THE REPRESENTATION OF LOVE AND VIOLENCE AS A TRAGEDY OF PASSION IN

EMILY BRONTE’S WUTHERING HEIGHTS

J.Pavithra Devi 1, S.Mirunalini 2, A.Bhuvaneshwari 3, R.Sasikala4

ASSISTANT PROFESSORS

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

DHANALAKSHMI SRINIVASAN COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE FOR

PERAMBALUR

ABSTRACT

Emily Bronte, the highly imaginative novelist of passion of the 19th century produced only
one novel Wuthering Heights in 1847. Influenced by the times and social background and life
experiences her novel reflects a vision of human nature and of the society in which she lived.
In Wuthering Heights -Bronte tells a story of tragedy of passion in its two aspects of love and
violence. This study presents Bronte’s view of the nature of man and of the world in which he
existed from different aspects. By analyzing the two main characters different personalities,
the study reveals the internal reason of the tragedy. This study also deals with women’s status
and the patriarchal society at that time, showing the influence of the society in which they
lived which was intensifying man’s basic corruption. In addition, it also focuses on how
Bronte’s success stems from the fact that she was able to present her vision obliquely and
imaginatively. Bronte could portray amoral beings like Catherine and Heath cliff with total
honesty and understanding, yet remain completely aware of what the inevitable consequences
of their behavior must be. From these analyses, people can reach a systematic and profound
understanding of the causes of the tragedy of passion, and thus will grasp the connotation of
the novel comprehensively and accurately.

Keywords: Emily Bronte; Wuthering Heights; Tragedy of passion; Vision

INTRODUCTION

Emily Bronte, one of the greatest English novelists, was born in Thornton, West Riding of
Yorkshire, and Northern England. She is best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights
which is a monument in the history of English Victorian literature. In more than one century,
Wuthering Heights has been one of the most frequently analyzed works of English literature,
ranging from subjects to writing skills, even to social significances. For instance, Eva Hope,
in her book, Queens of Literature of the Victorian Era, describes Emily Bronte’s character as
“a peculiar mixture of timidity and Spartan-like courage”, “She was painfully shy, but
physically she was brave to a surprising degree” . Juliet Gardiner, in his comment on
Wuthering Heights, states that “the vivid sexual passion and power of its language and
imagery impressed bewildered and appalled reviewers” . While Wade Thompson calls “the
world of Wuthering Heights a world of sadism, violence and wanton cruelty”. Bronte’s aim,
according to Professor Elliot Gose is “to make her readers and her characters acknowledge
within themselves both dark and light, low and high, body and soul” .Thus, L. P. Hartley is
correct when he says that modern man “bewildered by the threatening aspect of humanity,”
can understand Wuthering Heights much better than the nineteenth-century reader with his
belief in progress and the moral and civil perfectibility of man. Emily Bronte believed in an
unsentimental and realistic presentation of man, even in his most unregenerate state. There is
no character in Wuthering Heights who is either completely loveable or completely odious.
Rather, as Phyllis Bentely has observed: Emily shows to her characters exactly that clear-
eyed compassion which she shows when she declines to judge the hare and the deer for
timidity, or mock the wolf for his wolfishness. She portrays with absolute fidelity the
weakness of the Lintons, the appalling insensate hardness of Heath cliff, the egoism of Cathy
and the fatal consequences of all these qualities, yet she views these characters as she does
the deer, the wolf and the hare; that is, with regret for their defects, but with understanding
and compassion. She deprecates their faults, but does not blame them for their innate qualities
or for the development of these qualities beneath the street of fear or shame; she lets them be
heard in their own defense; she knows that Edgar, though a coward, was kind, that Heath
cliff, though cruel, was bitterly oppressed. Thus, this article offers an interpretation and
underlines Emily Bronte‟s vision of human nature and the inevitability of the tragedy. So,
this study aims to find out the causes of the tragedy of passion in its both aspects of love and
violence. The study is concerned about the two main characters different personalities, which
is the internal reason for the tragedy of passion and the environmental factors of the tragedy. I
examine these two characters from a psychological perspective, as Emily Bronte reveals in
her text some psychological insights, so that many psychoanalytic critics have applied
Freudian concept to this novel, and numerous articles and books have been written according
to this perspective.

CHARACTERS’ DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES

Wuthering Heights is a story ended in tragedy. To understand its causes of the tragedy of
passion, it is necessary to study the two protagonists characteristics. In Wuthering Heights,
Catherine and Heath cliff are strongly different. The great difference between the two main
characters personalities decided that their passion could only be ended in tragedy.

