Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights which has long been one of the most popular and highly regarded novels in English literature, it has a secure position in the canon of world literature. As a shattering presentation of the doomed love between the passionate Catherine and Heathcliff, it remains one of the most haunting love stories in all of literature.
In Wuthering Heights,Nature is represented by the Earnshaw family and especially Catherine and Heathcliff. These characters are governed by their emotions, not by reflection or ideals of civility. Wuthering Heights symbolized a similar wildness. On the other hand, Thrushcross Grange and the Linton family represent culture, refinement, convention, and cultivation. Wuthering heights, through a love tragedy, presented a picture of deformity of the social life and Outlines a kind of humanity twisted by society and all kinds of terrible events.
The story ended with Heathcliff’s suicide. He died for love and his death shows his love to Katherine. He gave up the revenge to the younger generation after he knew that young Catherine and Harleton had fallen in love with each other shows that he was kind in nature. It was the cruel reality that twisted his humanity and made him become brutal and heartless. This kind of recovery of humanity was sublimation in spirit and it glared a kind of humanitarian ideal of the author and endows the terrible love tragedy some hope. Therefore, Heathcl iff’s change of “love---hate---revenge---a recovery of humanity” is not only the essence of the novel b ut also a clue throughout the whole novel. According to the clue, the author arranged an unpredictable scene for us. Sometimes it was the moor full of clouds, sometimes it was courtyard with a sudden rain and wind. The story has always been shrouded in a kind of mysterious and horrible atmosphere.
The novel is actually structured around two parallel love stories, the first half of the novel told about the love between Catherine and Heathcliff, while the rest dramatic second half told developing love between young Catherine and Harleton. In contrast to the first, the latter tale ends happily, restoring peace and order to Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The most important feature of young Catherine and Harleton’s love story is that it involves growth and change. Early in the
novel Harleton seems brutal, savage, and illiterate, but over time he becomes a loyal friend to young Catherine and learns to read. Catherine and Heathcliff’s love, on the other hand, is rooted in their childhood and is marked by the refusal to change. In choosing to marry Edgar, Catherine seeks a more genteel life, but she refuses to adapt to her role as wife, either by sacrificing Heathcliff or embracing Edgar. Catherine and Heathcliff’s love is based on their shared perception t hat they are identical. As Catherine declares, “I am Heathcliff,” while Heathcliff, upon Catherine’s death, said that he cannot live without his “soul,” meaning Catherine.
Catherine’s betrayal and her bitter destiny was the turning point of the whole stor y. It made Heathcliff change his love to hate. After Catherine died, the hate became the motivation of his revenge. He successfully attained his objective. Not only he let Edgar and the Linton died in desolation and possessed their property but also let their innocent younger generation experience the hardships. This kind of crazy revenge clearly showed his uncommon and rebellious behavior. This special spirit of revolt was formed by the special environment and his special character. Heathcliff’s love tragedy was a tragedy of the society and that time.
Wuthering Heights was known as “most strange novel”in the history of English literature and it was an unpredictable "strange book". The reason is that it was different from the sentimentalism that lies in the works of the same age. It replaced the deep sadness and depression with intense love, brutal hate and ruthless revenge. It just like a strange lyric poem, imagination and intensive emotion existed among the words and between the lines and it had a kind of amazing artistic power.
