Wuthering Heights: Victorian Gothic
Introduction
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) is one of the most original and unsettling novels in English literature. Published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, the novel was greeted with bewilderment and hostility by contemporary reviewers, who found its violence, its passion, and its refusal to conform to conventional morality deeply disturbing. Posterity has reversed that judgment: Wuthering Heights is now recognised as a masterpiece of Victorian fiction, a work whose formal sophistication and psychological depth anticipate the concerns of modernism.
The Narrative Structure
The novel’s narrative structure is extraordinarily complex for a first novel. The story is filtered through two narrators: Mr Lockwood, a fashionable gentleman who rents Thrushcross Grange, and Nelly Dean, the housekeeper who tells him the history of the families she has served. Within Nelly’s narration are further layers — letters, confessions, and the testimony of other characters.
This layered narration creates a series of framing devices that distance the reader from the raw emotion of the story while also generating ambiguity. The reader must navigate between competing perspectives and judge the reliability of different narrators. Lockwood is an outsider who misunderstands what he sees; Nelly is a participant whose sympathies and prejudices shape her account. The narrative structure itself becomes a commentary on the difficulty of knowing the truth about human relationships.
Heathcliff and Catherine
At the novel’s centre is the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, a bond that surpasses conventional definitions of love. Catherine’s famous declaration — “I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being” — articulates a vision of love as ontological fusion, a union of souls that transcends morality and social convention.
This love is also destructive. Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar Linton, motivated by social ambition and the desire for refinement, sets in motion a chain of revenge and suffering that spans two generations. Heathcliff’s response to Catherine’s betrayal is to embark on a campaign of systematic cruelty against everyone he holds responsible. The novel refuses to condemn or excuse this behaviour, presenting it with an unsettling moral neutrality.
The Gothic Landscape
The Yorkshire moors are not merely the setting of Wuthering Heights but an active force in the novel. The wild, untamed landscape mirrors the passions of the characters and stands in opposition to the cultivated domesticity of Thrushcross Grange. Emily Brontë’s descriptions of the moors — their beauty, their danger, their indifference to human concerns — are among the most powerful in English fiction.
The Gothic architecture of the novel — Wuthering Heights itself, with its narrow windows, its fierce hearth, its atmospheric oppression — creates a space of confinement and threat that recalls the Gothic tradition while also departing from it. There are no ghosts in the conventional sense (though Lockwood dreams of one), but the house is haunted by memory, by the unresolved past, and by the persistence of love beyond death.
Class and Social Ambition
The novel offers a complex meditation on class in early nineteenth-century England. Heathcliff’s origins are unknown; he is found on the streets of Liverpool and brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw. His indeterminate social status makes him vulnerable to the contempt of Hindley Earnshaw and the Lintons. Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar Linton is, in part, a choice of social respectability over the degraded status that marrying Heathcliff would entail.
Yet the novel does not endorse this social order. Heathcliff’s rise to wealth and power, achieved through morally dubious means, reveals the arbitrary nature of class distinctions. The second generation of characters — the younger Catherine and Hareton — achieve a more harmonious relationship by transcending the class prejudices that destroyed their parents.
Violence and Cruelty
Wuthering Heights contains scenes of remarkable violence: Heathcliff hanging Isabella’s dog, Hindley’s abuse of Heathcliff, Heathcliff’s brutal treatment of his wife and son, and the physical fights that punctuate the narrative. This violence is not gratuitous; it is integral to the novel’s exploration of how the oppressed can become oppressors and how the desire for revenge can consume the avenger.
The novel’s moral complexity is most evident in its treatment of Heathcliff. He is at once victim and villain, his cruelty arising from the abuse he suffered as a child and the loss of the only person he loved. Brontë refuses the consolations of poetic justice; Heathcliff’s death is not a punishment but a release, a reunion with Catherine that the narrative presents without judgment. For a broader perspective, see the Brontë Sisters guide.
