaw
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Hindley EarnshawHareton EarnshawEllen
Nelly Dean
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Edgar Linton Isabella Linton
HeathcliffLinton Heathcliff
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• Themes (subjects for theme)
• Love
• Revenge
• Jealousy

• Motifs
• Doubles
• Windows
• Weather

• Importance
• Death
• Supernatural
• Physical setting

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Essay Assignment
Choose one of the following topics to compose a
5-7 paragraph essay. Be sure to provide textual
evidence and commentary to support your claims.

• Heathcliff is a complex character on the basis
  of his actions alone, he might be considered evil
  or immoral. (Consider his function as a Byronic
  hero.) Explain both how and why the full
  presentation of the character in the work makes
  readers react more sympathetically than they
  otherwise might.
• Catherines mind is pulled in conflicting
  directions by two compelling desires, ambitions,
  obligations, or influences. Identify each of the
  two conflicting forces and explain how this
  conflict illuminates the meaning of the work as a
  whole.

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Essay Assignment Cont.

• Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for
  example, two countries, two cities or towns, two
  houses, or the land and the sea) to represent
  opposed forces or ideas that are central to the
  meaning of the work. Wuthering Heights contrasts
  two such places. Explain how the places differ,
  what each place represents, and how their
  contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.
• The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this
  observation about happy endings. "The writers, I
  do believe, who get the best and most lasting
  response from their readers are the writers who
  offer a happy ending through moral development.
  By a happy ending, I do not mean mere fortunate
  events -- a marriage or a last minute rescue from
  death -- but some kind of spiritual reassessment
  or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even
  at death. Identify the "spiritual reassessment
  or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending of
  Wuthering Heights and explain its significance in
  the work as a whole.
• See File Manager for a detailed grading rubric.

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Antihero. Merriam-Webster 2011. Web. 25 Aug.
2011. lthttp//www.merriam- webster.com/dictionar
y/antiherogt.Characteristics of the Byronic
Hero. 25 Aug. 2011. lthttp//teachers.sduhsd.k12.
ca.us/sfarris/Files/A P20Lit20Files/Microsoft20
Word20- 20Characteristics20of20the20Byronic2
0H ero.pdfgt.Harris, Robert. "Elements of the
Gothic Novel." VirtualSalt. 15 June 2008. 
Web. 25 Aug. 2011. lthttp//www.virtualsalt.com/
evalu8it.htmgt.
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