Wuthering Heights Analysis of Motifs. A story enamored with tragedy, passion, and lust, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

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1 Wuthering Heights Analysis of Motifs Amy Conway A story enamored with tragedy, passion, and lust, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte depicts the consequences of destructive, physiological love upon two people and their families. To understand Catherine Earnshaw s and Heathcliff s relationship, and other significant ideas and concepts in the novel, an analysis of the themes and motifs should be conducted. Major motifs that influence the novel include breaking barriers, dreams and the supernatural, and personifying nature. A significant aspect of this novel is the idea of breaking barriers and crossing boundaries; this is exemplified through reoccurring and symbolic descriptions of obstacles and pathways. Mr. Lockwood s first impression of Wuthering Heights is expressed through the locked gate barring the entrance; the gate being a symbol of captivity and restriction. When Lockwood dreams at Wuthering Heights, the ghost of Cathy pleads at the window, begging to be let inside. However, Lockwood bars her entry, even going to the point of rubbing her wrist against broken glass to release her grasp. Heathcliff, upon hearing of the dream, opens the window and calls for Cathy yet the portal is gone and she does not appear. Thus, the window can be described as a transparent membrane that separates her from humanity, preventing Cathy from coming in and preventing Heathcliff from going out. Windows, then, represent a kind of pathway into different ideas or state of being. The window motif is repeated when Cathy and Heathcliff, as children, look through the windows at Thrushcross Grange at the Linton s. Heathcliff says he and Cathy should have thought ourselves in heaven! (p.34) when peering at the beautiful furnishings inside, yet Isabella and Edgar Linton are in the midst of a terrible and tearful argument over a dog. The contrast this image provides between the Linton s and

2 Heathcliff and Cathy demonstrates the essentially different worlds that reside inside and outside Thrushcross Grange. After Cathy is bitten by Skulker, the Linton s dog, she is admitted inside to be treated while Heathcliff is left outside beyond the closed door. This marks a significant moment when Cathy is granted entrance and Heathcliff is barred, consequently establishing a barrier between them. However, this inclusion and subsequent marriage to Edgar, though initially grand and luxurious, turns into a bitter imprisonment for the rogue Cathy. When she falls ill and close to death in Thrushcross Grange, she exclaims to Nelly: Open the window again wide, fasten it open! (p. 92) to emulate the idea of freedom and perhaps death beyond the window. Cathy imagines she can see the shining (p. 93) light of a candle in her own room in Wuthering Heights when she looks out the open window, demonstrating the innermost longing of her heart despite her external ravings. When Heathcliff unburies Cathy s body after her death, he stops at the lid of her coffin and subsequently does not open it. The lid of her coffin symbolizes the wall between life and death, a barrier Heathcliff cannot cross until his revenge, and motive for life, is fulfilled. Heathcliff s eyes are also synonymous to windows in that they give an impression of what is inside, yet are impenetrable. There are many references to these eyes in the novel; they are described as full of black fire (p. 68), and, when he returns to Wuthering Heights after his long absence, Nelly says: I remembered those eyes (p. 68) when she could recognize naught else. When Heathcliff dies, his eyes, clouded windows of hell! (p. 136), remain open symbolizing his gaining his freedom and admittance into Cathy s otherworld between heaven and hell. However, the fact that his eyes are open also shows that Heathcliff has finally gone out, but his fiend-ness is not shut. His dark influence is still felt on the moor in the form of a ghostly shadow along with Cathy. Cathy s eyes are personified as the eyes of a murderer by Heathcliff during her illness; It is hard to forgive, and to look at those

