Wuthering Heights lecture two Shahd Alshammari AOU, Spring Semester 2014

North American reviews less favorable. Americans readers contemplated the literary and domestic structures of “corrupt old Europe.” Critic Queenie Leavis saw Wuthering Heights as ‘primitive’ or natural society against the artificial culture of the Grange. Heathcliff is a representation of ‘abroad’ How might he be considered an “angel of revenge” (360) Bronte’s depiction of him might be influenced by illustrations of Irish peasants in British-ruled Ireland between No source for his wealth- it is unknown.

The Uncanny in the novel. Discuss. Final passage – spirits of Catherine and Heathcliff. The grotesque and the uncanny instances in the novel. Similar to Hoffman’s “literature of terror.” Consider ‘The Sandman’ The uncanny defamilarizes- it turns ‘home’ into ‘abroad.’ ‘Suspect place’ – Freud (385)- equivalent to the ‘uncanny’ \ Heathcliff as Byronic hero, hero-villain, uncanny. Too close to home. Hybrid novel, hybrid Heathcliff. The uncanny, gothic elements in the novel, both at home and abroad. Discuss ‘Dramatic Monologue’ page 387, Wuthering Heights’s literary ‘home’: romance, domestic drama, poetry. Bronte was influenced by Romantics’ poetry and the poetic language of the bible, as well as seventeenth-century poet John Milton.

Wuthering Heights and Romanticism and the Natural world: Heathcliff and Catherine’s union of souls. ‘Nelly, I am Heathcliff!’ (Bronte 73) Heathcliff’s invocations of the ghost of Catherine: “Be with me always – take any form –drive me mad!’ (Bronte 148) This is similar to Byron’s Manfred. (pg 388) Childhood and Romantic ideas. The Romantic Bildungsroman, or novel of education. Much critical focus was based on this idea and Heathcliff’s growth. Imperialism and Reading 19 th century fiction One cannot separate the two. Victorian readers were aware of issues of class, race, and gender (Irish immigration, social marginalization) What would happen if the supposed power of the ‘savage’ was unleashed?

Monomania- Heathcliff. (Partial insanity- idea in 19 th century psychology) Other psychological theories. Pages The afterlife, heaven, and hell. Gilbert and Gubar’s The Madwoman in the Attic. Focus on the female characters. Subversion and theological inversion. Daring inversion of Heaven and Hell, nature and civilization Female Bildungsroman. Heaven in Catherine’s view. “Heaven did not seem to be my home.” (pg 395) Gilbert and Gubar were on the side of nature. Catherine’s injury symbolizes the repression of women within middle- class domesticity. Domestic Reading – what’s the purpose of books? Both Catherines have a relationship with books, Joseph with the Bible, and (402) How does this feature as the readers in Wuthering Heights being also interpreters? Consider the Activity on page 403