Wuthering Heights was accepted by publisher Thomas Newby along withAnne Brontë'sAgnes Grey before the success of their sisterCharlotte Brontë's novelJane Eyre, but they were published later. The first American edition was published in April 1848 byHarper & Brothers of New York.[2] After Emily's death, Charlotte edited a second edition ofWuthering Heights, which was published in 1850.[3]
Though contemporaneous reviews were polarised,Wuthering Heights has come to be considered one of the greatest novels written in English. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, includingdomestic abuse, and for its challenges toVictorian morality, religion, and theclass system.[4][5] It has inspired an array ofadaptations across several types of media.
In 1801,Mr Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange inYorkshire, pays a visit to his landlord,Heathcliff, at his remote moorland farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. There he meets a reserved young woman (later identified as Cathy Linton), Joseph, a cantankerous servant, and Hareton, an uneducated young man who speaks like a servant. Everyone is sullen and inhospitable. Snowed in for the night, Lockwood reads diary entries of the former inhabitant of his room, Catherine Earnshaw, and has a nightmare in which a ghostly Catherine begs to enter through the window. Awakened by Lockwood's fearful yells, Heathcliff is troubled.
Lockwood later returns to Thrushcross Grange in heavy snow, falls ill from the cold and becomes bedridden. While he recovers, Lockwood's housekeeper, Ellen "Nelly" Dean, tells him the story of the strange family.
Thirty years earlier, in 1771, the Earnshaws live at Wuthering Heights with their two children, Hindley and Catherine, and a servant—Nelly herself. Returning from a trip toLiverpool, Earnshaw brings home an orphan whom he names Heathcliff. Heathcliff's origins are unclear but he is described as "like a gipsy" and, possibly, aLascar or an American or Spanish castaway.[6] Earnshaw treats the boy as his favourite. His own children he neglects, especially after his wife dies. Hindley beats Heathcliff, who gradually becomes close friends with Catherine.
Hindley departs for university, returning as the new master of Wuthering Heights on the death of his father three years later. He and his new wife Frances force Heathcliff to live as one of their servants and subject him to much verbal and emotional abuse.
The climb to ruined farmhouseTop Withens, thought to have inspired the Earnshaws' home inWuthering Heights
Edgar Linton and his sister Isabella live nearby at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff and Catherine spy on them out of curiosity. When Catherine is attacked by their dog, the Lintons take her in, but send Heathcliff home. The Lintons visit, and Hindley and Edgar make fun of Heathcliff; a fight ensues. Heathcliff is then made to live in the manor's unheated, dusty attic and swears that he will one day have his revenge.
Frances dies after giving birth to a son, Hareton. Two years later, Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar. She confesses to Nelly that she loves Heathcliff, and will try to help him, but feels she cannot marry him because of his low social status. Nelly warns her against associating with a man like Heathcliff. Heathcliff overhears part of the conversation and, misunderstanding Catherine's heart, flees the household. Distraught, Catherine falls ill.
Three years after his departure, with Edgar and Catherine now wed and expecting children, Heathcliff unexpectedly returns, now a wealthy gentleman. He encourages Isabella's infatuation with him as a means of revenge on Catherine. Enraged by Heathcliff's constant presence at Thrushcross Grange, Edgar banishes him. Catherine responds by locking herself in her room and refusing food; she never fully recovers. At Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff exploits Hindley'sgambling addiction and compels him to mortgage the estate to cover his losses. Heathcliff elopes with Isabella, but the relationship fails and they soon return.
When Heathcliff discovers that Catherine is dying, he visits her in secret. She dies shortly after giving birth to a daughter,Cathy, and Heathcliff rages, calling on her ghost to haunt him for as long as he lives. Isabella, bitter over Heathcliff's devotion to a dead woman, flees south where she gives birth to Heathcliff's son, a sickly boy named Linton. Hindley dies six months later ofalcoholism, and Heathcliff then takes possession of Wuthering Heights as its new master.
Twelve years later, after Isabella's death, the still-sickly Linton is brought back to live with his uncle Edgar at the Grange, but Heathcliff insists that his son must instead live with him. Cathy and Linton (respectively at the Grange and Wuthering Heights) gradually develop a relationship. Heathcliff schemes to ensure that they marry in order to ensure his claim to Thrushcross Grange, and on Edgar's death demands that the couple move in with him. He becomes increasingly wild and reveals that on the night Catherine died he dug up her grave, and ever since has been plagued by her ghost. When Linton unexpectedly dies, Cathy has no option but to remain at Wuthering Heights.
Having reached the present day, Nelly's tale concludes.
Lockwood grows tired of the moors and moves away. Eight months later he returns for a visit, and Nelly, now the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights, tells him what has happened since he left.
Heathcliff gave up his opposition to Cathy and Hareton's union. He declined physically and started seeing visions of the dead Catherine; he avoided the young couple, saying that he could not bear to see Catherine's eyes, which they both shared, looking at him. He eventually stopped eating, and some days later was found dead in Catherine's old room.
Cathy has been teaching the still-uneducated Hareton to read. They plan to marry and move to the Grange, accompanied by Nelly, with Joseph being left to take care of Wuthering Heights. Nelly reports that the locals have seen the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff wandering abroad together. Lockwood seeks out the graves of Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff, and is convinced that all three are finally at peace.