Catherine’s Bravery and Rebellion

As every reader noticed, at the beginning of the story, Catherine’s personality is accorded a
vivid and in-depth description. Her strong character and her rebellion against patriarch
receive emphasis. It is told that it is Catherine who said: “I wish I were out of doors! I wish I
were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening
under them! I‟m sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills”. It is
just this force of character that fortifies Catherine to argue with Nelly about the decision to
marry Edgar. Nelly focuses on the foolish reasons for Catherine’s decision. She attempts to
convince Catherine that the marriage would be a mistake because of the opposite
personalities of Catherine and Edgar. Catherine readily admits she has “no business to marry
Edgar Linton” and that she actually loves Heath cliff . Catherine’s rebellious personality also
clearly appears when her father, right before his death asks her “why canst thou not always be
a good lass, Cathy?”, she laughs as if this is a normal question, and asks him why he cannot
be a better man. However, Bronte offers a picture of selfishness and sacrifice with the same
person, within the same decision. Because the events that follow reveal the painful departure
of a heartbroken Heath cliff and a sorrowful but errant Catherine, this last motivation for
Catherine’s marriage to Edgar is brushed aside. The moment’s sorrow overwhelms her loving
sacrifice and shadows the horrible irony of the poignant kitchen scene, when she confesses
her love for Heath cliff. In addition, Bronte seems to be saying that women who choose these
relationships of convention or economic security often overlook what really is best for them
in the future, especially in an emotional context. Though the young Catherine realizes even
while she ponders the betrayal of both herself and Heath cliff through her unfortunate
matrimonial alliance with Linton: “I love him (Heath cliff) because he‟s more myself than I
am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”, she chooses Linton and
brings destruction on them all. She refuses to marry Heath cliff because she would be
degraded by a match to one who is socially inferior. Catherine argues with Nelly “did it never
strike you that if Heath cliff and I married, we should be beggars?. Catherine reasons with
herself practically that marring Edgar will make her “the greatest woman of the
neighborhood”, whereas Heath cliff “does not know what being in love is”.

