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Wuthering Heights


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Wuthering Heights (1847) - the story is narrated by Lockwood, a gentleman visiting the Yorkshire moors where the novel is set, and of Mrs Dean, housekeeper to the Earnshaw family, who had been witness of the interlocked destinies of the original owners of the Heights. In a series of flashbacks and time shifts, Brontë draws a powerful picture of the enigmatic Heathcliff, who is brought to Heights from the streets of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw. Heathcliff is treated as Earnshaw's own children, Catherine and Hindley. After his death Heathcliff is bullied by Hindley, who loves Catherine, but she marries Edgar Linton. Heathcliff 's destructive force is unleashed, and his first victim is Catherine, who dies giving birth to a girl, another Catherine. Isabella Linton, Edgar's sister, whom he had married, flees to the south. Their son Linton and Catherine are married, but always sickly Linton dies. Hareton, Hindley's son, and the young widow became close. Increasingly isolated and alienated from daily life, Heathcliff experiences visions, and he longs for the death that will reunite him with Catherine.

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Recent Forum Posts on Wuthering Heights

How is Wuthering Heights?

Great, awful, so-so? I've been wanting to read it forever, for some reason. I have these oddly high expectations for it, so if it happens to suck, I'll be disappointed. How is it?

Posted By SirJazzHands at Fri 19 Sep 2008, 12:28 PM in Wuthering Heights || 12 Replies

We know why Heathcliff was bad but what are some good traits?

Okay so there is a thread on here about wether or not Heathcliff was evil. Well lets get the other side.....What are some of his good qualities or why was he a good person that would excuse his "bad behavior" I guess you could say? I know its true he was wronged by circumstance and was most likely born out of wedlock and who knows how long he spent on the streets of london, but we know he loves Catherine and when he runs away it is when he hears how if she marries him it will be degrading. When Heathcliff comes back he is changed, he has come into money, no one knows how, has lost some of his ignorance, and grown athletic as Nelly Dean says. Heathcliff left to become better for Catherine. What are some other arguments you guys have?

Posted By xXKitoriXx at Thu 22 May 2008, 8:26 PM in Wuthering Heights || 1 Reply

Poetics of architectural space of Wuthering Heights

Has anyone looked at the architectural space that Wuthering Heights represents? I want to do a comparative literture review of two books I plan to use Gaston Bachalard. Poetics of Space - this describes the intimate, imaginative and poetic approach towards the expererience of architectural space. Compare it to Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights - which describes a backdrop for a passionate drama set within an architectural space.

Posted By sheila whittam at Wed 14 May 2008, 10:05 PM in Wuthering Heights || 0 Replies

Heathcliff breaking down class boundaries

A main theme in the novel is revenge, as Heathcliff wants revenge on Hindley and Catherine and Edgar, all in different ways. My question is how does Heathcliff break down class boundaries in his revenge, and based on this, why is his revenge just?

Posted By Krams706 at Tue 13 May 2008, 4:06 PM in Wuthering Heights || 0 Replies

Assignment Help

Hi again! I have to produce an essay concerning WH but I have not come up with anything inspiring yet. Could anyone suggest a subject? Something interesting and not too tough to handle, please? :confused:

Posted By valleyjune at Thu 8 May 2008, 4:53 PM in Wuthering Heights || 6 Replies