Heathcliff: A racially ambiguousfoundling from Liverpool, who is taken by Earnshaw to Wuthering Heights, where he is reluctantly cared for by the family and spoiled by his adoptive father. He and Mr. Earnshaw's daughter, Catherine, grow close, and their love is the central theme of the first volume. His revenge against the man she chooses to marry and its consequences are the central theme of the second volume. Heathcliff has been considered as aByronic hero, but critics have pointed out that he reinvents himself at various points, making his character hard to fit into any single type. He has an ambiguous position in society, and his lack of status is underlined by the fact that "Heathcliff" is both his given name and his surname. The character of Heathcliff may have been inspired byBranwell Brontë. An alcoholic and an opium addict, he would have indeed terrorised Emily and her sister Charlotte during frequent crises ofdelirium tremens that affected him a few years before his death. Even though Heathcliff has no alcohol or drug problems, the influence of Branwell's character is likely; although the same could be said, perhaps more appropriately, of Hindley Earnshaw and Linton Heathcliff.[7]
Catherine Earnshaw: First introduced to the reader after her death, through Lockwood's discovery of her diary and her carvings. The description of her life is confined almost entirely to the first volume. She seems unsure whether she is, or wants to become, more like Heathcliff, or aspires to be more like Edgar. Some critics argued that her decision to marry Edgar Linton is allegorically a rejection of nature and a surrender to culture, a choice with unfortunate, fateful consequences for all the other characters.[8] She dies hours after giving birth to her daughter.
Edgar Linton: Introduced as a child in the Linton family, he resides at Thrushcross Grange. Edgar's style and manners are in sharp contrast to those of Heathcliff, who instantly dislikes him, and of Catherine, who is drawn to him. Catherine marries him instead of Heathcliff because of his higher social status, with disastrous results to all characters in the story. He dotes on his wife and later his daughter.
Ellen (Nelly) Dean: The main narrator of the novel, Nelly is a servant to three generations of the Earnshaws and two of the Linton family. Humbly born, she regards herself nevertheless as Hindley's foster-sister (they are the same age and her mother is his nurse). She lives and works among the rough inhabitants of Wuthering Heights but is well-read, and she also experiences the more genteel manners of Thrushcross Grange. She is referred to as Ellen, her given name, to show respect, and as Nelly among those close to her. Critics have discussed how far her actions as an apparent bystander affect the other characters and how much her narrative can be relied on.[9] In "The Villain inWuthering Heights" (1958) James Hafley argues that Nelly seems to be the moral centre of the novel only because of the instability and violence of the world she describes. In his view, she is the true villain of the novel, as she drives the majority of the conflicts, and Lockwood's faith in her story is a sign of his innocence.[9]
Isabella Linton: Edgar's sister. She views Heathcliff romantically, despite Catherine's warnings, and becomes an unwitting participant in his plot for revenge against Edgar. Heathcliff manipulates Isabella into eloping with him, and reveals his cruel nature to her immediately after they are wed. Heathcliff verbally and physically abuses Isabella, keeps her imprisoned in the house, and is strongly implied to rape her. While pregnant, Isabella manages to escape to London and give birth to their son, Linton. She entrusts her son to her brother Edgar when she dies.
Hindley Earnshaw: Catherine's elder brother, Hindley, despises Heathcliff immediately and bullies him throughout their childhood before his father sends him away to college. Hindley returns with his wife, Frances, after Mr Earnshaw dies. He is more mature, but his hatred of Heathcliff remains the same. After Frances's death, Hindley reverts to destructive behaviour, neglects his son, and ruins the Earnshaw family by drinking and gambling to excess. Heathcliff beats Hindley up at one point after Hindley fails in his attempt to kill Heathcliff with a pistol. He dies less than a year after Catherine and leaves his son with nothing.
Hareton Earnshaw: The son of Hindley and Frances, raised at first by Nelly but soon by Heathcliff. Joseph works to instill a sense of pride in the Earnshaw heritage (even though Hareton will not inherit Earnshaw's property, because Hindley has mortgaged it to Heathcliff). Heathcliff, in contrast, teaches him vulgarities as a way of avenging himself on Hindley. Hareton speaks with an accent similar to Joseph's, and occupies a position similar to that of a servant at Wuthering Heights, unaware that he has been done out of his inheritance. He can only read his name. In appearance, he reminds Heathcliff of his aunt, Catherine.
Catherine "Cathy" Linton: The daughter of Catherine and Edgar Linton, a spirited and strong-willed girl unaware of her parents' history. Edgar is very protective of her and as a result, she is eager to discover what lies beyond the confines of the Grange. Although one of the more sympathetic characters of the novel, she is also somewhat snobbish towards Hareton and his lack of education. She is forced to marry Linton Heathcliff, but after he dies she falls in love with Hareton and they marry.
Linton Heathcliff: The son of Heathcliff and Isabella. A weak child, his early years are spent with his mother in the south of England. He learns of his father's identity and existence only after his mother dies when he is twelve. In his selfishness and capacity for cruelty he resembles Heathcliff; physically, he resembles his mother. He marries Cathy Linton because his father, who terrifies him, directs him to do so, and soon after he dies from a wasting illness associated withtuberculosis.
Joseph: A servant at Wuthering Heights for 60 years who is a rigid, self-righteous Christian but lacks any trace of genuine kindness or humanity. He hates nearly everyone in the novel. The Yorkshire dialect that Joseph speaks was the subject of a 1970 book by the linguistK.M. Petyt, who argued that Emily Brontë recorded the dialect of Haworth accurately.[10]
Mr Lockwood: The first narrator, he rents Thrushcross Grange to escape society, but in the end, decides society is preferable. He narrates the book until Chapter 4, when the main narrator, Nelly, picks up the tale.
Frances: Hindley's ailing wife and mother of Hareton Earnshaw. She is described as somewhat silly and is obviously from a humble family. Frances dies not long after the birth of her son.
Mr and Mrs Earnshaw: Catherine's and Hindley's father, Mr Earnshaw is the master of Wuthering Heights at the beginning of Nelly's story and is described as an irascible but loving and kind-hearted man. He favours his adopted son, Heathcliff, which causes trouble in the family. In contrast, his wife mistrusts Heathcliff from their first encounter.
