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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights

Exploring Character
4. Naming in Wuthering Heights
A frst exploration
Names play an important role in Wuthering Heights. Early in the novel, for example, the love story is
foreshadowed in the names scratched onto the window sill. The circle is marked out as Catherine
Earnshaw who marries and becomes Catherine Linton, who marries and becomes Catherine
Heathcli, who marries to become Catherine Earnshaw.
Names give us clues about the plot, but they also:
give us insight into the characters and the roles they play in the novel
highlight the signicance of place
have symbolic meaning
relate to themes
reveal the characteristics of places or characters.
1. In pairs, write Heathcli on a piece of A4 paper. Around the name write all the associations
you have of both parts of the name (heath /cli). Repeat for Lockwood (lock/ wood).
2. As a class, decide whether there are any contrasts in terms of the names. Does the name
inuence our perception of the character? Do we expect the characters to be very dierent
from one another, or similar?
3. When we rst meet Nelly she is called Mrs Dean (p74/p33). She is then Nelly (p88/p47) and
is later referred to as Ellen, while Hindley calls her Nell (p105/p65). Decide which name you
would use to suggest how another character feels, for example:
comfortable and equal to her
above her socially
that she is revered
that they need to show a formality and a distance.
4. As a class, discuss why you think it might be important to the novel that Nelly has this ability
to change and be seen dierently by dierent characters.
The naming of Heathclif a further exploration
Heathcli only has one name which tells us nothing about his parents or social position. However, he
is called (and referred to) by a wealth of other names, as seen on pages 30 and 31.
5. Each person should take one of the names by which he is referred, and attempt to nd a place
on a continuum that runs across the classroom from the most respectful to least respectful.
6. Once you have formed a line, take it in turns to call the person next to you by the name (or
description) you have been given, with the appropriate tone of respect (or lack of respect).
7. After listening to the roll call of names, make any adjustments that you think you need
to make to your continuum line you. When you have agreed the order of names on the
continuum, repeat the reading, perhaps starting quietly and building to a crescendo as you
reach the insults. Finish by sticking or pinning the cards to the wall in your agreed order.
8. Individually, write down what this activity has revealed. You could, for example, look at the
ways the names can be grouped, or comment on their subjective nature, or on where the
names place Heathcli in terms of his status and position in society. Is his position xed?
9. Compare your notes with the person sitting next to you. Do you agree?
10. As a class, discuss what this analysis reveals to you about Bronts creation and representation
of Heathcli, and about the novel more generally.
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Exploring Character
Naming Heathclif Quotation Cards
my landlord (Lockwood,
p48/p6)
erce, pitiless, wolsh
man (Catherine [1], p141/
p103)
you vagabond! (Hindley,
p99/p59)
dark-skinned gypsy
(Lockwood, p47/p5)
an unreclaimed creature,
without renement
without cultivation; an
arid wilderness of furze and
whinstone (Catherine [1],
p141/p102)
brute of a lad (Hindley,
p99/p60)
A capital fellow!
(Lockwood, p45/p3)
nameless man (Nelly
referring to Edgar Lintons
view of Heathcli, p140/
p101)
Frightful thing! (Isabella,
p91/p50)
black villain (Nelly, p150/
p111)
Teir guest (Nelly, p136/
p97)
You may come and wish
Miss Catherine welcome,
like the other servants
(Hindley, p94/p54)
Your worthless friend!
