Exploring the life and literary legacy of Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights

What was Emily Bronte's early life like?

Emily Bronte: born in 1818 she had 2 sisters Anne and Charlotte and one brother Branwell. They lived in Yorkshire, their mother died. In 1839 Emily traveled to Brussels with her sister to study at the Pensionnat Heger here she came in contact with German Romantic philosophy and art. She wrote under pseudonyms Ellis Bell and in 1846-47 she published Wuthering Heights. She died the following years in 1848.

Wuthering Heights: themes and contrasts

Wuthering Heights: The plot is very complex . The novel is built around the contrast between two houses and Families : the Earnshaws who live in Wuthering heights and the Lintons who live in Thrushcross Grange. So them stand for 2 opposing forces: Storm and Energy vs. Calm and settled assurance. Though they are complementary and with the marriage between Hareton and Catherine they will finally compose an harmony.

-Wuthering heights reflects the nature of Heathcliff (is the owns):severe, gloomy, and brutal in aspect and atmosphere, firmly rooted in local tradition and custom. Is the background of his primitive.

-Thrushcross Grange reflect Linton’s conception of life, based on stability and respectability (they were bourgeois).

Narrative style and gothic elements

-Style: the narrator don’t follow chronological order, it stars from the end of story and tells it with flashback. Bronte makes use of dramatic irony like when Catherine identify herself with Heathcliff but she didn’t hear him coming.

There is the compresence of Romantic and gothic elements. Infact according to romanticism there is the presence of the correspondence between violent passion and wild landscape. Heathcliff appeared like a sort of Byronic hero moved by irresistible passion but also a gothic villain in his inhuman treatment of his wife and son.

Another Gothic elements are the gloomy atmosphere ,the dreams and superstition.

Plot summary and character dynamics

-Plot: develop around 2 houses: Wuthering height (Earnshaws) and Thrushcross Grange (Lintons).

Mr Earnshaws, the father of Hindley and Catherine, went in Liverpool for a work and when he came back brought with him a young foundling (trovatello) called Heathcliff. Hindley can’t tolerate him while Catherine fall in love with him and both promise that one day would stay together forever. But Catherine meet Edgar ,they spent a lot of time together, she remained fascinated by their refined life and a few years later he asked her to marry him and she accepted.

So Nelly, that was a second mother for Cat and is the housekeeper, asked her why she had accept and Catherin answer that she made that choice only for help Heathcliff and also he said that merry Heathcliff means degraded herself. So Heathcliff heard only the second part of their conversation and escape destroyed for that.

He comes back rich ready for take his revenge, infact he married Edgar’s sister and also buy the watering houses. He has become a drunkard and he hit his wife.

Catherine fell ill and died giving birth to a daughter, Cathy. So Heathcliff forced her to marry his son and became the owner also of Thrushcross grange. Here Nelly’s narration ends.