Mr and Mrs Linton: Edgar's and Isabella's parents, they bring up their children to be well-behaved and sophisticated. Mr Linton also serves as the magistrate of Gimmerton, as his son does in later years.
Dr Kenneth: The longtime doctor of Gimmerton and a friend of Hindley's who is present at the cases of illness during the novel. Although not much of his character is known, he seems to be a rough but honest person.
Zillah: A servant to Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights during the period following Catherine's death. Although she is kind to Lockwood, she doesn't like or help Cathy at Wuthering Heights because of Cathy's arrogance and Heathcliff's instructions.
Mr Green: Edgar's corruptible lawyer who should have changed Edgar's will to prevent Heathcliff from gaining Thrushcross Grange. Instead, Green changes sides and helps Heathcliff to inherit the Grange as his property.
The original text as published by Thomas Cautley Newby in 1847 is available online in two parts.[11] The novel was first published together with Anne Brontë'sAgnes Grey in athree-volume format:Wuthering Heights filled the first two volumes andAgnes Grey made up the third.
In 1850 Charlotte Brontë edited the original text for the second edition ofWuthering Heights and also provided it with her foreword.[12] She addressed the faulty punctuation and orthography but also diluted Joseph's thick Yorkshire dialect. Writing to her publisher, W. S. Williams, she said that
It seems to me advisable to modify the orthography of the old servant Joseph's speeches; for though, as it stands, it exactly renders the Yorkshire dialect to a Yorkshire ear, yet I am sure Southerns must find it unintelligible; and thus one of the most graphic characters in the book is lost on them.[13]
Irene Wiltshire, in an essay on dialect and speech, examines some of the changes Charlotte made.[3]
Early reviews ofWuthering Heights were mixed. Most critics recognised the power and imagination of the novel, but were baffled by the storyline, and objected to the savagery and selfishness of the characters.[14] In 1847, when the background of an author was given great importance in literary criticism, many critics were intrigued by the authorship of the Bell novels.[15]
TheAtlas review called it a "strange, inartistic story", but commented that every chapter seems to contain a "sort of rugged power."[16]
Graham's Lady Magazine wrote: "How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors".[17]
Respecting a book so original as this, and written with so much power of imagination, it is natural that there should be many opinions. Indeed, its power is so predominant that it is not easy after a hasty reading to analyze one's impressions so as to speak of its merits and demerits with confidence. We have been taken and carried through a new region, a melancholy waste, with here and there patches of beauty; have been brought in contact with fierce passions, with extremes of love and hate, and with sorrow that none but those who have suffered can understand."[18]
Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book,—baffling all regular criticism; yet, it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossible to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about. InWuthering Heights the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance, and anon come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love – even over demons in the human form. The women in the book are of a strange fiendish-angelic nature, tantalising, and terrible, and the men are indescribable out of the book itself.[19]
This is a strange book. It is not without evidences of considerable power: but, as a whole, it is wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable; and the people who make up the drama, which is tragic enough in its consequences, are savages ruder than those who lived before the days ofHomer.[19]
In the whole story not a single trait of character is elicited which can command our admiration, not one of the fine feelings of our nature seems to have formed a part in the composition of its principal actors. In spite of the disgusting coarsness of much of the dialogue, and the improbabilities of much of the plot, we are spellbound.[20]
The English poet and painterDante Gabriel Rossetti admired the book, writing in 1854 that it was "the first novel I've read for an age, and the best (as regards power and sound style) for two ages, exceptSidonia",[21] but, in the same letter, he also referred to it as "a fiend of a book – an incredible monster ... The action is laid in hell, – only it seems places and people have English names there".[22]
Rossetti's friend, the poetAlgernon Charles Swinburne was another early admirer of the novel, and in conclusion for an essay on Emily Brontë, published inThe Athenaeum in 1883, writes: "As was the author's life, so is her book in all things: troubled and taintless, with little of rest in it, and nothing of reproach. It may be true that not many will ever take it to their hearts; it is certain that those who do like it will like nothing very much better in the whole world of poetry or prose."[23]
Until late in the 19th century "Jane Eyre was regarded as the best of the Brontë sisters' novels". This view began to change in the 1880s with the publication ofA. Mary F. Robinson's biography of Emily in 1883.[24]
Modernist novelistVirginia Woolf affirmed the greatness ofWuthering Heights in 1925:
Wuthering Heights is a more difficult book to understand thanJane Eyre, because Emily was a greater poet than Charlotte.... She looked out upon a world cleft into gigantic disorder and felt within her the power to unite it in a book. That gigantic ambition is to be felt throughout the novel... It is this suggestion of power underlying the apparitions of human nature and lifting them up into the presence of greatness that gives the book its huge stature among other novels.[25]
Similarly, Woolf's contemporaryJohn Cowper Powys referred in 1916 to Emily Brontë's "tremendous vision".[26]
In 1926 Charles Percy Sanger's work on the chronology ofWuthering Heights "affirmed Emily's literary craft and meticulous planning of the novel and disproved Charlotte's presentation of her sister as an unconscious artist who 'did not know what she had done'." However, for a later critic,Albert J. Guerard, "it is a splendid, imperfect novel which Brontë loses control over occasionally".[24]
Still, in 1934,Lord David Cecil, writing inEarly Victorian Novelists, commented "that Emily Brontë was not properly appreciated; even her admirers saw her as an 'unequal genius',"[24] and in 1948F. R. Leavis excludedWuthering Heights fromthe great tradition of the English novel because it was "a 'kind of sport'—an anomaly with 'some influence of an essentially undetectable kind.'"[27]