(Nelly to Catherine [1],
p150/p111)
Heathcli ... being of the
lower orders (Catherine
[1], p134/p95)
imp of Satan (Earnshaw,
p80/p39)
Devil daddy (Hareton,
p148/p109)
that foolish boy (Nelly,
p125/p85)
Mrs Earnshaw was ...
asking how he could
fashion to bring that gipsy
brat into the house. (Nelly,
p77/p37)
A person from Gimmerton
(Nelly, p133/p94)
[Earnshaw told] a tale of
his seeing it starving (Nelly,
p78/p37)
Judas! Traitor! (Nelly,
p150/p111)
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Exploring Character
my Heathcli (Catherine
[1], p196/p161)
the scoundrel (Nelly, p222/
p188)
the end
(Isabella quoting Hindley in
her account to Nelly, p217/
p177)
hellish villain! (Hindley
recounted by Isabella, p211/
p177)
brute beast! (Isabella,
p207/p172)
Poor wretch! (Nelly, p203/
p168)
that wretch (Edgar, p165/
p128)
ungrateful brute
(Catherine [1], p151/p112)
Heathcli was the
mortgagee (Nelly, p223)
low ru an (Edgar, p152/
p113)
Hes a lying end, a
monster, and not a human
being (Isabella, p188/
pp150-51)
a hero of romance
(Heathclis version of
Isabellas perception of him,
p187/p149)
father (Linton, p251/p217)
wicked man (Catherine
[2] quoting her father Edgar
Linton, p265/p232)
Papa (Linton, p304/p272)
uncle (Catherine [2],
p307/p275)
that devil Heathcli
(A servant, p317/p286)
goblin (Nelly, p359/p329)
Mr Heathcli! master!
(Nelly, p361/p331)
a ghoul, or a vampire?
(Nelly, p359/p330)
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Exploring Character
5. Heathclif Critical Readings
Since its publication, Wuthering Heights has been a battleground for literary critics. Heathcli and
Emily Bronts presentation of him is often at the centre of the debate. Should we read him as:
a monster without redeeming features
a social outcast
an isolated individual misunderstood by those around him
a representative of a class struggle
the hero of a love story
something else altogether?
This activity will give you a chance to explore and challenge dierent readings of Heathcli.
Stage 1: Diferent readings a frst exploration
The tables on pages 34-36 demonstrate the ways in which you might use evidence from the novel to
grapple with, and unpick, a critics reading of Heathcli.
1. Working in groups, focus on one of the readings and discuss the ways in which the evidence
from the novel has been used to explore and support the critics interpretation. (You might
also go on to think about ways in which you could add to, or challenge, this particular reading
of Heathcli and his role in the novel.)
2. Share your thoughts on the ways in which textual evidence has been selected and analysed to
support the dierent readings.
Stage 2: Diferent readings a detailed analysis
You are now going to explore one of these readings in more detail, selecting and analysing your own
textual evidence in order to construct a convincing interpretation of Heathclis character.
3. Working in pairs, share out the dierent critical readings of Heathcli listed here.
Heathcli as a child of the storm.
Heathcli as a social outcast and mist.
Heathcli as female.
Heathcli as a Romantic or Gothic hero.
Heathcli as a fairy tale creation.
Heathcli as a product of circumstance.
Heathcli as a demon, an inhuman monster.
4. Find a piece of evidence which supports that critical perspective from the selected quotations
on page 33. Alternatively, nd evidence of your own from the text.
5. Go on to analyse the quotation to provide support for the critical reading you have chosen.
6. Join up with another pair who have been working on the same reading of Heathcli and share
your ndings and analysis. As a group of four, prepare a strong case for your reading to put
forward in a class debate.
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Exploring Character
Stage 3: Defending your reading
7. Take it in turns to present your reading of Heathcli to the rest of the class, allowing time for
others to challenge, qualify or develop the argument you have put forward. You may want to
organise this as a series of duels, with two readings set against each other and a vote taken at
the end of the paired presentations.
8. Following the presentations and analysis of the dierent readings, discuss your views of
Heathcli and the critical readings you found most helpful in coming to an interpretation of
his character and role in the novel.
Stage 4: A written analysis
9. Use what you have learned through the analysis and discussion to answer the question below,
inserting into the blank space the argument that you would most like to support.
Heathcli is best seen as _____________. How far and in what ways do you
agree with this view?
