Wuthering Heights, Research Paper Example

Wuthering Heights was composed by Emily Bronte (1818-1848) and considered one of the most important works of literature in the Nineteenth Century.  A romance novel set in the bleak Yorkshire moors of England.  The themes being based on a middle class England where social class was judged upon wealth rather than land ownership.  The novel depicts the story of the Earnshaw Family at Wuthering Heights.  The heroine is Catherine Earnshaw and the other central character being Heathcliffe an orphan from the potato famine in Ireland who is introduced to the family by Catherine’s Father.  The story tells of two people who are in social class terms a world apart.  Despite the class constraints a romance develops between the two and they ultimately have a ghostly relationship in the afterlife.  A somewhat macabre story but told with a convincing passion by Bronte.

Chapters 1 and 2:  The book introduces a Mr. Lockwood a young gentlemen from London (the narrator of the story) who arrives to take up a tenancy at Wuthering Heights.  He meets the Landlord Heathcliffe, “a brooding man with a vengeful soul’ (Boo10). He is treated inhospitably being left guarded by officious dogs. “’No, no! A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!”. (Bronte) Despite this he returns to Wuthering Heights on a storm swept night and sees a woman whom he believes in Heathcliffe’s wife.  The early chapters describe in detail the life on the moors.

Chapters 3 and 4 :  We learn that Heathcliffe is not a cold character but a person but a person tortured by his loss of Cathy Earnshaw, his early love that died some years earlier. Lockwood (narrator) encounters her ghost in a locked room and realises she is Catherine  and beckoning Heathcliffe.  Heathcliffe had married Mr. Linton’s sister Isabella

Chapters 5 and 6 : Bronte makes the early reading very ambiguous getting to grips with the characters as a dark gothic story unfolds. “bond between Cathy and Heathcliff grows and the extent of their love is demonstrated when Mr. Earnshaw dies.” (Bronte)Class differences are demonstrated here as Cathy longs for a world of luxury and sophistication and denounces the world Heathcliffe stands for.  The novel demonstrates good and evil and focuses on the spiritual connection between Cathy and Heathcliffe.

Works Cited

Bronte, Emile. Wuthering Heights. London: Whites Books, 2010.