The novelistDaphne du Maurier argued the status ofWuthering Heights as a "supreme romantic novel" in 1971:
There is more savagery, more brutality, in the pages ofWuthering Heights than in any novel of the nineteenth century, and, for good measure, more beauty too, more poetry, and, what is more unusual, a complete lack of sexual emotion. ... Emily Brontë, striding over the Yorkshire moors with her dog, did not conjure from her imagination any cozy tale of happy lovers to console women readers sitting snugly within doors.[28]
Writing inThe Guardian in 2003 writer and editorRobert McCrum placedWuthering Heights in his list of 100 greatest novels of all time.[29] And in 2015 he placed it in his list of 100 best novels written in English.[30] He said that
Wuthering Heights releases extraordinary new energies in the novel, renews its potential, and almost reinvents the genre. The scope and drift of its imagination, its passionate exploration of a fatal yet regenerative love affair, and its brilliant manipulation of time and space put it in a league of its own.[31]
Writing for BBC Culture in 2015 author and book reviewer Jane Ciabattari[32] polled 82 book critics from outside the UK and presentedWuthering Heights as number 7 in the resulting list of 100 greatest British novels.[33]
In 2018Penguin presented a list of 100 must-read classic books and placedWuthering Heights at number 71, saying: "Widely considered a staple of Gothic fiction and the English literary canon, this book has gone on to inspire many generations of writers – and will continue to do so".[34]
Writing inThe Independent journalist and author Ceri Radford and news presenter, journalist, and TV producer Chris Harvey includedWuthering Heights in a list of the 40 best books to read duringlockdown. Harvey said that "It's impossible to imagine this novel ever provoking quiet slumbers; Emily Brontë's vision of nature blazes with poetry".[35]
Novelist John Cowper Powys notes the importance of the setting:
By that singular and forlorn scenery—the scenery of the Yorkshire moors round her home—[Emily Brontë] was, however, in the more flexible portion of her curious nature inveterately influenced. She does not precisely describe this scenery—not at any length... but it sank so deeply into her that whatever she wrote was affected by it and bears its desolate and imaginative imprint.[36]
Likewise Virginia Woolf suggests the importance of the Yorkshire landscape of Haworth to the poetic vision of both Emily and Charlotte Brontë:
[Who] if they choose to write in prose, [were] intolerant of its restrictions. Hence it is that both Emily and Charlotte are always invoking the help of nature. They both feel the need of some more powerful symbol of the vast and slumbering passions in human nature than words or actions can convey. They seized those aspects of the earth which were most akin to what they themselves felt or imputed to their characters, and so their storms, their moors, their lovely spaces of summer weather are not ornaments applied to decorate a dull page or display the writer's powers of observation—they carry on the emotion and light up the meaning of the book.[37]
Wuthering Heights is an old house high on thePenninemoorland ofWest Yorkshire. The first description is provided by Lockwood, the new tenant of the nearby Thrushcross Grange:
Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling, "wuthering" being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed. One may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house, and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if cravingalms of the sun.[38]
Lord David Cecil inEarly Victorian Novelists (1934) drew attention to the contrast between the two main settings inWuthering Heights:
We have Wuthering Heights, the land of storm; high on the barren moorland, naked to the shock of the elements, the natural home of the Earnshaw family, fiery, untamed children of the storm. On the other hand, sheltered in the leafy valley below, stands Thrushcross Grange, the appropriate home of the children of calm, the gentle, passive, timid Lintons.[39]
Walter Allen, inThe English Novel (1954), likewise "spoke of the two houses in the novel as symbolising 'two opposed principles which... ultimately compose a harmony'".[40] However,David Daiches, "in the 1965 Penguin English Library edition referred to Cecil's interpretation as being 'persuasively argued' though not fully acceptable". The entry onWuthering Heights in the 2002Oxford Companion to English Literature, states that "the ending of the novel points to a union of 'the two contrasting worlds and moral orders represented by the Heights and the Grange'".[41]
There is no evidence that either Thrushcross Grange or Wuthering Heights is based on an actual building, but various locations have been speculated as inspirations.Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse in an isolated area near theHaworth Parsonage, was suggested as the model for Wuthering Heights by Ellen Nussey, a friend ofCharlotte Brontë.[42] However, its structure does not match that of the farmhouse described in the novel.[43]High Sunderland Hall, near Law Hill,Halifax where Emily worked briefly as a governess in 1838, now demolished,[43] has also been suggested as a model for Wuthering Heights. However, it is too grand for a farmhouse.[44]
Ponden Hall is famous for reputedly being the inspiration for Thrushcross Grange, since Brontë was a frequent visitor. However, it does not match the description given in the novel and is closer in size and appearance to the farmhouse of Wuthering Heights. The Brontë biographer Winifred Gerin believed that Ponden Hall was the original of Wildfell Hall, the old mansion inAnne Brontë'sThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall.[45][46] Helen Smart, while noting that Thrushcross Grange has "traditionally been associated with... Ponden Hall, Stanbury, near Haworth", seesShibden Hall,Northowram, inHalifax parish, as more likely,[47] referring to Hilda Marsden's article "The Scenic Background of Wuthering Heights".[48]
Most of the novel is the story told by housekeeper Nelly Dean to Lockwood, though the novel uses several narrators (in fact, five or six) to place the story in perspective, or in a variety of perspectives.[49] Emily Brontë uses thisframe story technique to narrate most of the story. Thus, for example, Lockwood, the first narrator of the story, tells the story of Nelly, who herself tells the story of another character.[50] The use of a character like Nelly Dean is a literary device, a well-known convention taken from the Gothic novel, the function of which is to portray the events in a more mysterious and exciting manner.[51]
