Essay on "Characterization and Doubling in Wuthering Heights Charlotte"

Essay 10 pages (3066 words) Sources: 4

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Characterization and Doubling in Wuthering Heights

Charlotte Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights is one of the best examples of Romantic gothic literature. By creating realistic, yet larger-than-life characters, Bronte illustrates what it takes to make a novel live. We have love, compassion, a connection deeper than what the human soul can express, selfishness, anger, and revenge packed into in this story. The two characters driving the plot are Heathcliff and Catherine but what makes their story is so compelling is the fact that they are not dealing with normal emotions. Their love is otherworldly and their biggest mistake is not realizing this. The power and mystery surrounding their lives and love create the perfect plot and setting for the Romantic gothic novel. One way in which Romanticism is expressed is through extreme emotions and desires. Catherine and Heathcliff possess similar desires for each other but their personal selfishness overrides love and they end up doing more harm than good. They two character serve as doubles in this way. For every ounce of passion, they have an equal amount of egotistical desires and they collide on the highway of life. Powerful characterization and doubling allow Bronte to establish a solid groundwork for one of the most passionate love stories ever told.

Strong, passionate characters drive the emotional pace within the novel. Catherine and Heathcliff remain two of the most compelling and equally impossible characters in literature because they are so consumed with emotion they can hardly contains themselves and many times, do not. They are quite normal on one hand and quite extreme on the other. That we can relate to their extreme personalities makes them dear to us because we can see bits of ourselves in them. Bronte successfully employs Gothic romanticism to "portray the equally torturous, incomprehensible, and potentially dangerous alleys of the mind" (Brantlinger 309) adding that the novel "deploys a Gothic demonization of the foreign" (Brantlinger 309). Katharine Rogers agrees with this notion, asserting, "In the two generations, Bronte displays the grandeur of Romantic passion single-minded, uncompromising, capable of unlimited empathy, impervious to worldly considerations and at the same time criticizes it" (Rogers). Characters that are constantly in the readers' faces grab the reader and instantly make them want to know more about who they are. Bronte, with the complicated and imperfect characters of Catherine and Heathcliff, delivers the perfect Romantic gothic novel with the perfect wildly intense characters.

Romanticism is often best characterized by these strong emotions and ravenous desires. Catherine often seems like an exaggerated character because she is driven by her emotions. She is realistic enough, however, to make us believe in her and her passions. After her return to Wuthering Heights, she has a goal for her life and Heathcliff does not fit within that plan. There can be no doubt she loves him but love does not fit easily into her plan for the rest of her life, either. She wants the kind of life that Heathcliff almost guarantees she cannot have -- one with social standing and creature comforts. She is not fool about this and even admits to her feelings. She knows marrying him practically secures her in a life of poverty and want. It is seemingly easier for her to decide against marrying him and in that instant; she takes her life in another direction. It is worth pointing out the she does not feels as though she has a choice if she is to be happy. She knows love and she knows what she feels for Linton is a kind of love that will change over the years as the "winter changes the trees" (Bronte 74). She thinks she can handle this and decides to marry him despite the consequences and all the red flags she sees. Here we see how love does not conquer all. In fact, we see pure unadulterated selfishness pushing love on the back burner as if it were a common piece of garbage. The truly sad aspect of this situation is the fact that Catherine is completely aware of what she is doing and does not care because of her shallowness. She does not care to change one thing she has done in the least bit. To be Linton's wife would mean to be the "greatest woman in the neighborhood" (70) and this is certainly better than being a "beggars" (73) as Heathcliff's wife. Catherine also admits it would "degrade" her to become Heathcliff's wife, and this is why he would never know how she truly felt (72). Then she says, "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moon beam from lightening, or frost from fire" (72). Catherine is a tragic woman. We want to like her but there is so much wrong with her and for the most part, it is her own fault. She is in a mess but she made the mess. She does not move out of her own way and continues to be torn between these two loves. Through her angst, we see the trouble we cause ourselves when we do not stop to think about the future and only want to satisfy our selfish emotions. Catherine loved Heathcliff but she was also greedy. In her mid, there was no way she could have both in this lifetime so she left the love of her life behind. She wants to be the wife of the man who can make her the greatest woman of the neighborhood but she still loves Heathcliff U.C. Knoepflmacher writes, "Catherine wanted to retain Edgar and Heathcliff, to live suspended between responsibility and freedom, civilization and eros, Victorian acquiescence and Romantic rebellion. Finding herself unable to span Edgar's social order and the life of instinct that she shared with Heathcliff, Cathy chooses to die, hoping to transcend a finite world of irreconcilables" (Knoepflmacher). In short, Catherine makes a world for herself in which she cannot live for long. She makes the mistake many people do, assuming she can feign her feelings and still be happy. She thinks she can find a happy balance and keep both of these men in her life and that simply is not possible. Even in our culture, we are still hoping we can have friends and lovers in our lives without the heart breaking apart at some point. What we continue to learn over the centuries is that love is complicated.

If Catherine is headstrong and difficult, then Heathcliff is as well. These two know they share a close bond. They have felt it and even consider themselves to be the same person. This feeling never leaves them and this is something neither one of them expected or planned their lives around. However, they do not treat this with the respect it deserves. Instead, they toss it around until not much of anything is left but raw feelings. Catherine was hoping that her new life with Linton would erase what she shared with Heathcliff and Heathcliff thought he could erase Catherine from his mind. However, it seems just the opposite happened. Heathcliff is not just influenced by but tormented by what happened with Catherine. His manhood was attacked and he felt insulted in a way that angered him. This anger fueled his activity for many years to come. He does not seem to do anything out of desire or pleasure but for revenge. Unfortunately, he becomes successful and he only uses it to cause hurt to those around him. He, just as Catherine does, acts as he does with no remorse or regret. The shadow of what he lost as a boy never leaves him as we see in his decisions. In moving forward with the power of love in the Romantic Fashion, these two people could never escape this connection regardless of how far they traveled -- even beyond death, this bond is strong. Bronte illustrates this when Heathcliff cries for Catherine's ghost to "Come in! Come in" (Bronte 33). With this scene, Bronte brings gothic aspects into the story by allowing something supernatural to exist between Catherine and Heathcliff. Their loves is powerful and unique and this is something they for granted for far too long. Heathcliff demonstrates what can happened when we do not allow ourselves to forgive and move on with our lives.

Catherine and Heathcliff's unique relationship explores the depth of love, regardless of how destructive it can be. Their love is what makes them linger in our memories. Both try to replace love with a poor substitute. It takes death to bring Heathcliff to pour out his emotions to her. As she dies, he says he could forget her as much as he could his own existence. (133) and after her death, he begs her spirit to haunt him, saying, "I know that ghosts have wondered the earth. Be with me always -- take any form -- drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find… READ MORE

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