Features of realism
and of a social novel In Emily Bronte and Charles Dickens
Emily Bronte's realism can be spotted:
- In
the description of the natural environment which is typical of Yorkshire,
with its moorlands/heaths, stormy winds, unhospital craggy lands which anyway takes on
psychological elements, reflecting the real nature and personality of its
characters, mainly Heatcliff, whose name mirrors
and represents the spirit of that place, with the uncontaminated
wilderness of the natural landscape and the eternity of rocks.
- The
conflict between two social classes along with two different mentalities
and cultures:the aristocracy and the poor. The
novel is built around the conflict between two houses where the actions
takes place: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross
Grange whereas Heatcliff is unspoilt by society
and fusing with Nature but brutal and harsh, gloomy, firmly rooted in
local traditions and superstitions, primitive and uncontrollable passions
while Thrushcross Grange is the home of the
bourgeois Lintons and reflect their conception
of life based on economic safety, old-dated class privileges, stability,
genteel refinement, kindness and
respectability. The two mansions stand for two opposite forces: the
principle of storm and energy which is dynamic and unrestrained, and the
principle of calm and statis but also of settled
self-assurance.
Both Dickens and Bronte can be
considered as social novelists because both of them analyse the
aristocracy/middle-class and the poor. Besides they both focus on the Victorian
society of their time, Dickens with its social evils and abuses, E. Bronte with
their different interests and attitudes towards life. Yet while Dickens
analyses his characters only from an external point of view , that is from
their behaviour, E. Bronte, besides the sphere of dream and vision, effects a
rational investigation of the human problems and heart, she inquires into the
character's psychological conflicts and the innermost recesses of human soul
where cruelty can go side by side with generosity, hatred with love and revenge
with the most passionate devotion to a person.
[ Picolo appunti ]