Heathcliff quotations
She abandoned them [her friends and former home] under a delusion, he answered,
picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous
devotion. (Heathcli to Nelly, about his relationship with Isabella, p187/p149)
I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made in his journey to Liverpool
a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway. (Edgar Linton, on discovering Heathcli
spying on them at the Grange, p91/p50)
I have just returned from a visit to my landlord the solitary neighbour I shall be troubled
with ... A capital fellow! (Lockwood introduces us to Heathcli, p45/p3)
She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me! And, since then, sometimes more,
and sometimes less, Ive been the sport of that intolerable torture! (Heathcli reveals to Nelly
how he has been haunted by Catherines [1] ghost for 18 years, p321/p290)
I have no pity! I have no pity! Te more worms writhe the more I yearn to crush out their
entrails! It is a moral teething, and I grind my teeth with greater energy, in proportion to the
increase of pain. (Heathcli does not regret the way he is persecuting Isabella, p189/p151)
About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury.
Tere was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree o at the
corner of the building, (Te night Heathcli runs away, p125/p85)
A half-civilized ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows, and eyes full of black re, but it
was subdued; and his manner was even dignied, quite divested of roughness though too
stern for grace. (Nelly describes the new Heathcli, returned from we know not where, p135/p96)
I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil
beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy. (Nelly reveals her
feelings about the renewed presence of Heathcli, p146/p107)
Heathcli ... You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants.
(Hindley orders Heathcli to greet Catherine [1] after her return from six weeks at the Grange,
p94/p54)
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Exploring Character
Heathclif as a child of the storm
Critical
position
He, too, is a child of the storm; and the a nity between him and Catherine Earnshaw
makes them fall in love with each other. But since he is an extraneous element, he
is a source of discord, inevitably disrupting the natural order ... he is a manifestation
of natural forces acting involuntarily under the pressure of his own nature. But he
is a natural force which has been frustrated of its natural outlet, so that it inevitably
becomes destructive; like a mountain torrent diverted from its channel ... (Lord David
Cecil, Early Victorian Novelists, 1934)
A tendency to charge the landscape with emotions that echo those of the characters
who populate it ... is one of the most notable features of Wuthering Heights. The grim
and forbidding Yorkshire moors, hostile as they are to human activity ... provide an ideal
setting for a grim story ... (Peter Hyland, Wuthering Heights and the Gothic Myth,1988)
Evidence
Tell her what Heathcli is an unreclaimed creature, without renement without
cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. (Catherine [1] warns Isabella of
Heathclis true nature, p141/p102)
Further
analysis
Bront frequently draws on the hardest, most elemental forms of nature to characterise
Heathcli, as if to make clear to the reader that his wild nature, like Catherines, is
fundamental to his character. Here the metaphor containing the thorny hostility of
gorse (furze) and the absolute hardness of stone does the work of a mass of adjectives.
Heathclif as a social outcast and misft
Critical
position
Heathclis appearance in a rural economy, mouthing gibberish, that nobody could
understand ... as good as dumb, perceived as some rootless, perhaps racially distinct,
linguistically separate, proletarian ospring of industrial Liverpool, is a manifold
eruption of the outside into the centre. (Peter Miles, The Critics Debate: Wuthering
Heights, 1990)
Eagleton ... also analyses Heathclis position in the novel in terms of his place in the
family structure, local society and the economic system of rural Yorkshire at the turn
of the century. Because Heathcli is spirited out of nowhere into this family, he has no
social or domestic status, and he is therefore both a threat to the established order and
an opportunity for it to be reinvented. (Terry Eagletons Myths of Power: A Marxist Study
of the Bronts, 1975, summarised in Claire Jones, York Notes Advanced: Wuthering Heights,
1988)
Evidence
They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room and I had no
more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the
morrow. (Nelly describes the arrival of Heathcli, p78/p37)
Further
analysis
The use of the pronoun it on these pages denes Heathcli as other, as removed
not only from the culture of the Earnshaw household, but from the normal status of
humanity.
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Exploring Character
Heathclif as female
Critical
position
Gilbert and Gubars seminal feminist work The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman
Writer and The Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (1975) argues that Heathcli
is female because he has no property, place or title. He is simply Heathcli, never
master, unlike Edgar Linton. Thus he has the female role in the society of the novel.