Thus, the point of view comes from:
... a combination of two speakers who outline the events of the plot within the framework of a story within a story. The frame story is that of Lockwood, who informs us of his meeting with the strange and mysterious "family" living in almost total isolation in the stony uncultivated land of northern England. The inner story is that of Nelly Dean, who transmits to Lockwood the history of the two families during the last two generations. Nelly Dean examines the events retrospectively and attempts to report them as an objective eyewitness to Lockwood.[52]
Critics have questioned thereliability of the two main narrators.[52] The author has been described as sarcastic toward Lockwood, who fancies himself a world-weary romantic but comes across as an effete snob, and there are subtler hints that Nelly's perspective is influenced by her own biases.[53]
The narrative in addition includes an excerpt from Catherine Earnshaw's old diary, and short sections narrated by Heathcliff, Isabella, and another servant.[53]
Another major source of information for theBrontës was the periodicals that their father read, theLeeds Intelligencer andBlackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.[60]Blackwood's Magazine provided knowledge of world affairs and was a source of material for the Brontës' early writing.[61] Emily Brontë was probably aware of the debate onevolution. This debate had been launched in 1844 byRobert Chambers. It raised questions of divine providence and the violence which underlies the universe and relationships between living things.[62]
Romanticism was also a major influence, which included theGothic novel, the novels ofWalter Scott[63] and the poetry ofByron. The Brontës' fiction is seen by some feminist critics as prime examples ofFemale Gothic. It explores the domestic entrapment and subjection of women topatriarchal authority, and the attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Emily Brontë's Cathy Earnshaw and Charlotte Brontë'sJane Eyre are both examples of female protagonists in such a role.[64]
According toJuliet Barker, Walter Scott's novelRob Roy (1817) had a significant influence onWuthering Heights, which, though "regarded as the archetypal Yorkshire novel... owed as much, if not more, to Walter Scott's Border country".Rob Roy is set "in the wilds ofNorthumberland, among the uncouth and quarrelsome squirearchical Osbaldistones", while Cathy Earnshaw "has strong similarities with Diana Vernon, who is equally out of place among her boorish relations".[65]
From 1833 Charlotte and Branwell'sAngrian tales began to featureByronic heroes. Such heroes had a strong sexual magnetism and passionate spirit, and demonstrated arrogance and black-heartedness. The Brontës had discovered Byron in an article inBlackwood's Magazine from August 1825. Byron had died the previous year. Byron became synonymous with the prohibited and audacious.[66]
Emily Brontë wrote in theromance tradition of the novel.[67] Walter Scott defined this as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents".[68][69] Scott distinguished theromance from thenovel, where (as he saw it) "events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society".[70] Scott describes romance as a "kindred term" to novel. However, romances such asWuthering Heights and Scott's ownhistorical romances andHerman Melville'sMoby Dick are often referred to as novels.[71][72][73] Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel isle roman,der Roman,il romanzo,en roman".[74] This sort of romance is different from thegenre fiction love romance orromance novel, with its "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending".[75] Emily Brontë's approach to the novel form was influenced by the gothic novel.
Heathcliff Under the Tree, wood engraving byFritz Eichenberg from a 1943 edition
Horace Walpole'sThe Castle of Otranto (1764) is usually considered the first gothic novel. Walpole's declared aim was to combine elements of themedieval romance, which he deemed too fanciful, and the modern novel, which he considered to be too confined to strictrealism.[76]
More recentlyEllen Moers, inLiterary Women, developed a feminist theory that connects female writers such as Emily Brontë withgothic fiction.[71] Catherine Earnshaw has been identified by some critics as a type of gothic demon because she "shape-shifts" in order to marry Edgar Linton, assuming a domesticity that is contrary to her true nature.[77] It has also been suggested that Catherine's relationship with Heathcliff conforms to the "dynamics of the Gothic romance, in that the woman falls prey to the more or less demonic instincts of her lover, suffers from the violence of his feelings, and at the end is entangled by his thwarted passion".[78] See also the discussion of the daemonic below, under "Religion".
At one point in the novel Heathcliff is thought a vampire. It has been suggested that both he and Catherine are in fact meant to be seen as vampire-like personalities.[79][80]
Brontë is credited by Syndy McMillen Conger for liberating traditional gothic plot forms, which had become "overly rigid," and for bringing to the gothic tradition an "aesthetic respectability". Conger further notes that Catherine Earnshaw is a departure from traditional gothic heroines, who were usually caught between a "dark seducer" and a "fair lover" in an external conflict, whereas Catherine differs in that she is "not simply placed between two lovers; she feels divided between two lovers."[81]
Some earlyVictorian reviewers complained about howWuthering Heights dealt with violence and immorality. One called it "a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors".[17]
Brontë was supposedly unaware of "the limits on polite expression" expected of Victorian novelists. Her characters use vulgar language, "cursing and swearing".[82] Though the daughter of a curate, Brontë shows little respect for religion in the novel; the only strongly religious character inWuthering Heights is Joseph, who is usually seen as satirizing "the joyless version ofMethodism that the Brontë children were exposed to through their Aunt Branwell".[83] A major influence on how Brontë depicts amoral characters was the stories her father Patrick Brontë told, about "the doings" of people around Haworth that his parishioners told him, "stories which 'made one shiver and shrink from hearing' (Charlotte's friend Ellen Nussey reported)", which were "full of grim humour" and violence, stories Emily Brontë took "as a truth".[84]