The Second Generation
The final third of the novel shifts focus to the younger generation: Catherine Linton, the daughter of Catherine and Edgar, and Hareton Earnshaw, the son of Hindley. Their developing relationship offers a qualified hope for the future. Unlike their parents, they learn to love without the destructive intensity that defined the first generation. Their union represents not the triumph of conventional morality but a reconciliation of the wild and the civilised, the Heights and the Grange.
Adaptations and Cultural Influence
Wuthering Heights has been adapted for film, television, radio, opera, ballet, and stage. William Wyler’s 1939 film, starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, is the most famous adaptation, though it sanitises the novel and omits the second generation entirely. More faithful adaptations include the 1992 film starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche and the 2009 ITV adaptation starring Tom Hardy.
The novel’s influence extends beyond direct adaptations. Kate Bush’s 1978 song “Wuthering Heights” brought the novel to a new generation and remains one of the most remarkable pop songs ever written about a literary work. The novel has inspired countless works of fiction, film, and popular culture.
The Second Generation
The second half of Wuthering Heights follows the story of the next generation: Cathy Linton, Hareton Earnshaw, and Linton Heathcliff. This section of the novel is sometimes regarded as an anticlimax, but it is essential to the novel’s meaning. The love of the second Cathy and Hareton is a healing force that redeems the violence and destructiveness of the first generation.
The second-generation plot also allows Brontë to explore the possibility of change and growth. Heathcliff’s attempt to destroy the Earnshaw and Linton families through his control of the next generation ultimately fails. The novel ends not with destruction but with the promise of renewal.
Critical Reception
Wuthering Heights was bewildering to its first reviewers. It was described as “a strange, inartistic story” and “a book without a lesson.” The novel’s violence, its unconventional morality, and its refusal to satisfy the expectations of conventional fiction puzzled and disturbed its early readers.
The novel’s reputation began to recover in the late Victorian period and grew steadily through the twentieth century. It is now widely regarded as one of the greatest novels in English literature. Feminist critics have celebrated its exploration of female desire and its critique of patriarchal authority. Postcolonial critics have explored its representation of the other. Formalist critics have analysed its complex narrative structure.
The Representation of Childhood
The children in Wuthering Heights are central to the novel’s meaning. The young Heathcliff and Catherine are wild, untamed, and passionate. Their childhood bond is the foundation of their adult relationship.
But childhood in the novel is also a time of vulnerability. The children are neglected, abused, and traumatised.
The Language of the Novel
The language of Wuthering Heights is remarkable for its intensity and power. The dialogue is charged with emotion. The descriptive passages are vivid and atmospheric.
The novel’s language reflects the world of the moors, with its extremes of weather and emotion.
The Novel and the Reader
Wuthering Heights makes unusual demands on the reader. The narrative structure is complex. The characters are not always sympathetic.
The novel refuses to satisfy conventional expectations. It does not offer easy moral lessons or a comfortable resolution.
FAQ
Is Wuthering Heights a love story?
It is a love story, but not in any conventional sense. The love between Heathcliff and Catherine is passionate, destructive, and transcendent, refusing the consolations of domestic happiness. It is also a story about revenge, class, and the persistence of childhood trauma.
Why was the novel controversial when published?
Contemporary critics found the novel harsh, violent, and morally disturbing. Its refusal to condemn Heathcliff or to provide conventional moral instruction offended Victorian sensibilities.
Who is the central character in Wuthering Heights?
Heathcliff is the dominant presence in the novel, though Catherine Earnshaw is equally important. Their relationship is the emotional centre around which the entire narrative revolves.
What is the role of the moors in the novel?
The moors represent freedom, passion, and natural authenticity, in contrast to the artificial refinement of Thrushcross Grange. They are also dangerous and indifferent to human concerns, reflecting the novel’s vision of a universe that does not conform to human moral categories.
Does the novel have a happy ending?
The ending is ambiguous. The younger Catherine and Hareton are poised to marry, suggesting healing and reconciliation. But Heathcliff and Catherine remain united in death, their ghosts reportedly seen on the moors, and the novel ends with Lockwood wondering “how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”
For a comprehensive overview, read our article on Alfred Tennyson Guide.