WUTHERING HEIGHT
Love and Marriage theme: Wuthering Heights is considered one of the finest novels /
Psychological Novel
Wuthering Heights (1801) by Emily Bronte, the Romantic genius, extra-ordinary woman , forms
the backdrop to Bronte's life from a biographical perspective, and the historical milieu and
cultural environment of the mid-nineteenth century, when we study that novel. Generations of
readers of this novel have been baffled by its sheer complexity and it's seductive power and
they have been spellbound by the passion and madness of Heathcliff and
Catherine's love for each other. Heathecliff has been stereotyped as the ultimate tall, dark and
handsome love with 'eyes full of black fire', whose passion verges on the psychopathic.
Catherine as the beautiful, suffering woman, a typical victim, caught between the divergent
pulls of the head and heart. It is a fact that, in most Victorian romance novels the plot centered
around the issue of love and marriage. It became a convention that the hero and the heroine of
the novel around whom the plot was structured, ended up getting married to each other.
To many women authors, it was this convention and the institution of marriage that gained their
attention; most of Jane Austen's, Charlotte Bronte's and George Eliot's novels had marriage as
an important issue, if not the central issue. Marriage provides an ideal backdrop for the study of
a society's ideology regarding economics and money class and culture and social power in
relation to gender equations. We see a lot of marriages in this novel and end in separation and
these separations are due to death and some are due to mental incompatibility. Catherine does
not marry Heathecliff but she marries Edgar and on the other hand, Heathecliff marries Isabella
but, strangely enough,he doesn't love her. Heathecliff forces Cathey to marry Linton Whom she
does not love but who is loved by Linton in a selfish way. Cathy marries a reformed Hareton.
The two marriages of Heathcliff and Isabella and Linton and Cathy take place primarily as part
of Heathcliff's strategy to acquire the entire wealth and property of the Earnshaw's and the
Linton's. It is only Cathy and Hareton who seem to follow the recognizable pattern of romance
and wedlock. Cathy's romance with Hareton is unorthodox and, at the beginning of their
relationship,is placed in polarities. One is educated and civilized whereas the other illiterate and
uncivilized,but both are destitute and,at the complete mercy of Heathcliff. But Nelly is convinced
Love and Marriage theme: Wuthering Heights is considered one of the finest novels /
Psychological Novel
Wuthering Heights (1801) by Emily Bronte, the Romantic genius, extra-ordinary woman , forms
the backdrop to Bronte's life from a biographical perspective, and the historical milieu and
cultural environment of the mid-nineteenth century, when we study that novel. Generations of
readers of this novel have been baffled by its sheer complexity and it's seductive power and
they have been spellbound by the passion and madness of Heathcliff and
Catherine's love for each other. Heathecliff has been stereotyped as the ultimate tall, dark and
handsome love with 'eyes full of black fire', whose passion verges on the psychopathic.
Catherine as the beautiful, suffering woman, a typical victim, caught between the divergent
pulls of the head and heart. It is a fact that, in most Victorian romance novels the plot centered
around the issue of love and marriage. It became a convention that the hero and the heroine of
the novel around whom the plot was structured, ended up getting married to each other.
To many women authors, it was this convention and the institution of marriage that gained their
attention; most of Jane Austen's, Charlotte Bronte's and George Eliot's novels had marriage as
an important issue, if not the central issue. Marriage provides an ideal backdrop for the study of
a society's ideology regarding economics and money class and culture and social power in
relation to gender equations. We see a lot of marriages in this novel and end in separation and
these separations are due to death and some are due to mental incompatibility. Catherine does
not marry Heathecliff but she marries Edgar and on the other hand, Heathecliff marries Isabella
but, strangely enough,he doesn't love her. Heathecliff forces Cathey to marry Linton Whom she
does not love but who is loved by Linton in a selfish way. Cathy marries a reformed Hareton.
The two marriages of Heathcliff and Isabella and Linton and Cathy take place primarily as part
of Heathcliff's strategy to acquire the entire wealth and property of the Earnshaw's and the
Linton's. It is only Cathy and Hareton who seem to follow the recognizable pattern of romance
and wedlock. Cathy's romance with Hareton is unorthodox and, at the beginning of their
relationship,is placed in polarities. One is educated and civilized whereas the other illiterate and
uncivilized,but both are destitute and,at the complete mercy of Heathcliff. But Nelly is convinced