Curious enough is to readWuthering Heights andThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and remember that the writers were two retiring, solitary, consumptive girls! Books, coarse even for men, coarse in language and coarse in conception, the coarseness apparently of violence and uncultivated men – turn out to be the productions of two girls living almost alone, filling their loneliness with quiet studies, and writing their books from a sense of duty, hating the pictures they drew, yet drawing them with austere conscientiousness! There is matter here for the moralist or critic to speculate on.[85]
Emily Brontë attended church regularly and came from a religious family.[86] Emily "never as far as we know, wrote anything which overtly criticised conventional religion. But she also has the reputation of being a rebel and iconoclast, driven by a spirit more pagan than orthodox Christian."[87]Derek Traversi, for example, sees inWuthering Heights "a thirst for religious experience, 'which is not Christian'. It is this spirit, which moves Catherine to exclaim, 'surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here?'" (Ch. IX).[88][89]
Thomas John Winnifrith, author ofThe Brontes and Their Background: Romance and Reality (Macmillan, 1977), argues that the allusions to Heaven and Hell are more than metaphors, and have a religious significance, because "for Heathcliff, the loss of Catherine is literally Hell... 'existence after losing her would be Hell' (Ch. xiv, p. 117)." Likewise, in the final scene between them, Heathcliff writhes "in the torments of Hell (XV)".[88]
The eminent German Lutheran theologian and philosopherRudolph Otto, author ofThe Idea of the Holy, saw inWuthering Heights "a supreme example of 'thedaemonic' in literature".[90] Otto links the "daemonic" with "a genuine religious experience".[91] Lisa Wang argues that in bothWuthering Heights, and in her poetry, Emily Brontë concentrates on "the non-conceptual", or what Rudolf Otto[92] has called 'the non-rational' aspect of religion... the primal nature of religious experience over and above its doctrinal formulations".[93] This corresponds with the dictionary meaning: "of or relating to an inner or attendant spirit, esp. as a source of creative inspiration or genius".[94] This meaning was important to theRomantic movement.[95][96]
However, the worddaemon can also mean "a demon or devil", and that is equally relevant to Heathcliff,[97] whom Peter McInerney describes as "a SatanicDon Juan".[98] Heathcliff is also "dark-skinned",[99] "as dark almost as if it came from the devil".[100] Likewise Charlotte Brontë described him "'a man's shape animated by demon life – a Ghoul – an Afreet'".[101] In Arabian mythology an "afreet", orifrit, is a powerful jinn or demon.[102] However, John Bowen believes that "this is too simple a view", because the novel presents an alternative explanation of Heathcliff's cruel and sadistic behaviour; that is, that he has suffered terribly: "is an orphan;... is brutalised by Hindley;... relegated to the status of a servant; Catherine marries Edgar".[103]
One 2007 British poll presentedWuthering Heights as the greatest love story of all time.[104] However, "some of the novel's admirers consider it not a love story at all but an exploration of evil and abuse".[53]Helen Small seesWuthering Heights as being both "one of the greatest love stories in the English language" and at the same time one of the "most brutal revenge narratives".[105] Some critics suggest that readingWuthering Heights as a love story not only "romanticizes abusive men and toxic relationships but goes against Brontë's clear intent".[53] Moreover, while a "passionate, doomed, death-transcending relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw Linton forms the core of the novel",[53]Wuthering Heights:
... consistently subverts the romantic narrative. Our first encounter with Heathcliff shows him to be a nasty bully. Later, Brontë puts in Heathcliff's mouth an explicit warning not to turn him into a Byronic hero: After... Isabella elop[es] with him, he sneers that she did so "under a delusion... picturing in me a hero of romance".[53]
"I am Heathcliff" is a frequently quoted phrase from the novel, and "the idea of... perfect unity between the self and the other is age-old", so that Catherine says that she loves Heathcliff "because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" (Chapter IX).[106] Likewise Lord David Cecil suggests that "the deepest attachments are based on characters' similarity or affinity",[107] HoweverSimone de Beauvoir, in her famous feminist workThe Second Sex (1949), suggests that when Catherine says "I am Heathcliff": "her own world collapse(s) in contingence, for she really lives in his."[108] Beauvoir sees this as "the fatal mirage of the ideal of romantic love... transcendence... in the superior male who is perceived as free".[109]
Despite all the passion between Catherine and Heathcliff, critics have from early on drawn attention to the absence of sex. In 1850 the poet and criticSydney Dobell suggests that "we dare not doubt [Catherine's] purity",[110] and the Victorian poetSwinburne concurs, referring to their "passionate and ardent chastity".[111][112] More recentlyTerry Eagleton suggests their relationship is sexless, "because the two, unknown to themselves, are half-siblings, with an unconscious fear of incest".[113]
Childhood is a central theme ofWuthering Heights.[114] Emily Brontë "understands that 'The Child is 'Father of the Man' (Wordsworth, 'My heart leaps up', 1. 7)".Wordsworth, followingphilosophers of education, such asRousseau, explored ideas about the way childhood shaped personality. One outcome of this was the Germanbildungsroman, or "novel of education", such as Charlotte Brontë'sJane Eyre (1847), Eliot'sThe Mill on the Floss (1860), and Dickens'sGreat Expectations (1861).[115] Bronte's characters "are heavily influenced by their childhood experiences", though she is less optimistic than her contemporaries that suffering can lead to "change and renewal".[116]
Lockwood arrives at Thrushcross Grange in 1801, a time when, according to Q.D. Leavis, "the old rough farming culture, based on a naturally patriarchal family life, was to be challenged, tamed and routed by social and cultural changes". At this date theIndustrial Revolution was well under way, and was by 1847 a dominant force in much of England, and especially inWest Yorkshire. This caused a disruption in "the traditional relationship of social classes" with an expanding upwardly mobile middle-class, which created "a new standard for defining a gentleman", and challenged the traditional criteria of breeding and family and the more recent criterion of character.[117]
Marxist criticArnold Kettle seesWuthering Heights "as a symbolic representation of the class system of 19th-century England", with its concerns "with property-ownership, the attraction of social comforts", marriage, education, religion, and social status.[118] Driven by a pathological hatred Heathcliff uses against his enemies "their own weapons of money and arranged marriages", as well as "the classic methods of the ruling class, expropriation and property deals".[119]
