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Motifs In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

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Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte tells of the story between two lovers and their families. It is a story full of love, passion, and hate. The book is mainly narrated by Nelly, who is telling Mr. Lockwood about now things came to be. Throughout Bronte’s book, the comings and goings motif reveals the theme: Don’t leave the happiness you already have. Firstly, when Catherine leaves to go to the Linton’s house, she left her place beside Heathcliff and suffered because of it. She realized that her “misery arose from the separation” that became of years ago “between [her] and Heathcliff.” Consequently, she became “the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been [her] world.” (Bronte, 92) Her choice to marry Edgar took her away from her home and love in Wuthering Heights to Thrushcross Grange, a place that cannot make her …show more content…

Unfortunately, her choice proves virulent because her life with him causes her suffering and abuse. Heathcliff speaks of his wife with full disgust. Isabella trusts him, but it turns out that he only causes her grief and pain. Lastly, Catherine Linton lived a happy life with many loved ones around her, but when she left she went in to an awful environment. At Thrushcross Grange, Cathy’s family always addressed her as “love” or “miss,” but after she marries Linton and moves to Wuthering Heights, she lives with exclamations from Joseph that she would “goa raight to the t’devil” (10) and from Heathcliff that “[she is] an insolent slut” (234) and “a damnable witch.” (234) Catherine went from being the apple of everyone’s eye to having such hatred cast upon her. In leaving her

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(Brontë pg number; chapter 10). Catherine has called out Isabella for a surface-level love and warned Isabella that Heathcliff is too much for her, and Isabella retorts by saying she loves Heathcliff more than Catherine has loved Edgar, which is proof of her becoming more assertive. Heathcliff and Isabella’s relationship quickly turns toxic and abusive and Isabella finally decides to stand up for herself and run away to London. Isabella is an interesting character, the more she matures, the more stubborn and self-protective she becomes, just like Catherine. As a teenager, when Catherine is unable to get Nelly Dean to leave the room, she stubbornly pinches her and makes her leave.

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As one can see by her last name, Catherine “Cathy” Earnshaw Linton is often caught in between the Earnshaw residence, Wuthering Heights, and the Linton residence, Thrushcross Grange. This is due to the fact that Cathy spends a lot of time being confused and very much lost. Cleverly, Emily Brontë even connects Mr.Lockwood and her. Having him see her in a dream, in which she desperately wants to get out of the moors. Which is her saying she does not

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Throughout the novel, Nelly acts as the voice of reason to many of her mistresses, although sometimes their actions have consequences. For example, Nelly encourages Isabella to renounce her love for Heathcliff. Nelly knows that Edgar would never approve of him as her husband, but Isabella disregards her advice and seals her elopement with Heathcliff anyway. Their marriage provoked the tension that had remained after Catherine 's decision to elope with Edgar rather than Heathcliff. Brontë scholars believe that Nelly is one of the only characters in Wurthering Heights that has the power to "shape the plot" by the fact that she has been a support to a handful of the characters throughout the novel.

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At the beginning of the novel, Catherine is described as a wild and rebellious child. However, that changes after her stay with the Linton’s. When she returns from her stay her “manners were much improved,” and “instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house…there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in” (46). Catherine was tempted by the way of life the Linton’s lived and, to fit in, has concealed her wild and rebellious nature. She confides in her housekeeper that she loves Heathcliff, but can’t marry him because it would “degrade” her (71).

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She admits this situation to Nelly, their servant, and nurse in Wuthering Heights like this: “I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now” (Brontë 71). When Heathcliff hears this conversation he leaves Wuthering Heights and does not come back for three years. After he comes back, he is a wealthy. He also upgrades his class to get marry with Catherine.

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Bronte’s description of the environment as being harsh and unforgiving is not a coincidence; she uses it to reflect the harshness of those who live at Wuthering Heights. The occupants of Wuthering Heights are not particularly welcoming to Mr. Lockwood. First he meets a dismissive Joseph who refuses to open the door for him saying “'Nor-ne me! I'll hae no hend wi't,’”” (Bronte 5).

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The grimace directed towards Cathy resulted, as Bronte explained, “... from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors” (9-10). After Nelly and Cathy, the proposed visitors, arrive at Wuthering Heights, the imagery created through seeing the grimace on Heathcliff’s face allows the reader to understand his loathing towards Cathy; his fake smile towards Cathy symbolizes the fake intentions for inviting Cathy to visit. Heathcliff invites Cathy to visit him, not to feel comfort from her presence, but to ruin the life of his enemy Edgar. Heathcliff’s abhorrence towards Edgar reflects itself from Heathcliff’s assertion, “ Mr.Liton has a prejudice against me: we quarreled at one time of our lives, with unchristian ferocity” (13-15). For Heathcliff to revenge against Edgar, he used pathos to convince Cathy to disobey Edgar’s rules, in turn making Edgar suffer from the disobedience of his

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