WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Wuthering Heights is the only novel of Emily Bronte, who died in 1948, an year after the book was pubblished. While she was alive, the novel didn't have the same success of Jane Eyre, her sister Charlotte's book, but was rather criticized, both because of its contents and its structure. The vision of love introduced by the writer through the characters of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff was completely different from other loves depicted in the same period; the two characters' passional feeling overwhelms them and, at the same time, makes them a single being. The narrative structure doesn't observe the Victorian novel's one, in which a large amount of facts, linked together by an intricate plot, follows the chronological order of the events. Wuthering Heights, instead, represents two stories, one the framework of the other, told by two narrators, starting from the end of the events. Wuthering Heights is set in the North Yorkshire moors, scenery that Emily Bronte knew well, being grown up there. The framework of the story starts with the arrival of Lockwood, a stranger who is the first narrator, ad temporary tenant of Thrushcross Grange, an estate of Heathcliff. The meeting with the grumpy owner of the property and the brief and forced sojourn at his house, Wuthering Heights, urge him to ask their story to Ellen Nelly Dean, the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange. The curiosity arrives mainly after the meeting with Catherine Earnshaw's ghost in her chamber at Wuthering Heights. This is the beginning of the out-and-out story, with Nelly as narrator, that starts with the arrival at Wuthering Heights of an orphan, Heathcliff, adopted by Mr. Earnshaw, already father of Hindley and Catherine. The boy is well treated by his foster father, that enable him to study, and finds a playmate in Catherine, that have the same rebellious nature as him. Some time after Mr. Earnshaw's death, his first-born Hindley marries a woman, Frances, and, jealous of the good relationship that Heathcliff had with their father, begins to treat bad the boy like a servant. Also the friendship with Catherine starts to sour since she was brought inside Thrushcross Grange, Lintons' residence, when one of their dog attached them. During her soujorn in the Grange, Catherine knows the comfortable and elegant Linton family, poles apart from her family, and begins to temper her nature, even if she remains passionate. Heathcliff argue with Linton, and swears vengeance Frances, who was pregnant, dies giving birth to a son, Hareton; consequently, Hindley starts to get drunk and treat bad other people. Moreover, he doesn't want that Edgar court her sister, and Nelly has to control them. One day, when Hindley is absent, Edgar is slapped by Catherine protecting Nelly from her. When they make peace with eachother, the young man ask her to marry him. Talking with Nelly, she declares that, even if she will marry Linton, she loves Heathcliff. He oveheard only the first part of her speech, in which she describes an hypothetical marriage with him as degrading for her, and decides to leave. Some time after this, Catherine and Edgar are married, but suddenly Heathcliff comes back, but now he is rich. Linton doesn't appreciate his return, while Isabella, Edgar's sister, falls in love for him. He encourages her infatuation take revenge against Linton.

Meanwhile, he is staying at Wuthering Heights, gambling with Hindley and teaching bad habits to Hareton; in this way, Heathcliff makes Hindley mortgage the estate. After an argument between Heathcliff and Edgar, Catherine falls ill. Heathcliff elopes with Isabella and marries her; when they return to Wuthering Heights, Catherine is still ill, and, after a visit of Heathcliff, she gives birth to a daughter, Cathy, and dies. After the woman's funeral, Isabella flees, and gives birth to a son, Linton. Hindley dies, so Heathcliff becomes master of Wuthering Heights and guardian of Hareton. Years pass by, and Cathy has grown, but she rarely leaves Thrushcross Grange. When her father goes to Isabella, who is dying, to adopt Linton, Hareton meets on the moors, and discovers Wuthering Heights. Linton, who is a sickly boy, is taken to his father to his estate. Three years later, Nelly and Cathy meets Heathcliff, that invites them to Wuthering Heights: he secretly wants Cathy and Linton, now friends, to marry for the inheritance of Thrushcross Grange. He holds captive the two women, intending to marry Cathy and Linton and to prevent the girl from returning to Edgar, who is ill. The boy succeeds to make Cathy escape, so she can meets her father before his death. Shortly after even Linton dies, so Heathcliff becomes master of Thrushcross Grange; Cathy retreats into herself. Lockwood arrives to Thrushcross Grange at this point; when he recovers from a cold, he returns to the south. When Lockwood comes back months later, Nelly has replaced the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights and fills in the rest of the story. Hareton and Cathy became friends, while Heathcliff began to see visions of Catherine, and fell ill. He was found died in his room, and he was buried next to Catherine. Lockwood visits the grave of the protagonists, and decides to depart; before his departure, however, he discovers that Cathy and Hareton are going to get married. The novel describes the Romantic passion between Catherine and Heathcliff, analyzed in its pure form, without the filter of the toughts of the Victorian society. The two lovers' feeling is linked with the nature of the North Yorkshire moors, where they know an irresistible passion that binds them like a single being. The novel is also rich in gothic figures: the beginning of the story told by Nelly occurs when Lockwood meets the ghost of Catherine. Other gothic themes are violence and hatred, that reach their peak in Heathcliff, moved by his desire of vengeance against Hindley and Linton. The passion of the main characters is balanced by Nelly Dean, the rational housekeeper and the main narrator of the story.