Later, another Marxist,Terry Eagleton, inMyths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës (London: McMillan, 1975), further explores the power relationships between "the landed gentry and aristocracy, the traditional power-holders, and the capitalist, industrial middle classes". Haworth in theWest Riding of Yorkshire was especially affected by changes to society and its class structure "because of the concentration of large estates and industrial centers" there.[117]
There has been debate about Heathcliff's race or ethnicity. In the novel Heathcliff is first described as a "dark-skinned gipsy" in appearance with "black eyes", as well as later being said to be "as white as the wall behind him"[120]: 21 and "pale...with anexpression of mortal hate.".[120]: 243 Mr Linton, the Earnshaws' neighbour, suggests that he might be "a littleLascar (a 19th-century term for Indian sailors;[99]), or an American or Spanish castaway".[120]: 44 Mr Earnshaw calls him "as dark almost as if it came from the devil",[100] and Nelly Dean speculates fancifully regarding his origins thus: "Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen?"[121] NovelistCaryl Phillips suggests that Heathcliff may have been an escaped slave, noting the similarities between the way Heathcliff is treated and the way slaves were treated at the time: he is referred to as "it", his name "served him" as both his "Christian and surname",[100] and Mr Earnshaw is referred to as "his owner".[122] Maja-Lisa von Sneidern states that "Heathcliff's racial otherness cannot be a matter of dispute; Brontë makes that explicit", further noting that "by 1804 Liverpool merchants were responsible for more than eighty-four percent of the British transatlantic slave trade."[123] Michael Stewart sees Heathcliff's race as "ambiguous" and argues that Emily Brontë "deliberately gives us this missing hole in the narrative".[124]
Various critics have explored the various contrast between Thrushcross Grange and the Wuthering Heights farmhouse and their inhabitants. Lord David Cecil argued for "cosmic forces as the central impetus and controlling force in the novel" and suggested that there is a unifying structure underlyingWuthering Heights: "two spiritual principles: the principle of the storm,... and the principle of calm", which he further argued were not, "in spite of their apparent opposition", in conflict.[125]Dorothy Van Ghent, however, refers to "a tension between two kinds of reality" in the novel: "civilized manners" and "natural energies".[126]
The earliest known film adaptation ofWuthering Heights was filmed in England in 1920 and was directed byA. V. Bramble. It is unknown if any prints still exist.[127] The most famous is 1939'sWuthering Heights, starringLaurence Olivier andMerle Oberon and directed byWilliam Wyler. This acclaimed adaptation, like many others, eliminated the second generation's story (young Cathy, Linton and Hareton) and is rather inaccurate as a literary adaptation. It won the 1939New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film and was nominated for the 1939Academy Award for Best Picture.
Nigel Kneale's script was produced forBBC Television twice, first in 1953, starringRichard Todd asHeathcliff andYvonne Mitchell asCathy. Broadcast live, no recordings of the production are known to exist. The second adaptation using Kneale's script was in 1962, starringClaire Bloom as Catherine andKeith Michell as Heathcliff. This production does exist with theBFI, but has been withheld from public viewing.[128] Kneale's script was also adapted for Australian television in 1959 during a time when original drama productions in the country were rare. Broadcast live from Sydney, the performance wastelerecorded, although it is unknown if this kinescope still exists.
Les Hauts de Hurlevent is a French mini-series in six 26-minute episodes, in black and white, created and directed by Jean-Paul Carrère based on the novel, and broadcast between 1964 and 1968 on the first ORTF channel.
The1970 film withTimothy Dalton as Heathcliff is the first colour version of the novel. It has gained acceptance over the years although it was initially poorly received. The character of Hindley is portrayed much more sympathetically, and his story-arc is altered. It also subtly suggests that Heathcliff may be Cathy's illegitimate half-brother.
In 1978, the BBC produced afive-part TV serialisation of the book starring Ken Hutchinson, Kay Adshead and John Duttine, with music by Carl Davis; it is considered one of the most faithful adaptations of Emily Brontë's story.[131]
Adaptations that place the story in a new setting include the1954 adaptation, retitledAbismos de pasión, directed by Spanish filmmakerLuis Buñuel and set in Catholic Mexico, with Heathcliff and Cathy renamed Alejandro and Catalina. In Buñuel's version Heathcliff/Alejandro claims to have become rich by making a deal with Satan. TheNew York Times reviewed a re-release of this film as "an almost magical example of how an artist of genius can take someone else's classic work and shape it to fit his own temperament without really violating it," noting that the film was thoroughly Spanish and Catholic in its tone while still highly faithful to Brontë.[134]Yoshishige Yoshida's1988 adaptation also has a transposed setting, this time to medieval Japan. In Yoshida's version, the Heathcliff character, Onimaru, is raised in a nearby community of priests who worship a local fire god. Filipino director Carlos Siguion-Reyna made a film adaptation titledHihintayin Kita sa Langit (1991). The screenplay was written by Raquel Villavicencio and produced byArmida Siguion-Reyna. It starredRichard Gomez as Gabriel (Heathcliff) andDawn Zulueta as Carmina (Catherine). It became a Filipino film classic.[135]
In 2003, MTV produced a poorly reviewedversion set in a modern California high school.
In 2022,Emma Mackey starred in a biopic of Emily Brontë inEmily. The film charts the life of Brontë and the inspiration she gained for writing Wuthering Heights living in the Yorkshire countryside.
In 2021,Emma Rice directed a theatrical version that was shown online and at theBristol Old Vic.[138] This production was then put on at the National Theatre in 2022.[139]
Mizumura Minae'sA True Novel (Honkaku shosetsu) (2002) is inspired byWuthering Heights and might be called an adaptation of the story in a post-World War II Japanese setting.[140]
InJane Urquhart'sChanging Heaven, the novelWuthering Heights, as well as the ghost of Emily Brontë, feature as prominent roles in the narrative.