So, like Cathy, he eventually half-wills his own decline ambiguously. For the traditionally
perceived Byronic superman this is a remarkably female solution, to be seen specically
as the creation of the woman writer. (Peter Miles, The Critics Debate: Wuthering Heights,
1990)
Evidence
But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldnt make him less
handsome, or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed, and
behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be! (Heathcli to Nelly,
p97/p57)
Further
analysis
Bront here concentrates on the physical qualities of the two rivals for Catherines
aection, showing the connection between physicality and material wealth. The irony
here is that despite the eeminate appearance and physical weakness of Edgar, he has
the breeding, status and wealth that Heathcli does not possess.
Heathclif as Romantic or Gothic hero
Critical
position
The Romantic movement, in its essence, aimed at liberating human personality from
the fetters of social convention and social morality. (Bertrand Russell, A History of Western
Philosophy, 1946)
The text ... makes the case for Heathcli as hero as a person whose very intensity of
being imposes itself on the imagination and makes the more conventional people of
his world seem less vital. The novel thus displays a battle between traditional moral
criteria (which commend constructive, law-abiding conduct) and the claim that sheer
vitality of being is superior to conventionality of being. (Cedric Watts, Tensions in the
Characterisation of Heathcli, 1988)
Heathcli is, among other things, a member of that large literary family [of Gothic
hero-villains]. In Gothic narratives, a central gure is commonly the charismatic villain:
he is mysterious, saturnine, brooding, powerful, ruthless, sexually menacing, tyrannical,
a night-creature gripped by dark or evil ambitions. (Cedric Watts, Tensions in the
Characterisation of Heathcli, 1988)
Evidence
where did he come from, the dark little thing ...? ... and, as he had no surname, and
we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word,
Heathcli. (Nelly as she tracks back over his life and talks about his gravestone inscription,
p360/p330)
Further
analysis
Heathclis mysterious arrival into the novel, and his equally mysterious departure is
anything but normal. It is designed to provoke questions from the reader, ones which
are never answered, as Nellys questioning at the end of the novel makes clear. This
means, however, that he is a free spirit, without ties; a truly Romantic notion.
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Exploring Character
Heathclif as a fairy tale creation
Critical
position
When Heathcli is brought up smartly against his deciencies of birth, name and
expectation, Nelly proers the consolations of fantasy ... (Peter Miles, The Critics Debate:
Wuthering Heights, 1990)
Evidence
Youre t for a prince in disguise. Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China,
and your mother an Indian Queen, each of them able to buy up, with one weeks
income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? (Nelly, p98/p58)
Further
analysis
Bront may well be tempting the reader here with an exotic origin for Heathcli, using
these proper nouns and associating him with these high status oriental gures. These
ctional origins then might oer one explanation for the way in which he nds money
and status later in the novel, rediscovering wealth and status in the fairy tale style.
Heathclif as a product of circumstance
Critical
position
There are factors inviting moral lenience. He had an unfortunate early life (abandoned
as an infant; later treated harshly by Hindley; then rejected for Edgar by Cathy) ... Its
also clear that for most of the time, even when he is materially successful, he seems to
be suering a hell or purgatory on earth (Cedric Watts, Tensions in the Characterisation of
Heathcli, 1988)
Heathcli revolts, rather like Ireland against Britain, because of the barbarous way
he is treated; only Catherine will grant him the recognition he demands, and even
she, perdious little albion that she is, sells him out for Edgar Linton. (Terry Eagleton,
Heathcli and the Great Hunger, 1995)
Evidence
He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand
Hindleys blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to
draw in a breath, and open his eyes as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody
was to blame. (Nelly describing Heathclis early life at Wuthering Heights, p79/p38)
Further
analysis
The adjective patient describes a child who has to suer ill treatment, while the use of
the post-modier hardened suggests that Heathcli has already had a good deal of
bad treatment before he arrives at Wuthering Heights. The reader here cannot help but
be somewhat sympathetic towards him as he endures the violent treatment.