Heath cliff’s Ambivalence

Heath cliff, a main character in Wuthering Heights, proves to be violent against man, and
most importantly against himself because he has loved Catherine. His violence against
himself, for which he ultimately paid the price of unhappiness, proved to be more harmful
and more destructive than against the social conventions that deny him human rights and the
love of his life, Catherine Earnshaw. A statement by Elaine Showalter aptly places Heath cliff
in a unique role as villain: “if Rochester (of Jane Eyre) shocked critics, Heath cliff simply
outraged them”. Now it is necessary to examine the character of Heath cliff while explaining
his passionate situation. Much of the power of the novel, as well as much of the critical
confusion, emanates from the central character, Heath cliff. Readers are both attracted and
repelled by his dark presence. He is neither hero nor villain; he is both hero and villain. He is
a composite of the best and the worst in human nature. I conclude that his great strength of
will, his ability to resist those influences foreign to his nature, his individualism, his intensity
of feeling, and in the words of Royal Gettman, “his capacity to suffer greatly” give him the
stature of a tragic hero. To discover Heath cliff, the reader must weigh and balance the
evidence drawn from the two principal narrators as well as the different perspectives offered
by the other characters and Heath cliff himself. The author never presumes to analyze Heath
cliff as villain or hero, ugly or beautiful, moral or immoral but leaves such judgments to the
reader.
From Nelly Dean and Lockwood the reader hear of the unusual circumstances surrounding
the introduction of Heath cliff into the Earns haw household. This initial introduction of
Heath cliff into the middle-class world reveals several things which are to prove important in
an analysis of Heathcliif‟s character. First, it establishes the clash between the two worlds of
the poor and the middle class. Catherine and Edgar as child representative of the middle class
show themselves to be totally materialistic, spoiled, and shallow. Heath cliff, on the other
hand, as a child of the lower class, shows the brooding resentment and rebelliousness of the
abused and oppressed. However, Heath cliff‟s rebellion against society is more personal than
social. As Dorothy Van Gheat reminds us, “The passion of Heath cliff and Catherine is too
simple and undeviating in its intensity, too complex, for us to find in it any echo of practical
social reality‟.Heath cliff must struggle with the darkness both within and outside himself, a
struggle which can only produce a soul in torment. An understanding of this tension provides
an understanding of Heath cliff‟s true identity. It is from Nelly that the reader learns of Heath
cliff‟s need for revenge. When he determines as a youth that he shall one day pay Hindly
back,‟ Nelly cautions him that he should forgive and that punishment should be left to God.
Heath cliff replies: “No, God won‟t have the satisfaction that I shall. I only wish I knew the
best way! Let me alone, and I’ll plan it out: while I‟m thinking of that I don‟t feel pain”.
Heathcliff as a boy is revealed as sullen, troublesome, and stoic, capable of affection for
Catherine, whom he adores and Nelly, whom he tolerates. His love for Catherine Earnshaw is
equaled only by his hatred for her brother Hindley, who does everything he can to feed that
hatred. Heath cliff keeps these feelings of hatred locked up inside, where they grow even as
he grows. Nelly remembers his stoic endurance: “He (Heath cliff) seemed a sullen, patient
child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand Hindley‟s blows without winking
or shedding a tear, and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident and nobody was
to blame. Heath cliff approaches adulthood torn between these violent extremes of his love
for Catherine and his hatred for her brother. When Heath cliff returns to Wuthering Heights
from his self-imposed exile brought by Catherine‟s announced intention to marry the young
heir of Trushcross Grane, Nelly reports on a seeming transformation: He had grown a tall,
athletic, well-formed man; besides whom, my Master (Edgar Linton) seemed quite slender
and youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His
countenance looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half civilized
ferocity lurked yet in the depressed rows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and
his manner was even dignified: quite divested of Roughness, though too stern for grace.He
has not lost whatever destructive force which seeks asylum in his soul, but he has learned to
control it in part, to use is to gain his ends. But Heath cliif‟s new pose does not fool the one
who knows him best. Although Catherine has loved Heath cliff, she warns her sister-in-law
not to seek his affections because “he‟s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man”. Only Catherine
exercise control over this „fierce man‟, a control which she relinquishes when she deserts
him to marry Edgar Linton. Without Catherine‟s stabilizing influence, Heathcliff is unable to
control the crushing destructive forces warring within him. Heath cliff grows in cruelty and
hardens in his consuming resolve to get revenge at any cost; he states; “I have no pity! I have
no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral
teething; and I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain”. Heath cliff‟s
agony reaches its peak with the death of his beloved Catherine, who dies giving birth to her
young daughter. His agony turns to anger as he curses Catherine, who has now deserted him
this second time. He cries, “Oh God! ... I cannot live without my soul!”. Heahcliff‟s grief is
equaled only by his passion for revenge and his love for Catherine. He is a man torn by
violence passion foreign to the world of ordinary experience and tormented beyond that
which a normal man can bear.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS OF THE TRAGEDY

Before Emily Bronte’s creation of the Wuthering Heights, she was not intending to write a
wonderful romance but to write a tragedy of romance. Catherine pursues the pure love with
her strong bravery and rebellion. However, her ideal was influenced by various factors and
thus performed a pitiable tragedy. It is precisely the pitiable tragedy that created unique
enduring charm of Wuthering Heights and made it become a romantic literary classic in
English or even the world literature. It is impossible for Catherine and Heath cliff to escape
the tragic outcome under the prevailing social system.

CONCLUSION

In this study, a comprehensive and overall study of various causes is made. It is a systematic
research of the causes of the tragedy of passion in its both aspects: love and violence, such as
the two main characters different personalities, women’s low status and dark social system,
Heath cliff‟s and Cathy’s destructive natures and their being victims of fate beyond their
control. Therefore, denial and repression have a great influence on the two major characters
and accordingly affected their behavior and destiny. All of these elements determine that the
love story in Wuthering Heights could only be ended in tragedy.

REFERENCES

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Beirut: York Press, 2005. [3] Gardiner, Juliet. The History Today Who’s Who in British
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York: Modern Library,1950. [5] Gheat , Dorothy Van. “On Wuthering Heights,” “Wuthering
Heights: An Anthology of Criticism, Comp. by Alastair Everett (London: Frank Cass& Co.
Ltd., 1967). [6] Gose, Eliot B.Jr. “Wuthering Heights: The Heath and the Hearth,” NCF,XXI
(June 1966). [7] Hartley, L.P. “Emily Bronte in Gondal and Gaaldine,” Bronte Society
Transactions,XIV,V (1965), 1-15. [8] Hope, Eva. Queen of Literature of the Victorian
Era.(1886). [9] Showalter, Elaine. A literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from
Bronte to Lessing. Princeton: Princeton UP.1977. [10] Thompson, Wade. “Infanticide and
Sadism in Wuthering Heights”PMLA 78(1963): 69-74.