Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights, wrote by Emily Bronte, was published in 1847. It was her only novel and her masterpiece and was a highly imaginative and dramatic presentation of a tragic story. However it was not an immediate success because was considered by some critics and readers too violent, morbid, wild, immoral and brutal. The novel revolves around the two houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, respectively inhabited by the Earnshaws and the Lintons. The plot of Wuthering Heights starts in a conversation with Mrs Dean, the housekeeper at the Grange and former servant at Wuthering Heights, Mr Lockwood learns the story of the two families, and reports in the diary that he writes to himself. Thus the book begins with the end of the story, and presents two-first person narrators: the housekeeper, who witnesses the events and tells them to Mr Lockwood, and Mr Lockwood himself, who reports in his diary both what he hears from her and what he actually sees in his visits to Wuthering Heights. The hero is Heathcliff, a foundling, brought up by old Mr Earnshaw, who considered him one of his children (his children were Catherine and Hindley). He falls in love with Catherine, but he was in continuous conflict with Hindley. This conflict coincided with the girl's stormy nature and lost lifelong. Only death will bring peace and the two families will restore their union through the surviving heirs. The novel shows love, humiliated by pride, under the power of love-hatred Catherine and Heathcliff torture each other: theirs passion develops into destructive energy. Symbolism plays an important role in the novel: the novel is built around the contrast between the two houses and the two families. Wuthering Heights on the bare hills tossed by storms reflects the destructive energy of its occupants, while Thrushcross Grange,the home of the Lintons, surrounded by vegetation in the peaceful, soft valley, reflects their conception of life, based on stability. The general background is the desolate scenery of the Yorkshire moors, the wind, the storms are all reflected in the psychological conflicts of the characters. The elemental, primitive force of nature, omnipresent, frames the action and emphasises the wild passion of Heathcliff and Catherine.

Another feature of the book is the absence of moral condemnation. In fact Emily Bronte has a special vision of life: good and evil are manifestations of the same energy.Love is the positive force that triumphs in the end: Heathcliff and Catherine are united in death, whereas the love between Hareton and Cathy exorcises the demons that have so long possessed Wuthering Heights.

Reading Wuthering Heights, we can see the Emily's intellectual strength and boldness, joined to extreme sensitivity. Her one novel has been defined "a cry from the heart and soul".