A TO Z Literary Principles from History of English Literature: Note 31

Short notes on History of English Literature: Wuthering Heights

A Set of 26 Objective Questions & Answers

• Wuthering Heights is the single novel and masterpiece of Emily Bronte published in 1847.
•  It is a chronicle of two generations of Earnshaws in their farmland home.
•  The chief character of this novel is Heathcliff, a wait picked off the Liverpool Street and brought home by the senior Mr. Earnshaw.
• Emily Brontë is careful to emphasize the contrasts between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.
• The strange elemental passion that binds Heathcliff and young Catherine is upset when Catherine is given in marriage to Edgar Linton. This provides the basis for Heathcliff’s vengeful action, for Heathcliff returns to ruin the two families.
• Bronte in her novel Wuthering Heights created somehow of her imagination a stark, passionate world, reminiscent at times of the storm scenes in king Lear.

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•  In other hands the story might be mere melodrama, but resembles Othello when told in a different way.
• As Emily Bronte narrates it, the story has a wild and cruel reality, and is original beyond any other novel in the history of English literature.
• Lockwood smugly accounts for Heathcliff's behavior by implying that Heathcliff is just like Lockwood himself.
• Lockwood gives a thorough description of Wuthering Heights.
• Emily Brontë is careful to emphasize the contrasts between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.
• Catherine Linton is particularly delighted when Hareton learns to read.
• A major obstacle to Heathcliff and Cathy's romance is their lack of financial security.
•  The moors play a role in Wuthering Heights almost as important as that played by the characters.
• Several of the themes of Wuthering Heights (for example, the powerful influence of the environment on human beings) are evident in Emily Brontë's poems too.
• The characters of Cathy Earnshaw and her daughter, Catherine Linton have many Comparing and contrasting elements.
•  The inhabitants of Wuthering Heights are very interesting points.
• Lockwood gives such a thorough description of Wuthering Heights.
• Hindley's strong aversion for Heathcliff is a critical point.
• Catherine Linton is particularly delighted when Hareton learns to read.
• A major obstacle to Heathcliff and Cathy's romance is their lack of financial security.
• The moors play a role in Wuthering Heights almost as important as that played by the characters.
• Wuthering Heights was adapted to the screen in a 1939 production directed by William Wyler and starring Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier, and David Niven.
• Catherine Linton tells Heathcliff that he is a 'cruel man' but not a 'fiend.'
• Wuthering Heights," by Emily Bronte is a tale of great, though morbid and undisciplined power. 
• The basic plot of Wuthering Heights may seem to be a timeless love story, but the characters and situations reflect many of the real social problems of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

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Ref: 1. History of English Literature- Albert, 

      2. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature
     3. Microsoft Students Encarta