In Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë proves William Blake’s concept of “one law for the lion and ox is oppression” by documenting the suffering that occurs when people try to apply the same rules of society to everyone, primarily through the older Catherine’s transition from the freedom of Wuthering Heights to the boundaries of Thrushcross Grange. Blake proposes that each individual being is different, and all must be allowed to embrace their own identities and fulfill God’s purpose for making them who they are. A lion is a devourer and must hunt and kill and roam free, whereas an ox is a domestic pack animal that requires the care and instruction of others. Each animal is a unique and worthwhile creation of God and must live in its own universe,
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Each person must find the society which suits them individually, or, Blake adds, risk being forced into someone else’s. Catherine, on the veil between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, is forced into Thrushcross Grange before she has a chance to find her true place. The minute that the Lintons hear Catherine and Heathcliff outside, they “[shoot]” to the door like “arrows”, symbolizing their hunt of Catherine which will eventually result in her death (Brontë 38). They then set the bulldog, an animal originally bred to help herd and control livestock, to chase after her, believing she is a thief of some kind, perhaps robbing them of herself. The bulldog grabs Catherine by the ankle and starts to drag her back to the house and into a society that will murder her spirit. Brontë has Heathcliff call the bulldog “the devil” because the bulldog is like Blake’s true devil: not what most people claim is the devil, but the one who cajoles people into denying their energies. Blake’s definition of evil is that which prevents people from realizing their identities and making themselves happy, and thus the devil bulldog seizes Catherine and forces her into a unsuitable life that will destroy her. An unspecified Linton, presumably Edgar, asks what “prey” the bulldog has “caught” (Brontë 39), and from that moment, Catherine is stuck in the trap of Thrushcross Grange where she does not
Each person must find the society which suits them individually, or, Blake adds, risk being forced into someone else’s. Catherine, on the veil between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, is forced into Thrushcross Grange before she has a chance to find her true place. The minute that the Lintons hear Catherine and Heathcliff outside, they “[shoot]” to the door like “arrows”, symbolizing their hunt of Catherine which will eventually result in her death (Brontë 38). They then set the bulldog, an animal originally bred to help herd and control livestock, to chase after her, believing she is a thief of some kind, perhaps robbing them of herself. The bulldog grabs Catherine by the ankle and starts to drag her back to the house and into a society that will murder her spirit. Brontë has Heathcliff call the bulldog “the devil” because the bulldog is like Blake’s true devil: not what most people claim is the devil, but the one who cajoles people into denying their energies. Blake’s definition of evil is that which prevents people from realizing their identities and making themselves happy, and thus the devil bulldog seizes Catherine and forces her into a unsuitable life that will destroy her. An unspecified Linton, presumably Edgar, asks what “prey” the bulldog has “caught” (Brontë 39), and from that moment, Catherine is stuck in the trap of Thrushcross Grange where she does not