Brontë, Emily - Analisi Cime tempestose

Analisi di Cime tempestose

Wuthering Heights is a very gloomy place, firmly rooted in traditions and customs, it is appropriate for the Heathcliff's life, who leads primitive passions, while Thrushcross Grange reflects the Lintons' conception of life, based on stability and kindness and respectability.
Heathcliff is a Byronic hero, moved by irresistible passion, doomed to despair and a solitary life, and finally tending to a total identity with his soulmate, Cathy.

He's also a Gothic villain in his inhuman treatment of his wife and son.
Also Catherine embodies a wild romantic nature: even though she is driven by her social ambitions, she is prompted to violate social conventions.
Wuthering Heights deals with many themes; passions and feelings are presented in a very Romantic way, they're violent and correspond to the wild natural landscape. Death is also an important theme, which is a moment of liberation of the spirit, and not a moment of forgiveness and end of conflicts, like in other Victorian novels. There are many Gothic elements, such as ghosts, Wuthering Heights' sinister atmosphere, and the dreams and superstitions often mentioned, which are not used to frighten the reader, on the contrary to convey the struggle between two opposites: love and hate, order and chaos.
The narrative mode is a system of Chinese boxes; there are two narrators: Mr Lockwood and Nelly Dean, which represent the outsider and the insider. Mr Lockwood hardly ever narrates, he mostly writes down, in the form of a journal, what Nelly tells him. The story doesn't follow a chronological order and develops a narrative within the narrative, since there are other characters, who narrate to Nelly, and it is made up of many flashbacks, indeed the story starts almost at the end, when Lockwood is hosted by Mr Heathcliff. This complex structure create a sense of verisimilitude and suspence.

This novel represents a unique achievement in Victorian literature and it is often compared to Shakespeare's tragedies for its portrait of turbulent passions and unnatural crimes. It is regarded as perfect, since the order of the beginning is re-established at the end, at first there are the Earnshaws and the Lintons, then Catherine Earnshaw becomes Catherine Linton, then it appears the name Linton Heathcliff, which is an oxymoron, and as Catherine Linton marries Hareton Earnshaw she becomes Catherine Earnshaw and the order is re-established as Heathcliff's name disappears.

The narration is characterised by three crucial windows, the first is at the beginning, Catherine's ghost knocks at the window as she wants to come in, and as Mr Lockwood tries to close the window pane he feels grasped by an icy cold small hand. The second is the window through which Cathy and Heathcliff are spying on the Lintons before Catherine's leg is bitten by the dog. The third one characterises the time of Catherine's death, before dying she wants Nelly to open the window, so her last look is towards the moors.

The names in this novel are symbolical. The name Heathcliff is made up by two words: Heath and Cliff, heath is another word for moore and the short for heather, its wild vegetation, which characterises Wuthering Heights' surroundings, this represents wildness and freedom, the heath is uncontaminated, indeed Heathcliff is ignorant and not well mannered. The word cliff stands for a rock facing the sea or the ocean, which gives the idea of something strong, like his love for Cathy, harsh, rough and dangerous, like his revengeful attitude towards the Lintons.
Mr Lockwood on the contrary gives the idea of a locked door, indeed he's an outsider, he doesn't belong to the story.