In my soul AND IN MY HEART

Before this passage, Edgar Linton, who was protecting Nelly from Catherine's fury, received a slap from the latter. The girl managed to keep him, and he ask her to marry him. Catherine mentions the proposal to Nelly, without saying her reply and asking her what she would do if she were in her shoes. The servant answers that she would have refused, because only a fool would ask her to marry him after the

row of the afternoon. Catherine accepted, instead, and ask if she was wrong. In Nelly's opinion it's useless to discuss this subject, because she already promised and she cannot retract, but, on Catherine's insistence, Nelly ask her some questions about her feeling. From her answers, it's clear that the girl loves Edgar for insignificant or wrong reasons, such as Linton being handsome and rich, and that consequently she could love someone else more handsome and rich. At this Nelly's statement, Catherine replies that she sees only the present, and now she knows only Edgar with these requisites. With such preambles, Nelly doesn't understand why Catherine is so unhappy; this is because her heart isn't convinced about her choice, and she doesn't understand why.

NELLY, I AM hEATHCLIFF
Catherine wants to reintroduce the subject of the precedent passage, beginning with a dream she had had. Nelly, who is superstitious, doesn't want to hear it, but she is forced to. Catherine dreamed about being in heaven, but she wasn't happy about that so she cried; then the angels, angry with her, threw her at Wuthering Heights' cliff, where she wake joyful. For her, Thrushcross Grange is like heaven, because she knows that she doesn't belong there, and that her marriage with Linton would be wrong. The best alternative would be marrying Heathcliff, the boy she loves, but Hindley degradeted him. The affection she feels for him is clearly different from the one she feels for Edgar in the previous passage: it isn't the beauty of Heathcliff that interests her, but his soul, that is similar to her soul. Meanwhile, Nelly spots the boy under the bench, that heard when Catherine described a marriage with him as degrading, and left before her declarations of love. The servant alarm Catherine without revealing Heathcliff's presence, and the speech moves to the feeling of the boy. Nelly considers him as unfortunate, because when Catherine will get married, he loses his friend and love, but the girl answers back that it's impossible to divide them, and that she will ash Linton to tollerate Heathcliff. Then she adds the worst, in Nelly's opinion, reason for marrying Edgar: with Linton's money, Catherine will restore Heathcliff's condition, while if she marries him, they would be beggars. The love she feels for Heathcliff seems to be totally absorbing and eternal. In this passage, Emily Bronte introduces one of the gotic thematics present in the novel: Nelly's supertition for dreams. The servant doesn't want to have to do with unreal and unfamiliar things, emphasized on the contrary by gotic novels of this age. But the main theme is the passional love that binds Catherine and Heathcliff, that was criticized in Victorian age. It's impossible to separate the two lovers, because they have the same soul, and this makes them a single being. This fact distinguishes this love, that resembles the eternal rocks for its solidity, from the one for Edgar, that is like the foliage in the woods, that changes with time. Also Catherine and Nelly's characters oppose with eachother: the first one is irrational and passionate, while the second one is more rational.

MAY SHE WAKE IN TORMENT!

After an argument with Heathcliff, Catherine dies, giving birth to her daughter Cathy. Nelly reports to Heathcliff what happened, and he, desperate, asks for informations. The housekeeper, moved to pity, tells him about the death,

occured in her sleep, after a sigh. Before her death, she didn't mention Heathcliff, not recognizing anybody, but remembered when she was young. Th man starts to cry, definig her a liar and asking where she is now. Finally, he pray that Catherine won't rest in peace and that she'll come back to torture him like the ghost of a murdered comes back to its murderer, because he would prefer the torment to her absence. Heathcliff starts to hit a tree with his head, losing blood. Shocked, Nelly wouldn't leave him alone, but she knows she can't console him. Linton and Heathcliff spent the days and the nights before Catherine's funeral sleepless, one on her uncovered coffin, the other outside. The gotic theme of the ghost was already approached by Emily Bronte in the initial part of the novel, when Mr. Lockwood met Catherine as a ghost in her room at Wuthering Heights. In this part, it is linked with the theme of violence and blood, another gotic theme. This time, the violent nature of Heathcliff hurts himself, but in other parts he attacks other people.