Sunday, June 4, 2017

How does Emily Bronte characterize the ideals and nature in Wuthering Heights?

Published in 1847, Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is a romantic novel with intricate ties to the idea of nature and the sublime. Developed through Romantic artists and poets, the idea of sublime nature draws upon limitless and untamed beauty of nature: it is all-encompassing, uncontrollable, a force more powerful than humans.
The novel's physical setting directly reflects this concept: the English moors are dark and dangerous; and Heathcliff's own house is named accordingly ("wuthering" is a term for roaring wind). Interestingly, in Wuthering Heights, much of the novel occurs inside the characters' houses rather than out on the wild, rugged moors surrounding them. Bronte uses figurative language and intense imagery to place nature as a central theme in the novel; the characters are part of their natural environment rather than simply existing in it. In a form of abstract symbolism, the characters in Bronte's novel parallel nature. Heathcliff and Catherine represent the sublime; he is violent and unforgiving like the dangerous crags bordering the moors, and she is as unpredictable as the fast-changing weather. Edgar and Isabella represent civilization and the inherent violence and conflict in trying to control nature. Nearly every character is described through natural imagery, indirectly placing them in the natural world despite the direct setting indoors. This sets the stage for the analysis that sublime nature is such a dangerous concept that it must be suppressed, creating conflict and violence. Yet, as seen in the tumultuous rise and fall of the characters, the destruction caused by the physical nature pales in comparison to the destruction caused by human nature and the sublime within the characters themselves.
http://journalisticreview.com/nature-in-wuthering-heights/


Nature is described and experienced by Catherine and Heathcliff as a realm of freedom in Wuthering Heights. It is contrasted to corrupt civilization, which is located in the houses—Wuthering Heights itself and Thrushcross Grange—which oppress, hurt, and threaten to destroy the two young people. In houses, Catherine and Heathcliff are subject to Joseph's soul-chilling religious hypocrisy, Hindley's drunkenness and abuse, and later, the repressive conventionality of Thrushcross Grange. On the moors, the two run free and are able to be themselves. Nature is a place of escape from society's various sicknesses and abuses. Patriarchy doesn't reach them on the moors.
After Catherine gets ill because of the impossibility of aligning her own desires, especially her love of Heathcliff, to social expectations, she longs for the moors. She opens her bedroom window in her delirium, wanting to inhale the fresh air of nature. She tells Heathcliff that she has had a dream that she went to heaven but was unhappy there, but sobbed with joy when she thrown back on the moors. They are her heaven. After her death, Heathcliff seeks her spirit there.

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