Heathclif as a demon, an inhuman monster
Critical
position
The single link that connects Heathcli with humanity is his rudely confessed regard
for Hareton Earnshaw the young man whom he has ruined; and then his half implied
esteem for Nelly Dean. These solitary traits omitted, we should say he was ... a mans
shape animated by demon life a Ghoul ... (Charlotte Bront, in her preface to the 1850
edition of Wuthering Heights)
Evidence
Hes not a human being ... I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death;
and ung it back to me people feel with their hearts, Ellen, and ... he has destroyed
mine ... (Isabella tells Nelly what she thinks of Heathcli, p209/p174)
Further
analysis
Descriptions of Heathcli as inhuman, violent, demonic, and a monster are rife in this
chapter, and we later hear, according to Isabella, that he almost beat Hindley to death.
These opinions of him are, however, usually ltered through other people. We rarely
get an objective view of his actions (although we do hear him talk to Nelly at the end).
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights and the Gothic
Wuthering Heights and the Gothic
Is Wuthering Heights a Gothic Novel?
The Gothic novel characteristically includes a story of the supernatural, the melodramatic or the
macabre. It was a fashionable form of writing in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Some of the characteristic features and conventions of the Gothic are listed in the box below.
Often set in a sinister place such as a castle or ruined building, preferably with
underground passages, labyrinths and dungeons.
The supernatural element of the story might result from a curse or omen.
The supernatural may take the form of ghosts, nightmares or animation of
previously inanimate objects.
The hero is generally passion-driven, violent and melancholic.
The heroine tends to be weak enough to need rescuing.
1. In groups of three, read about one Gothic novel plus a short extract from it (see pages 38-39).
On a large piece of sugar paper, list at least ve similarities between Wuthering Heights and the
novel you have chosen. Use the summary of Wuthering Heights below and continued on page
38 if you nd it helpful.
2. As a class, stick the pieces of sugar paper up on the wall. What similarities have you all noticed?
To what extent do you think that Wuthering Heights could be considered to be a Gothic novel?
The texts summaries and extracts
A summary of Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bront (1818-1848)
Lockwood narrates the story as a diary. He has rented Thrushcross Grange and his landlord is
Heathcli, who lives at Wuthering Heights. Heathcli is melodramatic, violent and solitary. Bad
weather forces Lockwood to stay the night at Wuthering Heights and while he is there he wakes
from a nightmare about a girl called Catherine. Lockwood questions Nelly Dean (a housekeeper of
eighteen years who has worked at both houses) about the story of Catherine [1].
Nelly tells him how Catherines father (Earnshaw) brought back Heathcli as a foundling from the
streets of Liverpool. From the start Earnshaws son (Hindley) bullies Heathcli, but his daughter,
Catherine [1], forms a strong attachment to him. After Earnshaws death, Hindley inherits the
power, and eectively reduces Heathcli to the status of servant.
One day, Heathcli overhears Catherine [1] telling Nelly that she cannot marry him for economic
reasons. He has already left by the time she goes on to say that she loves him.
Cont. on page 38
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights and the Gothic
He disappears for three years, returning with unexpected wealth and discovers that Catherine
[1] has married Edgar Linton (whose family owns Thrushcross Grange). The passion between
Heathcli and Catherine [1] remains. Catherine [1] grows ill under the strain of yearning for
what she can never have. Shortly after, she dies in child birth having given birth to a daughter
(Catherine [2]).
Heathcli marries Isabella Linton (Edgars sister) and mistreats her, and also encourages Hindley
to drink himself to death. This he duly does, leaving his son (Hareton) to be raised predominantly
by Heathcli. Heathcli deprives Hareton of education and status. His child with Isabella is called
Linton.
