1
Q
Wuthering Heights setting
A
- “completely removed from the stir of society”
- “primitive structure” “gaudily painted cannisters”
- “atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather”
- “excessive slant of a few stunted fir…as if craving alms of the sun”
- “narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones.” a “grotesque carving”
- “haunted… —swarming with ghosts”
- “situation and residence so much inferior” to Thrushcross Grange – Lockwood on Wuthering Heights
- “preserve the common sympathies of human nature when you resided here?” – Isabella
- “an ancient castle.”
- “dogs haunted other recesses. – Living within,
- occupants referred to as “inmates” just as prisoners would be
- “never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented!” – changed by Heathcliff
- “hanging a litter of puppies” in the kitchen – Most civilised room brooding with violence and cruelty
- “the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury” – Heathcliffs departure
- storm sends “ a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen-fire” – Physical boundary against unbridled emotion
- “bonnetless and shawl-less to catch as much water as she could with her hair” – Embracing passion
2
Q
Moors and Nature
A
- “one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors,…..and the after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at” – Nelly on Heathcliff and Catherine
- “cool dusky dells…great swells of long grass undulating in the breeze”
- “lost in the marshes”
- “‘Cathy and (Heathcliff) escaped” to the moors to “have a ramble at liberty”
- “carried his ill-humour on to the moors… reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit” – Nelly on Heathcliff
- “Heathcliff should take a moonlight saunter on the moors,”
- “ (Linton) said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about.”
- “(Linton) wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; (Cathy) wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. (Cathy) said his heaven would be only half alive; and (Linton) said mine would be drunk.”
- “he walks: there are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house”
- spends time “hunting” on the moors
3
Q
Thrushcross Grange
A
- “a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold”
- “tame pheasant.”
- “deemed it judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in receiving him’ – Thrushcross by its nature supresses Catherine’s ability to express herself”
- “your veins are full of ice-water; but mine are boiling” – juxtaposition of emotional response by the forces of storm and calm
- “The Grange is not a prison”
4
Q
Heathcliff Physical
A
- Demonic: “as dark almost as if it came from the devil.”
- “imp of Satan”, “black villain.” “blackguard” ‘incarnate goblin”, “his kin beneath” “hellish villain”
- “Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil?”, “a monster, and not a human being”
- “I’ll haunt the place”
- Physical: “gipsy brat”
- “I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty.”
- “I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!’”
- Eyes: “open their windows boldly,”
- “devil’s spies”
- “to smooth away the surly wrinkles,… and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels”
5
Q
Heathcliff good
A
• saves Hareton “by a natural impulse”
6
Q
Heathcliff degradation
A
- “he loses friend, and love, and all!” – When Catherine leaves
- Impersonal pronoun “it”
- “hardened, perhaps, to ill treatment”
- “you have treated me infernally—infernally! “ – Heathcliff to Catherine
- “treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends” - Nelly
7
Q
Heathcliff animal
A
- “mad dog”, “savage beast”
* “growled Mr. Heathcliff”
8
Q
Heathcliff Love
A
- “The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him”
- “I have not broken your heart— you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine”
- “while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?”
- “Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do”
- “I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
- “howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears”
- “I could almost see her, and yet I could not!… Intolerable torture! Infernal!”
- “-because it has devoured my existence”
- “In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day—I am surrounded with her image!”
9
Q
Heathcliff Changes
A
- “Altered”, “upright carriage”, “well formed”, “tall, athletic, well-formed man”
- “A halfcivilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire”
- “his manner was even dignified”
- suggestion of Heathcliff being a “soldier” in the “army” emphasises conformity to strict rigid rule.
- Catherine exclaims “new phase of his character is this?” saying that “That is not my Heathcliff. “
10
Q
Heathcliff cruelty
A
“hang up her little dog”
• “a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens”
• “The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails!”
• “gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me.”
11
Q
Heathclifff —> As a Proletariat→Bourgeoisie Capitalist + Revenge
A
- “The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him; they crush those beneath them”
- Joseph says “(Hindley’s) goold runs into (Heathcliff’s) pocket”
- “‘It’s a cuckoo’s…And Hareton has been cast out like an unfledged dunnock”
- Hareton “lost the benefit of his early education”
- ‘Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the wind to twist it”
- “”He’ll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness and ignorance”
- “I’ve got him faster than his scoundrel of a father secured me”
- Linton is his “property”
12
Q
Heathcliff Marriage as a capitalist:
A
- “he couldn’t love a Linton; and yet he’d be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectation”
- Stares hard at “the object of discourse” – Isabella – “as one might do at a strange repulsive animal”
- “I should be Edgar’s proxy in suffering”
- Forcing Cathy to “either accept him or remain a prisoner” – Which she remains in marriage
- Heathcliff admits he “married (Isabella) on purpose to obtain power over (Catherine).”
