Romantic Obsessions In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

Romantic obsessions in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.
Emily Bronte’s remarkable Wuthering Heights is often categorized into the Gothic genre due to its grim and terrifying atmosphere; however, the novel can also be classified as a Romantic novel as it extensively explores what has been termed Romantic obsessions. Romaticism cannot be sufficiently defined by one single definition and it would either be too vague to effectively include all that is Romanticism or it would be too specific that it would end up being exclusionary (Abrams 236). A more effective way of trying to define Romanticism is to analyse any common features that are present in Romantic literature and these features have been termed Romantic obsessions. Some of these features

The description of the “bleak hill-top [where] the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made [him] shiver through every limb” (Bronte 5) is indicative of how unforgiving nature can be despite its wild beauty. Nature is a danger to even those who are familiar with moors as Heathcliff puts it “'I wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble about in. Do you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes? People familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings...” (Bronte 7), when nature exercises its power it does so without favour. 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). Then he meets the anti-social Cathy who “never opened her mouth. I stared--she stared also”. Lockwood then encounters Heathcliff who is the character that is most like the bleak rough terrain, when he gives orders to Cathy Lockwood said the order was “uttered so savagely that I started. The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad

Perhaps the most discernible demonstration of individualism in the novel is Cathy and Heathcliff’s love; it is ironic to say that love between two people demonstrates individualism since love automatically suggests that one would put another before themselves. The nature of their love is one where Cathy and Heathcliff are one entity; one cannot do without the other. Their love is not based off of the usual sources such as appearance, lust or even fondness; their love is out of a being a shared being as Cathy says "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” (Bronte 44). Their relationship is out of necessity for each other since they are the same person, it is not the type of love where if one had the choice to leave and do without the other person they would not make that choice. When Cathy dies, an astounding level of individualism is demonstrated by Heathcliff when he cries “May she wake in torment!... Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you--haunt me, then!” (Bronte 91). This shows that his love is out self preservation, he would rather have her tormented than rest in peace because he still needs her. He is not willing to sacrifice his own need for her in order