Michael Stewart's 2018 novel 'Ill Will' is a first-person narrative of Heathcliff's missing years from 1780[141]
In her 2019 novel,The West Indian, Valerie Browne Lester imagines an origin story for Heathcliff in 1760s Jamaica.[142]
K-Ming Chang's 2021 chapbookBone House was released by Bull City Press as part of theirInch series.[143] The collection functions as a queer Taiwanese-American retelling ofWuthering Heights, in which an unnamed narrator moves into a butcher's mansion "with a life of its own."[144]
Canadian authorHilary Scharper's ecogothic novelPerdita (2013) was deeply influenced byWuthering Heights, namely in terms of the narrative role of powerful, cruel and desolate landscapes.[145]
The poem "Wuthering" (2017) byTanya Grae usesWuthering Heights as an allegory.[146]
Maryse Condé'sWindward Heights (La migration des coeurs) (1995) is a reworking ofWuthering Heights set inCuba andGuadeloupe at the turn of the 20th century,[147] which Condé stated she intended as an homage to Brontë.[148]
In 2011, agraphic novel version was published by Classical Comics.[149] It was adapted by Scottish writerSean Michael Wilson and hand painted by comic book veteran artistJohn M. Burns. This version, which stays close to the original novel, was shortlisted for the Stan Lee Excelsior Awards.[150]
Kate Bush's 1978 song "Wuthering Heights" is most likely the best-known creative work inspired by Brontë's story that is not properly an "adaptation". Bush wrote the song when she was 18 and chose it as the lead single from her debut album. It was primarily inspired by her viewing of the 1967 BBC adaptation. The song is sung from Catherine's point of view as she pleads at Heathcliff's window to be admitted. It uses quotations from Catherine, both in the chorus ("Let me in! I'm so cold!") and the verses, with Catherine admitting she had "bad dreams in the night". Critic Sheila Whiteley wrote that the ethereal quality of the vocal resonates with Cathy's dementia, and that Bush's high register has both "childlike qualities in its purity of tone" and an "underlying eroticism in its sinuous erotic contours".[151] SingerPat Benatar covered the song in 1980 on herCrimes of Passion album. Brazilian heavy metal bandAngra released a version of Bush's song on its debut albumAngels Cry in 1993.[152] A 2018 cover of Bush's "Wuthering Heights" byJimmy Urine adds electropunk elements.[153]
Wind & Wuthering (1976) by English rock bandGenesis alludes to the Brontë novel not only in the album's title but also in the titles of two of its tracks, "Unquiet Slumbers for the Sleepers..." and "...In That Quiet Earth". Both titles refer to the closing lines of the novel.
SongwriterJim Steinman said that he wrote the 1989 song "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" "while under the influence ofWuthering Heights". He said that the song was "about being enslaved and obsessed by love" and compared it to "Heathcliff digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight".[154]
In 2024 an indie band "Mili" released a single "Through Patches of Violet". The song features some themes that Wuthering Heights carries, mainly – poorly communicated love. Two voices, sung byCassie Wei, are Heathcliff and Catherine. Originally made for a game "Limbus Company", which features Wuthering Heights's other characters and story elements.[155]
^Mohrt, Michel (1984). Preface.Les Hauts de Hurle-Vent [Wuthering Heights]. By Brontë, Emily (in French). Le Livre de Poche. pp. 7, 20.ISBN978-2-253-00475-2.
^Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar.The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
^"Originally written in German in 1848 byWilhelm Meinhold, 'Sidonia the Sorceress' was translated into English the following year by Lady Wilde, Oscar Wilde's mother. The painter and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti was fascinated by the story and introduced William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones to it in the 1850s. Burne-Jones was inspired to paint various scenes from the text including full-length figure studies of Sidonia and her foil Clara in 1860. Both paintings are now in the Tate collection."Kelmscott Press edition ofSidonia the Sorceress,Jane Wilde, 1893.
^"Introduction" toWuthering Heights. Edited by Ian Jack and Introduction and notes by Helen Small. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. vii.
^Helen Smart, "Introduction" to Wuthering Heights. Edited by Ian Jack and Introduction and notes by Helen Small. Oxford University Press, 2009, p. xiii.
^Kathryn Pauly Morgan, "Romantic Love, Altruism, and Self-Respect: An Analysis of Simone De Beauvoir".Hypatia, Spring 1986, vol. 1, no. 1, p. 129.JSTOR3810066
^"Currer Bell,"Palladium, September, 1850. Reprinted inLife and Letters of Sydney Dobell, ed. E. Jolly (London, i878), I, 163–186.
^A. C. Swinburne, "Emily BrontE," inMiscellanies, 2d ed. (London, I895), pp. 260–270 (first appeared in the Athenaeum for 1883).
^Richard Chase, "The Brontes: A Centennial Observance", inThe Brontes: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Ian Gregor (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970; repro 1986), pp. 19–33 (p. 32).
^Melissa Fegan.Wuthering Heights: Character Studies. London: Continuum, 2008, p. 4.
^Melissa Fegan,Wuthering Heights: Character Studies, p. 5.
^van Ghent, Dorothy. "The Window Figure and the Two-Children Figure inWuthering Heights".Nineteenth-Century Fiction, December 1952, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 189–197.JSTOR3044358
^Gómez-Galisteo, M. Carmen.A Successful Novel Must Be in Want of a Sequel: Second Takes on Classics from The Scarlet Letter to Rebecca. Jefferson, NC and London:: McFarland, 2018.978-1476672823
^Wolff, Rebecca."Maryse Condé". BOMB Magazine. Archived fromthe original on 1 November 2016. Retrieved10 October 2017.
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