13
Q
Heathcliff changes in death
A
- Just when “he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces… his fingers relaxed and gazed intently in her face”
- “Hareton seemed a personification of (Heathcliff’s) youth,”
- “I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction,”
- “I haven’t to remind myself to breathe—almost to remind my heart to beat”
- “I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are yearning to attain it”
- “MY heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncovered by me.”
- “excited expression” quivering like a “tight-stretched cord vibrates—a strong thrilling”
- “I wish I could annihilate his land from the face of the earth.” – removal of material things
- “I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers.”
14
Q
Lockwood
A
- “laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs” – Lockwood on Heathcliff
- “Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits” – Lockwood confused for a cushion
- “Terror made me cruel”
- “I pulled its wrist on the broken pane…till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes”
- “hurridly piled the books in a pyramid against it”
15
Q
Nelly
Bias Unreliable
A
“as our Miss Cathy is of us”—“domestic” Nelly identifys with “civilised behaviour”
• “and had no impulse to sympathise with her”
• “I would frame high notions of my birth”
• “lay the blame of his disappearance on her: where indeed it belonged,”
Educated, upward and civilised:
• “You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into”
• ““perused this epistle” – complex linguistic structure and variable vocabulary
16
Q
Catherine Chnages
A
- “wild, hatless little savage” → “a very dignified person” → “fingers wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors”
- Instead of running on the moors she “playing lady’s-maid…making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires”
17
Q
Catherine Split personality
A
- “Catherine Earnshaw— Heathcliff—Linton,”
- “and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one”
- “I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood”
- “If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.”
- “I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth”
- “angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy”
- “curl of light hair… a black lock. Twisted…and enclosed together”
18
Q
Catherine Heathcliff love
A
“It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now”
• “if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise”
• “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”
• “the eternal rocks beneath”
• “Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff” – Hypocrisy/denial
• “My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries”
• Without Heathcliff “the universe would turn to a mighty stranger”
• “It proved the commencement of delirium”, making her “dangerously ill”
• “eyes flashing, the muscles of her neck and arms standing out preternaturally” – When she is slit from Heathcliff
• “I won’t rest till you are with me.”
• “unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly” – Imagery of love powerful than the ailing body.
• “wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it.”
19
Q
Catherine Edgar love
A
- “And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood,”
- “In my soul and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!’”
- ““I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven.”
20
Q
Catherine Thrushcross
A
- Cathy is “seized” by the dog of Thrushcross Grange and “ wrenched from the Heights”
- “honeysuckles embracing the thorn…one stood erect, and the others yielded…Mr. Edgar had a deep-rooted fear of ruffling her humor .”
- Catherine must “moderate” herself within Thrushcross Grange
- “subject to depression of spirits…and seasons of gloom and silence’
- “endured very, very bitter misery”
- “I’ve been tormented! I’ve been haunted” – upon Heathcliff’s return
- “only preserve around her perfect and constant tranquillity”
- “I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free”
- “plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares”
- “shattered prison” – where she is “enclosed”and desirous of “escap(ing) “into that glorious world”
- Continued use of Mrs Linton to describe both Cathy and Isabella serves to further remove the sense of identity from Catherine.
21
Q
Catherine upon Heathcliff’s return
A
- “flew up-stairs, breathless and wild”
- the pair become “absorbed in their mutual joy”
- Nelly feels she is “not” in the presence of “her own species”
- “laughed like one beside herself.” – supernatural metaphysical connection beyond the boundaries of the physical being
22
Q
Catherine Selfish:
A
- “No, she felt small trouble regarding any subject, save her own concerns
- her words are “branded into (his) memory”, eating, deeper eternally.”
- “I’ll try to break their hearts by breaking my own”
23
Q
Isabella
A
Love Delusion:
• “‘I love him more than ever you loved Edgar”
• a “stray sheep” at the mercy of “an evil beast”
• “so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished”
Change:
• “bleeding profusely, a white face scratched and bruised” – Changed by Wuthering Heights, more powerful and independent
• “every wrench of agony return a wrench: reduce him to my level” – Even Isabella wants revenge
24
Q
Edgar depiction
A
“with all his superiority, found it difficult to make an equally deep impression.”
• “graceful.” “lamb” “that apathetic”
• “he wanted spirit in general.’”
• “a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley” – Heathcliff compared to Edgar
• “Had a deep rooted fear of ruffling (Catherine’s) humour”
• In Catherines distress Edgar “shut himself up among books”
• “pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her feet”
25
Edgar love for daughter
Cathy & Edgar Love
• “I’d not care that Heathcliff…triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing, but…I cannot abandon her to him” - Ed
• “I’d rather resign her to God, and lay her in the earth before me.” - Ed
• “I would rather be miserable than that he should be” – Cathy ; opposite to Heathcliff and Catherines love
26
Cathy physical
* “no angel in heaven could be more beautiful”
* “Earnshaws’ handsome dark eyes, but the Lintons’ fair skin and small features, and yellow curling hair”
* “their eyes are precisely similar, and they are those of Catherine Earnshaw”
* “love never fierce: it was deep and tender”
* “perfect recluse”
* “Penistone Crags particularly attracted her notice,” thus she “leapt her Galloway over the hedge” to explore\
* “sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee…rocking in a rustling tree…the whole world awake and wild with joy.”
