Wuthering Heights - An essay written describing the destructive and redemptive power of love)
Uploaded by ash__ on Sep 28, 2012
Wuthering Heights
Greetings to the contemporary book club!
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, has long been one of the most highly rewarded and analysed booksin English literatureas it stands as the most original piece of work in the English language. Though the book did not hold much promise on its publication back in 1847 and had mixed reviewssince it did not appear to the society that it had any moral purpose in its context, the refined readers of the contemporary world, however, see Emily Bronte’s visionofthe twin possibility of love, which is the power of destructive love and redemptive love. They also realise that the narrator’s perspective has an effective way in relating the story and at the same time drawing us towards it.
In her novel, Bronte largely illustrates the power of destructive love usingthe character ofHeathcliffas the story mostly centers around him and draws on the vengeful and malignant motives he has of not only to take revenge on those who wronged him but also on their heirsto obtainthe ‘satisfaction’ of vengeance.One place that brings about the vengeful taste of Heathcliff is the parting of Hindley with Wuthering Heightsand becoming its next owner, as he declares, “I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it, at last. I hope he will not die before I do… and God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall have…”
To ‘pay Hindley back’ Heathcliff not only exploitshisvulnerability to lose all his property in gambling and drinking and later mortgaging it with him, but he alsobrings up his sonas a social outcast, denying himself and Hareton the natural affection which they feel for each other, as he says, “Is Hareton to be a beggar? Oh, damnation! I will have it back; and I’ll have his gold too; and then his blood; and hell shall have his soul! It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before,”whichindicatesthe same repressive treatmentHeathcliffhad suffered at Hindley’s handsin his childhood.It is not just in relation to Hindley, though, that Heathcliff seeks vengeance. He marries Isabella to avenge himself on Edgar for marrying Catherine and brings up his own son through sadistically inflicting fear and torment,plottinghim to marry young Catherine and being brutal to her as well in order to gain possession of Thrushcross Grange;thisdenotes a continual act of vengeance on the whole...