1. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë
Top Withens, possible inspiration for the Earnshaw family house.

2. The bill for the 1992 film version
Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part One: First generation
The foundling Heathcliff is brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw.
Oppression and exploitation of Heathcliff by Hindley, Mr Earnshaw’s son.
Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff become twin souls.
The bill for the 1992 film version

3. The bill for the 1992 film version
Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part One: First generation
Cathy Earnshaw’s transformation from ‘savage’ to ‘proper lady’ during her stay at Thrushcross Grange.
Cathy’s betrayal of her ‘soul mate’ Heathcliff.
Heathcliff’s departure (splitting of the oak).
Cathy’s marriage to Edgar Linton.
The bill for the 1992 film version

4. 1. Key events Part One: First generation
Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part One: First generation
Heathcliff’s return as a ‘gentleman’ intent on revenge.
Cathy’s attempts to have both Heathcliff and Edgar.
Cathy’s derangement and illness.
Top Withens

5. 1. Key events Part One: First generation
Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part One: First generation
Birth of Cathy II, Catherine’s and Edgar’s daughter.
Cathy’s death and Heathcliff’s despair.
Top Withens

6. 1. Key events Part Two: Second generation
Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part Two: Second generation
Heathcliff’s revenge: property, gained by marriage to Isabella Linton and expropriation.
Degradation of Hareton, Heathcliff’s and Isabella’s son.
Heathcliff loses interest in revenge.
Near Top Withens

7. 1. Key events Part Two: Second generation
Emily Brontë
1. Key events
Part Two: Second generation
Heathcliff and Cathy together in death.
Marriage of Cathy II and Hareton: property restored to rightful owner.
Near Top Withens

8. 2. Narrative structure Non-linear narrative structure Use of flashback
Emily Brontë
2. Narrative structure
Non-linear narrative structure
Use of flashback
Beginning in medias res
Binary structure
Elicits curiosity in the reader
Invites comparison between the two stories
Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, where the Brontë family lived
Implies an active reader

9. Lockwood’s dream in an etching by Rosalind Whitman
Emily Brontë
3. Narrative point of view
Two frame narrators: Lockwood (as external narrator) and Nelly Dean (as internal narrator).
Chinese box structure: stories within stories.
Two interpreters; two auditors (reader and Lockwood closely identified).
Lockwood’s dream in an etching by Rosalind Whitman

10. Nelly Dean’s perspective
Emily Brontë
3. Narrative point of view
Nelly Dean’s perspective
Conventional  based on morality, religion and superstition.
She thinks Cathy is “wayward”, “ill-tempered”.
“I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance” (Part I, Ch. VIII).
“She was too much fond of Heathcliff” (Part I Ch. V).

11. Lockwood’s perspective
Emily Brontë
3. Narrative point of view
Lockwood’s perspective
The voice of conventional society.
An unreliable narrator because he does not know all the details of the story.

12. Implications of the multiple narrators
Emily Brontë
3. Narrative point of view
Implications of the multiple narrators
Strangeness and ‘otherness’ preserved.
Multiple interpretations: no single ‘truth’.
Unique Interpretation becomes impossible  modern aspect of the novel.

13. 4. Main characters Catherine
Emily Brontë
4. Main characters
Catherine
Wayward, difficult, rebellious, spirited & ‘unfeminine’.
“her spirits were always at high water-mark, her tongue always going... A wild, wick slip she was but she had the bonniest eye, and sweetest smile and lightest foot in the parish” (Part I, Ch. V)
“heaven did not seem to be my home” (Part I, Ch. IX)
Charlotte Riley as Catherine and Tom Hardy as Heathcliff in Coky Giedroyc’s 2009 film version

14. Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version
Emily Brontë
4. Main characters
Heathcliff
Persistent ambiguity: man or beast?
Unknown origins, absence of social connection.
Absence of emotion, “insensible”.
Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version

15. Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version
Emily Brontë
4. Main characters
Heathcliff
Deteriorates into brute state.
Violent and extreme language.
A Romantic (Byronic) hero.
Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuest’s 1970 film version

16. 4. Main characters Heathcliff / Catherine relationship
Emily Brontë
4. Main characters
Heathcliff / Catherine relationship
Vindictive, violent and possessive
“They may bury me twelve feet deep and throw the church down over me; but I won’t rest till you are with me… I never will!” (Part I, Ch. XII)
Merged identities
“If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger….Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” (Part I, Ch. IX)

17. 4. Main characters Heathcliff / Catherine relationship
Emily Brontë
4. Main characters
Heathcliff / Catherine relationship
Vitality, authenticity, freedom.
Rejection of class values.
Heathcliff and Cathy symbolise the instinctual, unconscious forces.
Contrasted with ‘civilised’ characters: Edgar, Lockwood, Nelly Dean.
Robert Brook, Heathcliff and Cathy, from the novel Wuthering Heights, 20th century, Private Collection.

18. 5. The Moors as symbol Attempt to escape
Emily Brontë
5. The Moors as symbol
The Moors represent the Romantic rejection of society and the desire to transcend its rules
Attempt to escape
English Moors
English Moors

19. 5. The Moors as symbol Escape is impossible
Emily Brontë
5. The Moors as symbol
Cathy reconciles self & class society through her marriage to Edgar and her relationship with Heathcliff
Escape is impossible
English Moors
English Moors

20. Emily Brontë
6. Gothic elements
Heathcliff as a Gothic villain in his inhuman treatment of his wife and his son.
The sinister atmosphere of Wuthering Heights surrounded by the wilderness.
Catherine’s ghost.

21. 6. Gothic elements The dreams and superstitions often mentioned.
Emily Brontë
6. Gothic elements
The dreams and superstitions often mentioned.
These are not used to frighten the reader, but to convey the struggle between the two opposed principles of love and hate, of order and chaos.

22. principle of storm and energy
Emily Brontë
7. Opposite principles
Wuthering Heights
Thrushcross Grange
The home of the Earnshaws.
Severe, gloomy, brutal in aspect and atmosphere.
Firmly rooted in local tradition and custom.
The background for the life of primitive passion led by its owner.
The home of the Lintons.
Reflects a Victorian conception of life.
Symbolises stability, kindness and respectability.
principle of storm and energy
principle of calm