Motif To Theme In Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights'

Tuyen Nguyen

Mr. Work

English II- 7th period

February 24, 2017

Wuthering Heights Motif to Theme Essay Written in 1845 by Emily Bronte, the all-time classic novel, Wuthering Heights, has captured the hearts of many readers due to its intriguing tale that spirals between sincere love and heartless revenge. The book exhibits tangled fates of the inhibitors at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange: the passionate romance between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, her betrayal of his love by marrying Edgar Linton, and Heathcliff’s conspiracy to bitter vengeance that he now inflicts onto their innocent children whose lives are bind to their parents’ past. Throughout Emily Bronte‘s novel, Wuthering Heights, the window motif reveals the theme:

Separation in the distance cannot separate one’s passion for his or her love. When Catherine was gravely ill, she demanded Nelly to open the window and expressed excitement at the sight of “her old room [at] Wuthering Heights” even though Nelly confirmed that “Wuthering Heights was never visible.” Catherine then wished to go back to her happiest time which was the childhood memory of her and Heathcliff taking “journey across Gimmerton Kirk” as she pointed out the scenery beyond the window, and she vowed to “never rest until [Heathcliff] is with her.” Although Catherine rests at Thrushcross Grange, she still wishes to be at Wuthering Heights as it traces back to her childhood. However, her vision was just a figment of her imagination, which makes evident to her desperation to be with Heathcliff. Her emotion was not brought up by a real physical

At the beginning of the novel, a tapping sound woke Lockwood up in the middle of the night which he later discovered that the ghost of Catherine had caused it. She appeared by the window and begged Lockwood to “let [her] in,” for she has “lost [her] way on the moor [for] twenty years.” When Heathcliff found out about her appearance, he busted “into a passion of tears” and begged her to “come in…once more.” After many years, it seems that neither Catherine nor Heathcliff can let go one another. In this scene, the window represents the barrier between life and death, causing the lovers being unable to reunite. Despite the separation as big as life and death, it does not affect the passion they have for one another after as long as twenty years. Catherine still wishes to be in Wuthering Heights where she belongs with Heathcliff, and Heathcliff cries in agony as he missed the chance to see Catherine and continues to yearn for her every