Emily Bronte's classic, Wuthering
Heights, is a novel that contains much imagery and figurative language that
matches the passionate characters and untamed setting. Surely, readers will have no
difficulty identifying the various elements.
GOTHIC
ELEMENTS
Wuthering Heights itself seems gothic in its
architecture and landscape:
'Wuthering' being a significant provincial
adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in
stormy weather....one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by
the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of
gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun....Before
passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over
the front....
The Yorkshire
moors and lowlands lend themselves well to the gothic with their rocky outcropping of
patches of heather, and lowlands that are marshy. The weather is very fickle, storms
come in suddenly, and the wind blows harshly. The night that Lockwood arrives at
Wuthering Heights, there is a severe storm, so Lockwood spends part of the night reading
notations made in books by Catherine Earnshaw. After falling asleep, Lockwood dreams
that Catherine Earnshaw begs to be let in. Heathcliff, who is awakened by Lockwood's
screams runs to the room, throws open the windows and begs Catherine to come
in:
"Come in!
come in!" he sobbed. "Cathy do come. Oh do--once more! Oh! my
heart's darling! hear me this time , Catherine, at
last!"There was such anguish in the gush of grief that
accompanied this
raving...
The character
Heathcliff is erratic, temptuous, and difficult as a child; he is dark and
brooding:
Heathcliff's violent nature was not prepared to
endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a
rival. He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce...and dashed it full against the speaker's
face and neck....(Chapter
7)
Heathcliff is referred to
with language evocative of the devil:
"a dark-skinned gipsy," his eyes are described
as a
couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never
open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's
spies.
SYMBOLS
--Ghosts
appear in a more ambiguous way than they do in typical gothic works, so they seem more
symbolic. Certain ghosts, such as Catherine in Chapter 3, when Lockwood wakes from a
nightmare, and the villager's sighting of Heathcliff's ghost in Chapter 34 can be
explained as a nightmare and superstitious beliefs
respectively.
--Animals are used to symbolize Heathcliff's
nature. Edgar Linton refers to Heathcliff as "a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man." When
Catherine dies in his arms, Heathcliff howls like a wolf. He himself uses animal
imagery when he wishes to insult people: "Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your
work." (Chapter 20)
--Wuthering Heights with its
"atmospheric tumult," and Thrushcross Grange as "a splendid place," are highly symbolic
as the first represents a storm and the latter calm. They are appropriate homes for the
residents of them.
--Weather is symbolic. The storm
symbolizes the stormy relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine, as well as the intensely
passionate natures of the two.
THE
SPIRITUAL
The love that Catherine and Heathcliff share is
one beyond mortals. Catherine in Chapter 9 tells
Nelly,
...there is...an existence of yours beyond
you....My love for Heathcliff represents the eternal rocks beneath....Nelly, I am
Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure anymore than I am a
pleasure to myself, but as my own
being.
Likewise, Heathcliff
compares Catherine to his "soul" that he cannot live without. His desperate attempt for
a greater, higher reunion with Catherine after her death is metaphysical in its
nature.
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