Gothic Elements In Wuthering Heights Essay

Due to the fact that the number of these elements and the significance and timelessness of the novel itself by far surmount the limitations of this assignment I shall focus mainly on two major components of Wuthering Heights that could be explored in the light of being Gothic.Those are the novel’s setting (both exterior and interior) and a particular type of love that occurs between the two main characters, Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw.In the Victorian era we saw the revival of gothic literature; it fictionalised contemporary fears such as ethical degeneration, unmediated spiritual beliefs against a stern religious faith and also questioned the social structure of the time.

Due to the fact that the number of these elements and the significance and timelessness of the novel itself by far surmount the limitations of this assignment I shall focus mainly on two major components of Wuthering Heights that could be explored in the light of being Gothic.Those are the novel’s setting (both exterior and interior) and a particular type of love that occurs between the two main characters, Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw.In the Victorian era we saw the revival of gothic literature; it fictionalised contemporary fears such as ethical degeneration, unmediated spiritual beliefs against a stern religious faith and also questioned the social structure of the time.

Tags: Essays On Rousseau ConfessionsEngineer Problem SolvingSpanglish Film EssaySalvation Essay AnalysisFiction Essay ExamplesTopic Ideas For An Argumentative Essay

English scholars David Punter and Glennis Byron strived in their book “The Gothic” to outline most important issues, works and debates regarding the field of Gothic literature.

Here is their apt summation of the term Gothic stated in the Introduction: “Clearly it is possible to speak of the Gothic as a historical phenomenon, originating (in its literary sense, but not necessarily in other senses) in the late eighteenth century.

Both novels thoroughly enhance the Gothic genre and contain many of the key elements you would expect.

In Victorian Britain Gothic literature contained many features of the supernatural, both psychological and physical, such as; mystery, The novel teases the reader with the possibility that Heathcliff is more than he seems – perhaps his cruelty is merely an expression of his frustrated love for Catherine, ‘If he[Linton] loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day.

Although this alone could be said to be enough to create an exemplar piece of gothic literature, it is the setting which contributes heavily to forming the element of horror which makes this novel Gothic.

The fact that the novel contains two narrators instead of one, means that two different views are involved in creating the drama within the text and in doing so contradict to some extent meaning the reader is left to their own individual interpretation of the information, and due to being exposed to a foreboding atmosphere at the beginning, seem to interpret scenes to be more violent or gothic than is described by the narrators.

How does Emily Bronte use Gothic elements to enhance the novel ‘Wuthering Heights’?

Discuss how Daphne Du Maurier’s ‘Jamaica Inn’ illuminates this.

And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him’ or as the quote also suggests, it could be born out if his jealousy and hatred of Linton.

Other characters also embody the violence that exists simultaneously throughout the novel; ‘Harteton was impressed with a wholesome terror of encountering either his wild beasts fondness of his madman’s rage, for in one he ran a chance of being squeezed and kissed to death, and in the other of being flung into the fire, or dashed against the wall’.