Wuthering Heights

Thematic & Structural Considerations

Industrial Revolution-1847

• “Marked by rapid, violent social changes”1. Land ownership was a part of the gentry class2. Genteelness was about birth rights and moral character3. The economy was becoming more cash-based4. The middle class was created because of this and more

powerful than landowning gentry

Changes political powerChanges rules of social acceptance

Implications of Social Change

Textual Evidence• Ch2-Lockwood’s blunders• Ch 5-$ as status as explained

by Nelly• Ch 6-Hindley making Heathcliff

a servant• Ch 7-Heathcliff wants to be

like Edgar• Ch11-Heathcliff lowers status

of Hindley*source of motivation for

revenge (theme)

Social Class

Women’s Right MovementNovel was published at the beginning of this movement in England

It was about voting rights

It was about married women’s property rights so they were the same as unmarried women.

Textual Evidence

Textual Evidence

Thematic Considerations: Death

Death & Burial Customs

Pre-1823• Insanity vs. self murdered• Felo-de-se• Suicide was subject to even

greater ignominy • Could be buried at a cross-

roads with a stake in the heart.

Customs• Property could be forfeited to

the Crown if discovered as a suicide

• Superstition-mirrors caused the soul to flee from the person and caused their death (suicide?)

• If you talk of death to the person and they commit suicide, you were an accomplice and would be subject to the law as well

Death & Burial Customs

After 1823• Suicides could be legally

buried in the churchyards but below wall so no one could step over grace and disturb the soul

Customs• Buried in the church yard in

the evening (hour + place)• No minister need to come• Nothing to be said over the

person (lack of Christian burial)

Closed Family System

Psyco-analytic Criticism

Character Considerations

Closed Family System• Focus on the family rather

than the individual on isolation

• Temper their love to detach from the family destruction

• Victims, triangulation, and scapegoating

Wuthering Heights• Bildungsroman focus on Cathy &

Heathcliff

• Contrast to Romanticism in many ways

• The disappearance of God in literature so the focus is on human relationships as substitutes

• Shift in focus could signify pre-oedipal focus on mother to father; eventually allows the integration of “self” again

Character Considerations

Bildungsroman• Mostly about a single individual’s

growth within the context of a defined social order

• The growth is somewhat a quest story

• Some form of loss or discontent jars the character away from home

• Process of maturity is long, arduous, and full of repeated clashes between desires and social order that is unbending

• Spirit and values of the social order become a part of the character and the protagonist then becomes a part of society

Byronic Hero Vs. Anti-Hero• Antithesis of a hero• Considered incompetent,

unlucky, tactless, clumsy…