27
Cathy & Hareton love
• “meet initially in “the best spirits imaginable”
• “her guide had been a favourite till she hurt his feelings by addressing him as a servant.”
both have connection to nature "artist interest" vs "dance in glorious jubilee"
28
Cathy Love linton
* “‘real’ cousin.
* Her connection so facile “his features had waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise him”
* “copious love letters, foolish”
* “It was not to amuse myself that I went: I was often wretched all the time.”
* Cathy feels “free” after his death
29
Cathy rebellion
* “you won’t, from mere malice, destroy irrevocably all my happiness”
* “we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery”
30
Linton
* “Ailing, Peevish creature” - “Pale, delicate effeminate boy”- “weakling”
* “infernal calf” - “whey-faced, whining wretch!’- “indulged plague of a child” - “provoking thing” - “cowardly betrayer”
* “‘No—don’t kiss me: it takes my breath.”
* “enjoy the agitation of (Cathy)”
* “wail aloud, for very pity of himself”, ““store every tear you have for yourself”
* “Linton can play the little tyrant well. He’ll undertake to torture any number of cats”
* “sucking a stick of sugar-candy…with apathetic eye” – composure in the midst’s of Cathy’s immense psychological torment because of his own wellbeing.
31
Outsiders – Isolated World
• “her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl” towards lockwood
• “We don’t in general take to foreigners here, Mr. Lockwood, unless they take to us first”
- Heathcliff as catalyst
32
Religion
* “hurled it into the dog-kennel…vowing I hated a good book” – Catherine, Heathcliff follows
* “no person in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk”
* “more sullen and depressed, and less furious….the Lord has touched his heart”
* Joseph is “the most wearisome self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible” and who has “a narrow-minded partiality”
* “It’s yon flaysome, graceless quean, that’s witched our lad, wi’ her bold een and her forrard way”
33
Love as a Social Institution
* “delusion of being married for love”
* Nelly believes Catherine’s reasoning’s prove she is “ignorant of the duties you undertake in marrying”
* Repetition of Edgars “duty” to Catherine
* “bring honour to the family by an alliance with the Lintons”
34
Boundaries
* “I on intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of fragments.”
* “Open the window…give me a chance of life.” “The frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife” gives her the “her delirious strength (which) much surpassed mine”
* “shattered prison” – world which Catherine lives, she was content in the prison until Heathcliff came and shattered it
* connection to nature reduced to a “chair in the sunshine by the window”
35
Catherine’s Room
* Wuthering Heights is like a prison “the windows- too narrow for even Cathy’s little figure.”
* With the doors locked the elder Catherines room is the only room which can be used as a means of escape as done so by Cathy.
* Heathcliff dies in this room and it acts as a portal through which Catherine and Heathcliff can unite on a metaphysical plane.
* Before his death the room is immersed by nature “the room was filled with the damp, mild air of the cloudy evening; and so still, that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable, but its ripples and its gurgling over the pebbles, or through the large stones which it could not cover.”
* In death Heathcliff is “washed with rain” drenched by the powers of the natural world through which he will return to in death and find peace.
36
Social Mechanisms
* Catherine and Heathcliff “ both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages”
* “It’s a cuckoo’s…And Hareton has been cast out like an unfledged dunnock”
* “mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering,”
* Heathcliff is for the most part able to “keep strictly within the limits of the law.”
* Dramatic Irony that Heathcliff is Isabella’s “legal protector”
* Nelly in the presence of Catherine and Heathcliff’s love “I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species”
37
Lockwood’s dream & prior diary reading:
* “glare of white letters…as vivid as spectres”
* “the name scratched on that window-ledge… Catherine Earnshaw— Heathcliff—Linton”:
* “my eye wandered from manuscript to print” – Lockwood
* “one—covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left” – Rigid text is not all encompassing
* “He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase”
* “I was moved to rise and denounce Jabes Branderham”
* “every man’s hand was against his neighbour;”
38
Hopeful ending
* “fragrance of stocks and wallflowers wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees. Both doors and lattices were open”
* “as she bent to superintend his studies…a small white hand over his shoulder”
* “they were about to issue out and have a walk on the moors”
* “the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies”
* “—one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed” – balance, symmetry
* Merging of the “gooseberry bushes “and the “”importation of plants from the Grange…her choice of a flower-bed in the midst of them”
* Cathy and Hareton have breakfast “under the trees, and I set a little table to accommodate them”
* “and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth”
* + Heathcliff and Catherine on the moors
* “‘I believe the dead are at peace”
Wuthering Heights
flashcards
Decks in class (1)
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