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Wuthering Heights
Emily BrontëTop Withens, possible inspiration for the Earnshaw family house.
• The foundling Heathcliff is brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw.
• Oppression and exploitation of Heathcliff by Hindley, Mr Earnshaw’s son.
• Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff become twin souls.
The bill for the 1992 film version
Emily Brontë
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1. Key eventsPart One: First generation
Emily Brontë
• Cathy Earnshaw’s transformation from ‘savage’ to ‘proper lady’ during her stay at Thrushcross Grange.
• Cathy’s betrayal of her ‘soul mate’ Heathcliff.
• Heathcliff’s departure (splitting of the oak).
• Cathy’s marriage to Edgar Linton.
Part One: First generation
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1. Key events
The bill for the 1992 film version
1. Key events
• Heathcliff’s return as a ‘gentleman’ intent on revenge.
• Cathy’s attempts to have both Heathcliff and Edgar.
• Cathy’s derangement and illness.
Top Withens
Emily Brontë
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Part One: First generation
• Birth of Cathy II, Catherine’s and Edgar’s daughter.
• Cathy’s death and Heathcliff’s despair.
1. Key events
Emily Brontë
Top Withens
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Part One: First generation
1. Key events
• Heathcliff’s revenge: property, gained by marriage to Isabella Linton and expropriation.
• Degradation of Hareton, Heathcliff’s and Isabella’s son.
• Heathcliff loses interest in revenge.
Near Top Withens
Emily Brontë
Part Two: Second generation
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1. Key events
Emily Brontë
• Heathcliff and Cathy together in death.
• Marriage of Cathy II and Hareton: property restored to rightful owner.
Part Two: Second generation
Near Top Withens
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2. Narrative structureNon-linear narrative structure
Use of flashback Beginning in medias res Binary structure
Elicits curiosity in the reader
Invites comparison
between the two stories
Implies an active reader
Emily Brontë
Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, where the Brontë family lived
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• Two frame narrators: Lockwood (as external narrator) and Nelly Dean (as internal narrator).
• Chinese box structure: stories within stories.
• Two interpreters; two auditors (reader and Lockwood closely identified).
3. Narrative point of view
Lockwood’s dream in an etching by Rosalind Whitman
Emily Brontë
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3. Narrative point of viewNelly Dean’s perspective
Emily Brontë
• Conventional based on morality, religion and superstition.
• She thinks Cathy is “wayward”, “ill-tempered”.
“I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance” (Part I, Ch. VIII).
“She was too much fond of Heathcliff” (Part I Ch. V).
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Lockwood’s perspective
3. Narrative point of view
Emily Brontë
• The voice of conventional society.
• An unreliable narrator because he does not know all the details of the story.
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Implications of the multiple narrators
3. Narrative point of view
Emily Brontë
• Strangeness and ‘otherness’ preserved.
• Multiple interpretations: no single ‘truth’.
• Unique Interpretation becomes impossible modern aspect of the novel.
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4. Main characters
Catherine
• Wayward, difficult, rebellious, spirited & ‘unfeminine’.
“her spirits were always at high water-mark, her tongue always going... A wild, wick slip she was but she had the bonniest eye, and sweetest smile and lightest foot in the parish” (Part I, Ch. V)
“heaven did not seem to be my home” (Part I, Ch. IX)
Charlotte Riley as Catherine and Tom Hardy as Heathcliff in Coky Giedroyc’s 2009 film version
Emily Brontë
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• Persistent ambiguity: man or beast?
• Unknown origins, absence of social connection.
• Absence of emotion, “insensible”.
4. Main characters
Heathcliff
Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version
Emily Brontë
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4. Main characters
Heathcliff
Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version
Emily Brontë
• Deteriorates into brute state.
• Violent and extreme language.
• A Byronic hero.
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• Vindictive, violent and possessive
“They may bury me twelve feet deep and throw the church down over me; but I won’t rest till you are with me… I never will!”
(Part I, Ch. XII)
• Merged identities
“If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the
Universe would turn to a mighty stranger….Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” (Part I, Ch. IX)
Heathcliff / Catherine relationship
Emily Brontë
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4. Main characters
• Vitality, authenticity, freedom.
• Rejection of class values.
• Heathcliff and Cathy symbolise the instinctual, unconscious forces.
• Contrasted with ‘civilised’ characters: Edgar, Lockwood, Nelly Dean.
Heathcliff / Catherine relationship
Emily Brontë
Robert Brook, Heathcliff and Cathy, from the novel Wuthering Heights, 20th century, Private Collection.
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4. Main characters
5. The Moors as symbol
Attempt to escape
The Moors represent the Romantic rejection of
society and the desire to transcend its rules
Emily Brontë
English Moors English Moors
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5. The Moors as symbol
Escape is impossible
Cathy reconciles self & class society through her marriage to Edgar and her relationship
with Heathcliff
Emily Brontë
English Moors English Moors
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6. Gothic elements
Emily Brontë
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6. Gothic elements
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• The dreams and superstitions often mentioned.
These are not used to frighten the reader, but to convey the struggle between the two opposed principles of love and hate, of order and chaos.
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• The home of the Earnshaws.
• Severe, gloomy, brutal in aspect and atmosphere.
• Firmly rooted in local tradition and custom.
• The background for the life of primitive passion led by its owner.
• The home of the Lintons.
• Reflects a Victorian conception of life.
• Symbolises stability, kindness and respectability.
7. Opposite principlesThrushcross GrangeWuthering Heights
principle of storm and energy
principle of calm
Emily Brontë
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