Edgar does his best to prevent a friendship forming between Catherine [2] and Linton Heathcli,
keeping Catherine [2] in isolation at Thrushcross Grange. However, after Edgar dies, Heathcli
imprisons Catherine [2] and forces a marriage between her and Linton, in order to ensure that
Thrushcross Grange becomes his. Linton dies, and Catherine [2] becomes friends with Hareton.
Heathcli dies, believing in death that he will be nally reunited with Catherine [1].
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)
Emily St Aubert is a child of a landed rural family whose fortunes are in decline. Her mother dies
and Emily falls in love with Valancourt. Her father dies and she is then sent to live with her aunt,
Madame Chevon. Madame Chevon marries Montoni who is both brooding and haughty.
They take Emily to Udolpho (a remote castle in the Appenines). It is here that her life and her
honour are threatened as Montoni imprisons her and is violent towards Madam Chevon in his
eorts to persuade Madame Chevon to sign over her properties to him rather than to Emily. While
she is here she is also subjected to various supernatural happenings, although these are later
explained as having less than supernatural causes.
Emily escapes, and after further mysteries and complications she takes control and is reunited and
married to Valancourt.
Emily gazed with melancholy awe upon the castle, which she understood to be Montonis; for,
though it was now lighted up by the setting sun, the gothic greatness of its features, and its
mouldering walls of dark grey stone, rendered it a gloomy and sublime object. As she gazed, the
light died away on its walls, leaving a melancholy purple tint, which spread deeper and deeper,
as the thin vapour crept up the mountain, while the battlements above were still tipped with
splendour. From those, too, the rays soon faded, and the whole edice was invested with the
solemn duskiness of evening. Silent, lonely, and sublime, it seemed to stand the sovereign of
the scene, and to frown deance on all, who dared to invade its solitary reign. As the twilight
deepened, its features became more awful in obscurity, and Emily continued to gaze, till its
clustering towers were alone seen, rising over the tops of the woods, beneath whose thick shade
the carriages soon after began to ascend.
The Castle of Otranto A Gothic Story (1765) by Horace Walpole (1717-1797)
Manfred has a son who is crushed to death by an enormous helmet at his wedding to Isabella.
Theodore, a peasant, recognises the helmet as that of Alfonso (a former prince of Otranto). He is
duly accused of causing the sons death, is captured and imprisoned. Determined that he should
have an heir to Otranto, Manfred decrees that he will divorce his wife and marry Isabella, but
a portrait of his grandfather beckons him away and then vanishes. Theodore helps Isabella to
escape and she seeks sanctuary in a monastery. She is recaptured.
Isabellas father (Frederic) arrives (with an enormous sword) to claim both her and Otranto.
Manfred oers his daughter to Frederic if he will agree to Manfreds marriage to Isabella, but both
Isabella and Matilda are in love with Theodore.
Cont. on page 39
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English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights and the Gothic
There are supernatural events such as dreams, thunder, groaning and sighing portraits, blood
running from Alfonsos statue, a giant hand and a spectral skeleton. Manfred hears that Isabella is
with Theodore in the churchyard, and he stabs her, only to discover that it is actually his daughter,
Matilda. She dies.
The walls of the castle fall, and a giant image of Alfonso ascended solemnly towards heaven.
Manfred confesses that Alfonso was poisoned, which enabled him to gain Otranto. Theodore
turns out to be the grandson of Alfonso, and he becomes lord of Otranto and marries Isabella.
At those words he seized the cold hand of Isabella, who was half dead with fright and horror. She
shrieked, and started from him, Manfred rose to pursue her, when the moon, which was now up,
and gleamed in at the opposite casement, presented to his sight the plumes of the fatal helmet,
which rose to the height of the windows, waving backwards and forwards in a tempestuous
manner, and accompanied with a hollow and rustling sound. Isabella, who gathered courage
from her situation, and who dreaded nothing so much as Manfreds pursuit of his declaration,
cried, Look, my Lord! See, Heaven itself declares against your impious intentions!
Heaven nor Hell shall impede my designs, said Manfred, advancing again to seize the Princess.