In Need of Insights

"This secret truth would be something formulable as a univocal principle of plantation which would account for everything in the novel. The secret truth about Wuthering Heights, rather, is that there is no secret truth which criticism might formulate in this way. No hidden identifiable ordering principle which will account for everything stands at the head of the chain or at the back of the back. Any formulation of such a principle is visibly reductive. It leaves something important still unaccounted for." Wuthering Heights: Repetition and the "Uncanny" by J. Hillis Miller "What is it that, with this novel, the logical mind so conspicuously fails? What does this have to do with the gage or promissory note that both holds off death and risks death, puts one's death on the line, as a kind of mortgage insurance? Why is it that an interpretative origin, logos in the sense of ground, measure, chief word, or accounting reason, cannot be identified for Wuthering Heights? If such an origin could be found, all obscurity could be cleared up. Everything could be brought out in the open where it might be clearly seen, added up, paid off, and evened out. What forbids this accounting?" Ibid A teacher told me that in HIS OPINION - as if it were ONLY his - all the problems of the novel could be solved by interpreting Old Earnshaw's words "A gift from god" as a confession that Heathcliff is his illegitemate son, and since that would make him a half-brother to Catherine their union cannot be completed according to certain religious or evolutionary rules which the whole novel then would go to prove and to show the consequences of their transgression. (These are not his exact words, rather, their implication). What questions does this interpretation leave unanswered? I thought about it over and over and found nothing that would be "reduced" or left out by adopting this as the secret truth, the same Miller said is non-existent. This point could not have escaped the attention of a critic like Miller, and if he was so strongly advocating the absence of an all-inclusive justifying core, he would have deemed this point unable of achieving such a position. BUT WHY? If anything comes to mind as being left out by this interpretation please help. My torment has been that Miller presented his point with such a good show of reason, and that teacher with such an ego-centric confidence stole an opinion and made it his own, and that his easily-stolen opinion could with the same ease refute Miller's "good show of reason", for me at least, because I can't think of what this interpretation would leave out. Anything would be helpful. Thanks in Advance.

Posted By imatitle at Thu 1 May 2008, 7:20 PM in Wuthering Heights || 21 Replies

Wuthering Heights & Heathcliff as the inversion of a colonial master

I teach AP history, and my students are simply riveted in looking at Heathcliff -- not as as a Byronic hero -- but rather as an inversion of a colonial master. Any thoughts on his origins? Gypsy? African?

Posted By AP Teacher at Thu 17 Apr 2008, 12:05 PM in Wuthering Heights || 1 Reply

I'd Love Your Help :)

Hey, I hope joining this network will benefit me and I hope I can help some people as well. I am looking for the answer to one very important question and this is my last resort! In a month, I will have to hand in an essay comparing Wuthering Heights to a more contemporary/modern day novel. Because of the timeline, I obviously need to read Wuthering Heights, and just one other novel...I can't be choosing the comparitive work at the last minute. Does anyone know any good novels to compare, like by theme perhaps supernatural, love, byronic hero. And the book needs a lot of literary criticsm, I really thankyou for your help...the second book has to be similar, please I hope I have luck here (I am on the phone with a friend at the moment getting ideas as well so excuse my weird grammar and spelling..I can not multitask)

Posted By Soley101 at Sun 30 Mar 2008, 1:34 PM in Wuthering Heights || 1 Reply

Could anybody inform me where i can find wuthering heights movie online?

Plzz help me:bawling: :(

Posted By natasssha at Wed 19 Mar 2008, 12:41 PM in Wuthering Heights || 2 Replies

The ending

And by that I mean the ending proper, not Lockwood deciding that he'll be merrily on his way after hearing a novel's worth of woes, haha. I was just wondering whether people consider it an entirely happy ending or not. I mean, on the surface, it strikes me as perfect– an amalgamation of all of the previous generation's best qualities and attributes, since Catherine seems like the Lintons plus what one can only call balls, and Hareton seems like the Earnshaws plus common sense. I also think that Hareton's being named after the ancestor who built the house in the first place indicates that things have run full circle and it's a fresh slate for Wuthering Heights (albeit an incestuous one). On the other hand, it's still Wuthering Heights, and as such, I can't ignore the unsettling vibe that still lurks. I dunno, it's not something I can back up without actual constructive analysis, but part of me thinks that Bronte fools the reader into false security just like she fools us into making assumptions about Heathcliff. (On a rather random note, I also found Lockwood's thinking he had a chance with Cathy the Second rather hilarious.) So, thoughts, anyone?

Posted By Four Legs Good at Tue 11 Mar 2008, 4:33 PM in Wuthering Heights || 2 Replies

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