Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is an unconventional take on romance. Brontë presents two different types of love through the lives of her main characters. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff’s stubborn, romantic passion portrays the dark side of love. The characters’ intense passions and like-personalities cause much turmoil and destruction in their own lives as well as in all those around them. The next generation of lovers, Catherine Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw, evolve with time and are able to find success in a love that matures. Brontë offers Catherine and Heathcliff’s love story in contrast to Cathy and Hareton’s love story to develop her overall theme which teaches her readers that life and love are about growth and acceptance. Catherine
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They see each other as soulmates who serve as each other’s lifeline. This obsessive need to be together was unmistakable even as children. “The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him” (Brontë 42). Although they feel so strongly for one another, they are both selfish and cruel human beings. Catherine has her sights set on being "the greatest woman of the neighborhood" (73), which would not happen if she had married Heathcliff like she secretly desires. While she instead marries Edgar Linton, who has much more prominence in society and wealth, Catherine never lets go of her love for Heathcliff. All the while, Heathcliff sets out to join the society in which he knows she longs to be a part of. Upon his return, Catherine and Heathcliff continue to see each other to feed their mutual love-addiction. It is fitting to call their passion an addiction at this point because it is a “source of little visible delight, but still necessary” (88) for each person to continue to pursue. This addiction, like many others, has negative consequences—Catherine’s obsessions eventually …show more content…
The future lovers first met when Cathy goes to Wuthering Heights to visit her other cousin Linton. Cathy struggles to understand Hareton’s position in the household because he is uncivilized and brutish. Their relationship comes to a standstill after this first encounter because neither person makes a good first impression resulting in each offending the other. Cathy ends up being forced to marry Linton by Heathcliff and becomes a prisoner of Wuthering Heights. Hareton and Cathy’s story picks up again after Linton’s death when the two resume quarrelling. It is obvious that Hareton cares about Cathy though she is too arrogant to notice his small gestures of kindness, like when he returns the letter Mr. Lockwood brought from Nelly Dean to its recipient instead of giving it to Heathcliff. This note is in part important because of its relation to literacy, which symbolizes Cathy and Hareton’s love in the final chapters of the novel. Cathy proceeds to mock Hareton’s inability to read despite his attempts to correct his illiteracy. “Those books, both prose and verse, were consecrated to me by other associations, and I hate to hear them debased and profaned in his mouth!" (302) However, after Hareton displays clear signs of embarrassment and hurt, she feels guilty for being unkind to her cousin. She extends an apology in the form of a book and
They see each other as soulmates who serve as each other’s lifeline. This obsessive need to be together was unmistakable even as children. “The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him” (Brontë 42). Although they feel so strongly for one another, they are both selfish and cruel human beings. Catherine has her sights set on being "the greatest woman of the neighborhood" (73), which would not happen if she had married Heathcliff like she secretly desires. While she instead marries Edgar Linton, who has much more prominence in society and wealth, Catherine never lets go of her love for Heathcliff. All the while, Heathcliff sets out to join the society in which he knows she longs to be a part of. Upon his return, Catherine and Heathcliff continue to see each other to feed their mutual love-addiction. It is fitting to call their passion an addiction at this point because it is a “source of little visible delight, but still necessary” (88) for each person to continue to pursue. This addiction, like many others, has negative consequences—Catherine’s obsessions eventually …show more content…
The future lovers first met when Cathy goes to Wuthering Heights to visit her other cousin Linton. Cathy struggles to understand Hareton’s position in the household because he is uncivilized and brutish. Their relationship comes to a standstill after this first encounter because neither person makes a good first impression resulting in each offending the other. Cathy ends up being forced to marry Linton by Heathcliff and becomes a prisoner of Wuthering Heights. Hareton and Cathy’s story picks up again after Linton’s death when the two resume quarrelling. It is obvious that Hareton cares about Cathy though she is too arrogant to notice his small gestures of kindness, like when he returns the letter Mr. Lockwood brought from Nelly Dean to its recipient instead of giving it to Heathcliff. This note is in part important because of its relation to literacy, which symbolizes Cathy and Hareton’s love in the final chapters of the novel. Cathy proceeds to mock Hareton’s inability to read despite his attempts to correct his illiteracy. “Those books, both prose and verse, were consecrated to me by other associations, and I hate to hear them debased and profaned in his mouth!" (302) However, after Hareton displays clear signs of embarrassment and hurt, she feels guilty for being unkind to her cousin. She extends an apology in the form of a book and