Реферат: Wuthering Heights English Assignment Essay Research Paper
Wuthering Heights: English Assignment Essay, Research Paper
In chapter nine, Catherine reveals to
Nelly that Edgar Linton proposed to her and that she has accepted. She wishes
to find out Nelly’s opinion on the whole affair. In these passages she uses a
great deal of imagery to express what she is feeling. She seems to be
confessing to marrying Edgar, mainly for the social status attached and that it
would be the appropriate thing to do. Since her brother Hindley went into a
state of madness after the death of his wife, Frances, Catherine has been given
the freedom to make up her own mind, and yet she still chooses Edgar over
Heathcliff, the one who she truly loves. One of the things Catherine does is to
describe a nightmare that she once had. This upsets Nelly, as she is very superstitious
about nightmares. Nightmares have certain connotations, leading to anxieties,
fears, and showing a deeper meaning underneath the surface. What makes the
dream quite sinister is that it was about heaven. Heaven is usually represented
as a wondrous place, where people would be content, and happy. The fact that
Catherine admits she would not be happy there gives the nightmare a quite dark
side, «I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my
home?». The idea that anyone could be unhappy would seem quite strange and
possibly scary to the reader, particularly the 19th Century audience
that would have first read this novel. This description of her dream reveals a
lot about what she thinks of herself and the entire situation. The way she broke
her heart with «weeping to come back to earth» and how the angels
were «so angry» that they flung her out «into the middle of the
hearth on top of Wuthering Heights?» seems to represent her marriage to
Edgar Linton. Heaven is with Edgar, but she recognises that she does not belong
with him when she says, «I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than
I have to be in heaven?». She does admit that she loves Heathcliff,
"? how I love him?", but she knows that she cannot not marry him. She
understands that she must marry a rich and respected man, which is what Edgar
Linton is, and not Heathcliff. She says it would «degrade» her to
marry Heathcliff. ????? The use of the family home, Wuthering
Heights, in her imagery makes connotations back to Heathcliff. Because she woke
«sobbing for joy» at Wuthering Heights, we can assume that the things
attached to the house make her truly happy. Even in the name
«Wuthering», it means «stormy», perhaps like Heathcliff’s
spirit. Everything in the house is a complete contrast to Edgar as well. The
house was earlier described as «The floor was smooth, white stone; the
chairs high-backed, primitive structures, painted green; one or two heavy black
ones lurking in the shade.» It shows that the Heights are quite bland and
plain, yet in a stony way. There is no feeling of warmth, or comfort, and the
sense of «shade» gives the ideas of shadows and darkness. This is the
house where Heathcliff lives. In contrast, Edgar lives at Thrushcross Grange;
it is nothing like the Heights. In Heathcliff’s words, it was described as:
"? a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson covered chairs and
tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops
hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with the little soft
tapers."? In comparison,
Thrushcross Grange is a much warmer place. Signs are shown in its name, also.
«Thrush» is a sweet-sounding, beautiful bird and «Grange»
means a farmhouse, generally used for storing things. It makes it seem rich,
and not emptiness, like Wuthering Heights. The description is almost quite
regal sounding with words like «shimmering» and «shower of
glass-drops». It has warm colours, and carpets, rather than plain stone.
It has a welcoming and loving feeling about it. This is the house where Edgar
Linton lives. It seems to suggest that the two men are compared and represented
by the houses they each occupy. Again, Edgar was compared to heaven, perhaps
this is what Thrushcross Grange is seen as; somewhere that Catherine does not belong.
She also describes the differences between
them with an interesting quote: «Whatever our souls are made of, his
(Heathcliff) and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam
from lightening, or frost from fire.» She is just describing here how
different she sees her and Edgar. The moonbeam represents Edgar because it is a
soft light, perhaps showing Edgar’s tender and caring nature. Lightening, on
the other hand, is powerful and dramatic; it is full of action and represents
Catherine’s fierce temper. Also, lightening is very spontaneous, unpredictable,
and destructive. A moonbeam is constant and expected; it never changes. As for
frost/fire, frost is not really being used in the cold sense, more that it
settles and becomes lifeless, and unmoving. This is where Catherine puts Edgar
down, showing that he is lacking passion. Fire, on the other hand, seems to
show a great deal of passion. It is uncontrollable, raging and unpredictable.
Again this relates back to the personality of Catherine. She believes that her
and Heathcliff are one together. She means a similar thing as to the soul
reference when she says, «I am
Heathcliff!» She simply means that they are so much alike that they could
not possibly have so much love for anyone else. It is something that she
mentions on many occasions, including «He’s always, always in my mind: not
as pleasure? but as my own being.» She is a part of Heathcliff. ????? Although Catherine loves Heathcliff, she
also loves Edgar at the same time – she merely loves them in different ways.
This is shown by the quote: «My love for Linton is like the foliage in the
woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My
love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible
delight, but necessary.» She means here that she loves Edgar now, for her
own reasons, but she knows that the reasons are merely temporary, and it is
very likely that one day she will no longer feel the same way. It is only
because she lives for the present that she chooses to marry him. The word
«change» may actually be used in the physical sense, as she says,
«winter changes the trees». Perhaps here she means that she loves him
because he is handsome, and, over time, old age will set in and he will no longer
be handsome. The way she loves Heathcliff is for much more solid reasons, one
that can never change It is nothing do with his physical appearance, which she
even admits herself when she says "? I love him? not because he’s
handsome?". Instead of trees, as she uses to describe her love for Edgar,
she uses rocks. Rocks are strong, unchanging, and ubiquitous; it feels
literally solid as a rock. She re-enforces this with the word
«eternal», meaning everlasting, and ongoing. «Eternal» is a
very powerful word, often bringing connotations of their love continuing after
death, when they are souls together. The two are completely different, however.
The trees are visible, because her love for Edgar is the love she lets people
see. She says the rocks are «beneath» and «of little visible
delight» because her love for Heathcliff must be hidden, as she knows she
can never be with him. ????? In contrast to this scene, Chapter 10 is
where Isabella confesses her love for Heathcliff. Catherine, again, uses
imagery to describe Heathcliff. She describes him as «an arid wilderness
of furze and whinstone.» Here she is still saying that he is wild and out
of control with the «furze» remark. Furze is a wild shrub. The
«whinstone» is a hard type of rock, showing Heathcliff’s toughness.
As before, Catherine described him as being wild and powerful, but here she
seems to be doing it in a slightly more negative way in the hope that she can
deter her sister-in-law from pursuing feelings for Heathcliff. She also uses
the rocks in a different way. As before, she had used them to show her solidity
of feelings for Heathcliff, yet here she uses them in order to represent
Heathcliff’s savage nature.