Beyond Social Convention

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how, Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights", both characters, Heathcliff and Catherine, have a wild, uncouth nature with passions as strong and indomitable as the savage climate of the place they live in. The paper then shows how their nature and passions are misunderstood by the people that surround them and that find them uncivilized and wild. The paper reveals that Catherine and Heathcliff cannot live apart as their symbiosis is so complete, but neither can they live together in the midst of social conventions.

From the Paper:

"Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is one of the most mesmerizing novels in the English Literature. The intensity of the story obviously comes from the extremely powerful and almost unnatural bond between the two main protagonists in the story, Catherine and Heathcliff. This relationship is particularly hard to describe, as Bronte sets the story over a rather long period of time, involving other characters as well, all of which serve as means to enhance the individuality of the two protagonists. The love that Catherine and Heathcliff share is an immeasurable passion, demonic and heavenly at the same time. If described from a strictly moral point of view, this love would seem unnatural and destructive. However, a more accurate view would be that the love between Catherine and Heathcliff is an absolute, primordial and uncouth passion that goes beyond social convention and its restrictions."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bloom, Harold. Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights'. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
• Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York: Washington Square Press, 1964.
• Gerster, Carole. "The Reality of Fantasy: Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights." Exploring Novels. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003.
• Goodlett, Debra. "Love and addiction in 'Wuthering Heights.'." The Midwest Quarterly 37.n3 (Spring 1996): 316(12)

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