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Wuthering Heights Comparative Essay

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Tragedies have intrigued audiences since Grecian times. The plots of these tragic tales often captivate viewers with outcomes that stray from the audience’s expectations. Many famous love stories are tragedies at their core: Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Wuthering Heights. Due to the devastating outcomes, Emily Bronte’s classic novel Wuthering Heights inevitably provokes questions, enabling the theme’s emergence. On the one hand, many argue that the book is about social class differences. On the other hand, some assert that the nature of vengeance lies at the heart of the book’s meaning. In contrast to these opinions, my own view is that the novel centralizes around greed -- for both wealth and relationships -- and stresses that selfishness will only bring suffering. Bronte emphasizes this theme by comparing …show more content…

Towards the end of the novel, Cathy decides that she must prevent her own downfall. In order to do this, she cries out to Hareton, “‘I was miserable and bitter at everybody; but, now I thank you, and beg you to forgive me’” (Bronte 300). She seeks to mend their relationship, in order to shy from her mother’s path and have a joyful life with her love. They start off by fixing their friendship, which blossoms into romance and happiness. Her open heart ultimately convinces Hareton to forgive her and demonstrates that love is possible when the participants are caring and forgiving of each other. After this incident, Cathy, “smiling as she passed Hareton, went singing upstairs, lighter of heart” (Bronte 302). Soon after he forgives her, evidence of her happiness appears; it is present in her countenance, voice, and overall attitude. Her selfless act of requesting prompts her instantaneous recovery in mood. The distinct improvement in her personality clarifies that although greed can bring suffering, the opposite is also

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Emily Brontë approaches the idea of sickness and death of the characters in her novel Wuthering Heights in a peculiar way. The characters that are ill are usually mentally ill, and their deaths often result from physical ailments derived from mental illness. The drive for revenge and desire for love that reigns among the characters often lands them in stressful situations that cause them to spiral downward into these mental illnesses. Emily Brontë’s emphasis on the motif of sickness and death in Wuthering Height deepens the drama of the plot and constructs more complicated relationships between the characters.

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