At that instant the portrait of his grandfather, which hung over the bench where they had been
sitting, uttered a deep sigh, and heaved its breast.
Mandeville (1817) by William Godwin (1756-1836)
The orphaned Mandeville is saved by a servant, and then taken to live with his uncle. We learn
that in the past the uncles mother also died, and the uncle became close to the cousin with
whom he lived. When the uncles father found out, he sent the uncle to London, and married
the cousin to a Lieutenant. When the uncle returns, the discovery that his cousin has married
causes him to become delirious, and when the cousin dies in child birth, the uncle becomes
solitary and melancholic.
It is into this gloomy atmosphere that the infant Mandeville arrives, and he lives here in
almost total isolation except for occasional contact with his uncle and with his tutor. His tutor
is obsessively anti-Catholic and personies religious bigotry. Mandeville is united with his
previously estranged sister and the siblings nd a deep attachment for one another. He goes
to school where he meets Cliord who he despises. Later, at Oxford University he suers a bout
of insanity, and even after he recovers he realises that he can never overcome his hatred for
Cliord:
Cliord is my fate. Present or absent, waking or sleeping, I can never get rid of him ...
He is part of myself, a disease that has penetrated to my bones. If I were to sharpen my
daggers point, and send him to the grave; from the grave he would haunt me ... still I
should see him, when I slept; still I should think of him, when I waked; and he would be
the unexhausted ingredient, that turned the cup of my existence to poison.
Mandeville returns home to nd a lawyer attempting to convince his ailing uncle that he
should draw up a new will to include the lawyer as a beneciary. After the uncles death, it
transpires that Mandevilles sister and Cliord have been in love for some time, but that the
sister has chosen to repress her own feelings and to dedicate herself to her brother.
They nally decide to marry, and the lawyer tells Mandeville. Mandeville arranges for his sister to
be abducted, but Cliord comes to rescue her and in the battle gives Mandeville a scar across
his face. After the marriage of the sister and Cliord, Mandeville is left with nothing except the
scar, and he states at the close of the novel:
Before, to think of Cliord was an act of the mind, and an exercise of the imagination;
he was not there, but my thoughts went on their destined errand, and fetched him; now I
bare Cliord and his injuries perpetually about me ... Cliord had set his mark upon me,
as a token that I was his forever.
40
English and Media Centre, 2008 Studying Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights and the Gothic
Looking into the novel
3. On your own look through Wuthering Heights and choose a passage which you think illustrates
the conventions of the Gothic novel.
4. Highlight these features on a photocopy of the passage, then annotate it with your ideas
about the way in which Emily Bront uses the Gothic and to what eect.
5. Now consider any ways in which Wuthering Heights diers from a Gothic novel. Does Emily
Bront challenge, extend or complicate the features and conventions characteristic of the
Gothic novel? Choose another passage which challenges or complicates the interpretation of
Wuthering Heights as a Gothic novel.
6. Take it in turns to introduce your passages to the class and talk about the range of extracts
you have selected. Do you notice any similarities or patterns in the passages and where they
occur in the novel (for example, associated with a particular character or period in the story,
dominated by the same imagery and so on)?
Marketing Wuthering Heights as a Gothic novel
7. Individually, or in pairs, your task is to write a fty-word blurb for Wuthering Heights to market
it as a Gothic novel, drawing on the elements below and those you identied as a class.
Gothic Features of Wuthering Heights
Heathcli as the Gothic villain, destroying women and pursuing inheritance
Rejection of Christian heaven
Transgression of boundaries of life and death
Cruelty and violence of patriarchal gures
Imprisonment and escape
Appearance of the supernatural
The mysterious identity of the central gure (the foundling with no social status)
The wild and gloomy setting
The extremes of weather
Inclusion of taboos
Death and destruction of lives
Revenge
8. Read aloud the blurbs you have written. What is foregrounded by marketing the novel in this
way? What is left out (or marginalised)?
Taking it further
9. You can read more about Wuthering Heights and the Gothic in the article on page 45.