Wuthering Heights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Wuthering Heights - Essay Example As women began to question their social and personal roles in life as well as their increasing ability to take control of their own destinies, the question of romantic love as compared to marriage for position began to take center stage in the literature produced in that time. An example of this debate can be found in the novel Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Bronte in 1847, as it is expressed in the character of Catherine Earnshaw. In the novel, Catherine is seen as a willful, independent, half-wild girl raised without the benefit of polite society or traditional feminine influences. Despite this strong nature and independent lifestyle, however, she nevertheless finds herself wrestling with the traditional idea of marriage for position and the concept of marriage for love. During the Victorian period, women were beginning, for the first time in history, to make choices for themselves as opposed to merely following their father’s or eldest male relative’s directives as new options became available to them through the growth of the cities. While changes were slow to come to the higher social classes, change was evident in the reasons by which they selected their marriage partner. Even as far in the country as Catherine lives, there existed a struggle between the traditional idea of marriage for family positioning, the emerging concept of marriage for personal gain and the also newly emerging concept of marriage for love. This struggle is most succinctly outlined in a speech Catherine makes to her maid in chapter nine: This is nothing, cried she: I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. Ive no more business to marry Edgar Linton than

Introduction to fiction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Introduction to fiction - Essay Example Whilst searching for symbolism in the story, I cam across a few points like, â€Å"It was large enough so that it didn’t seem fragile, or particularly vulnerable if anyone sideswiped the table or Mondo blundered into it during play. She asked her husband to please not drop his house key in it. It was meant to be empty† (207). This excerpt primarily describes the fact that her husband, Andrea’s, was someone was not part of the bowl theory and could not identify with the symbol. When mentioning that she had bought the bowl at a craft fair in secret with her lover, it further signifies that she has been looking for her lost love and continuing affairs with him through the bowl. She must have not acted quickly enough to seize the moment with her lover, hence the line, â€Å"Her lover had said that she was always too slow to know what she really loved† (209). Through this we get the impression that perhaps she was too obsessed with the bowl to continue on with her affair. At one point it is shared that she even â€Å"†¦dreamed of the bowl. Twice in a waking dream-early in the morning, between sleep and the last nap before rising-she had a clear vision of it† (208). The bowl represented her affair and eventually it would be the bowl that ends her marriage. When looking back on the story, it opens with â€Å"The bowl was perfect† (206). Andrea feels like she made a mistake not admitting her affair and starting a life with her lover; therefore she loves the bowl as if it were her ex-lover and obsesses over it because to her, it is all she has left of him. She explains her guilt in this manner, â€Å"Sometimes in the morning, she would look at him (her husband) and feel guilty that she had such a constant secret† (208). She is continuing her affair through the bowl and is still having feelings of guilt. This further signifies her inertia with her ex-lover and clings on to the bowl in memory