3 eyes don t let me see your eyes! because she is essentially the source of her own death. At the end of the novel, Lockwood finds, on his return to Wuthering Heights after his absence, an unlocked gate, window, and door which parallels his first experience at Wuthering Heights; This is an improvement! ( p. 225). The mere instance of these previous barriers being now open symbolizes the change that has occurred to Wuthering Heights and its inhabitants. The Catherine-and-Heathcliff type of relationship is based on a confirmation of their own identity in a mirror-image of themselves (Stoneman 122) When privately speaking to Nelly about Heathcliff, Cathy says: "If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."(p. 60) Likewise, Heathcliff exclaims: "Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always drive me mad! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"(p. 124) Heathcliff s exclamation embodies the powerful idea and implication of supernatural events which play a significant role in the meaning of the book. Lockwood s stay at Wuthering Heights was marked by a nightly visitation of Cathy Linton after reading her journals and old books. Heathcliff reacts to hearing of this by calling out the window: "Come in! Come in! Cathy, do come. Oh do- once more!... hear me this time. Based on this quote, it can be implied that Heathcliff has not received visual visitations from the ghost of Cathy before, though feeling her presence, thereby showing his anguish that she is indefinitely beyond his grasp. This appearance of Cathy marks the first glimpse of the supernatural world in which she resides and Heathcliff cannot get to. Lockwood s role, then, in having this dream when he is not personally connected to the family, is to imply and foreshadow of further supernatural events in the book will occur. Also, his

4 dream, when contrasted with later dreams, serves to emphasize the characteristics of those dreams. Cathy s dream later in the book parallels Lockwood s; she dreams of going back to her own room in Wuthering Heights and imagines she can feel the wind that comes straight down from the moor (p. 106), and it slicing through her, mirroring Lockwood s dream. Ironically, Catherine invites what Lockwood in his dream was trying to avoid (Fine 28). Heathcliff s dreams contrast with the previous dreams as his are waking dreams; And when I slept in her chamber I was beaten out of that. I couldn't lie there; for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night to be always disappointed! (p. 230). A general idea is that the dream that generates Wuthering Heights is of two lovers united, of two lovers separated, of two lovers fervently wishing to be reunited (Fine 30). Hence, when Lockwood dreams it, it is disguised and fraught with terror. When Catherine dreams it, joy is mingled with self-pity and anguish. But when Heathcliff s dream is unequivocally beautiful; waking life, Lockwood s refuge, is Heathcliff s nightmare. (Fine 30). The dreams impact the novel by creating these comparisons and allowing the reader a glimpse into the character s true feelings; this is important because the reader is only told the story through an outside source, and is not given the opportunity to delve into a character s mind and especially their motives. Another motif in Wuthering Heights that has significant value in affecting the novel is personification of nature. Bronte believed: people are what they are, no matter what they are, no matter what the circumstances and what they are is fallen from nature itself (Goff 493). This idea proves significant in the novel as the question arises about Heathcliff s true nature and the motives of the characters. Symbolically, this means people have no choice over their fate; it was

5 written in nature. However, many characters and events in the novel are compared to nature as a way of personifying their personality and qualities. When first introduced, Cathy s face is described as just like the landscape--shadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid succession; but the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine was more transient..." seemingly bearing an imprint of the moors on her face. The moors themselves are depicted as wild, boggy, and treacherous and are the stage for all of the significant events in the book. This similarity between the moors and Cathy goes to show the wildness and unpredictable nature of each thus creating a comparison between them that ensues for the remainder of the novel. Heathcliff and Edgar are also compared and contrasted through Cathy s description of them: My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it as winter changes the trees my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath a source of little visible delight, but necessary (p. 60). Her statement blatantly refers to Edgar as an infatuation, easily wiped away, but Heathcliff as the essential rock below the moor supporting its shape and therefore supporting Cathy as well. Heathcliff says of Edgar s love: Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in that house-trough, as her whole affection be monopolized by him He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigor in the soil of his shallow cares! (p. 81) Nature later becomes a source of freedom for many characters. Cathy, when she is ill, longs to be on the moor; to be half savage and hardy, and free (p. 92) yet again as she was during her childhood with Heathcliff. Young Catherine leaps over the gate of Thrushcross Grange to explore the crags in the distance she has only heard about, but not seen which leads her to Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff. Thus, the moor and nature is not only tool for comparison and identification, but as a refuge and catalyst for many characters and events in the story.

6 In conclusion, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte explores the effects of lust and passion on lovers and their families. Key motifs that influence the novel include breaking barriers, dreams and the supernatural, and personifying nature.