Violence Rooted In Passion And Savagery

Violence Rooted in Passion and Savagery In the early 18th century, gothic novels became popular at a time when conservatism, empiricism, and realism dominated the modern western world. Emily Brontë challenged the morality of these European customs in her revolutionary novel, Wuthering Heights. The novel questioned the way readers thought about civilization, and raised questions popular cultural ideals during the rise of Romanticism: How does nature differ from culture? And in what ways does passion relate to savagery? Wuthering Heights displays countless scenes of violence stirred with passion and savagery. Every character in the novel radiates naivety, monstrosity, or fragility through their behaviors. 7 In the novel, Edgar Linton possesses

This enrages Catherine, causing her to lock everyone in the room and throw the key into the fire. Whereas Catherine’s motivation in this scene is to fight back against Edgar’s demand, Heathcliff’s motivation is vengeance towards Edgar. However, both characters display exaggerated emotions of anger that developed out of passion; they were stripped away from their only source of deep love and wildness. Heathcliff and Catherine turn to violence as self-expression because they were taken away from each other. Although Catherine chose to marry Edgar, she consistently displayed an attraction to savagery. Because of this, Heathcliff could be considered Catherine’s true desire because she represented her power in an aggressive way and refused to be separated from

The inappropriate rage displayed by Catherine’s outburst in chapter 11 can be compared with Cathy’s in chapter 27, when Cathy longed to be home with her dying father, Edgar. Edgar tried to take Catherine from Heathcliff, similar to how Heathcliff took Cathy from her father. Once Heathcliff proved himself powerful, he finally had acquired the power to force Edgar to feel his devastation. Before Heathcliff mysteriously became wealthy, he was portrayed as a savage to the Lintons. Edgar, who inherited Thrushcross Grange, was born into a wealthy, respectable family. However, Heathcliff did not have any inheritance or a familial background that the reader was introduced to. In society, a sense of entitlement was given to those with property, just as power was given to figures of authority. Edgar’s violence in the novel is composed and unemotional, which were similar to characteristics of civilization. In contrast, Heathcliff’s expression of monstrous and passionate violence are more comparable to nature. In the novel, the characters who are civilized own property and come from a wealthy family. Similarly, Catherine is punished when she behaves erratically, like how she ran enjoyed running wild as a child, and when she displays anger and passionate emotion. Catherine’s superficial desire to conform to cultural standards is the reason why she says that “it