On the Tragic Fate of the Main Characters in the Wuthering Heights1

On the Tragic Fate of the Main Characters in the Wuthering HeightsContentsAbstract (in Chinese) IAbstract (in English) II I. Introduction1II. Literature review1III. The personal reasons23.1. Catherine2 3.1.1. Her double personality and her false choice23.1.2. Catherine cares too much about the judge of the community 53.1.3. She holds a wrong attitude towards marriage63.2. Heathcliff63.2.1. He is defeated by prejudice and loses his confidence and self-esteem63.2.2. Heathcliff does not give enough trust to Catherine73.2.3. His Male Chauvinism73.2.4. Reasons of his own characters8IV. The social reasons10V. Conclusion11References13摘 要呼啸山庄之所以为一部悲剧是有多种原因的。这篇文章从两个方面来解释这一悲剧成因：个人原因和社会原因。在个人原因这一方面，凯瑟琳和西斯克利夫都要承担责任。凯瑟琳拥有双重人格，一方面她深爱着西斯克利夫，另一方面，她没有勇气打破传统的束缚。另外，她还有自身的性格缺陷，比如：自私和虚荣。正是因为她的这一双重人格，使她最终选择了林顿，这一集财富名誉于一身的绅士。但是她却不能够忘记西斯克利夫。因此，凯瑟琳陷于矛盾之中。至于西斯克利夫， 他粗暴，疯狂和扭曲的性格是他选择复仇，造成这一爱情悲剧的最大内在原因，虽然这一切都源于周围人对他的偏见。而最重要的是，凯瑟琳和西斯克利夫生活在一个父权社会之中， 这一社会背景是他们之间爱情的最大阻碍。关键词：悲剧成因；个人原因；社会原因；父权 AbstractTragedy occurs in Wuthering Height because of different reasons. This essay analyzes the reasons from two aspects: personal reasons and social reasons. With regard to personal reasons, both Catherine and Heathcliff should shoulder the responsibility. Catherine holds a double personality, that is, she loves Heathcliff on one hand, but can not break the conventions on the other hand. Besides these, she also has some weaknesses in character, such as selfishness, vanity. Just because of her double character, she chooses Linton, the one with fame and wealth. But she can not forget about Heathcliff, so she becomes trapped in this contradiction. In terms of Heathcliff, he is violent, crazy and distorted in disposition, though all these should be blamed on the prejudice from others. Most importantly, they live in a society favoring chauvinism, which becomes the main barrier to his love with Catherine.Key words: tragic reasons; personal reasons; social reasons；ChauvinismIII. IntroductionWuthering Heights is Emily Brontes only novel. It was published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte. The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centers. (As an adjective, Wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather.) When Emily wrote the novel, England was a society of male chauvinism. Under this social background, women were of no social status, and their fate was decided by their father, husband and son. Their attitude towards marriage was deeply affected by the money worship of the Victorian age. Under this age, the Industrial Revolution entered its prosperous period, and the economy of England was on the rise. However, it revealed the shortcoming of itself- the internal contradiction of the capitalism. People in that age suffered tremendously.The work tells the tale of the passionate, yet thwarted love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys both themselves and many around them. Catherine chooses Linton because of his money, and this turns Heathcliff into a creature of revenge. After Catherine dies, Heathcliff begins his plan of revenge one by one, but at last, he finds all he has done means nothing to him, and he feels empty and sad, so he died of loneliness at last.II. Literature review:Wuthering Heights, which has long been one of the most popular and highly regarded novels in English literature, seems to hold little promise when it was published in 1847, selling very poorly and receiving only a few mixed reviews. People find this book full of inappropriate depiction of passionate, ungoverned love and cruelty, and even Emily Brontes own sister Charlotte remained ambivalent toward the intensity of her sisters novel. And the love depicted in the novel is regarded as meaningless and cruel. Some people only blame Heathcliff, because he is so merciless and crazy when making revenge and this revenge goes beyond the readers understanding. But some attribute the tragic fate to Catherine, thinking she disobeys to the convention, which brings about the tragedy. However, in my opinion, we can not blame Heathcliff or Catherine only. We should not only consider the personality of both Catherine and Heathcliff, but also pay attention to the social background of that time. The Personal Reasons：3.1 Catherine:3.1.1 Her double personality and her false choiceCatherine is so ignorant about the true meaning of love, and this is mainly because she has a double personality We can summarize Catherines double personality as following: She has both qualities of revolt and compromising. On one hand, she longs for a life of being with her true love, so when she finds Linton can not satisfy this kind of emotion, she begins to rebel. She acts dissatisfaction toward Linton and shows her love to Heathcliff, even when Linton is at present. On the other hand, when she is faced with her true love, she can not make a brave decision to be with him. This duality of personality can not be understood as an unfaithfulness of love, but as her pendulousness when choosing between the worldly love and pure love. As for her rebellion, we can see it from her early childhood life. Though born in a rich, high-society family, Catherine is not happy because she sufferers her brothers mistreatment. After her father died, her brother Hindley becomes the dominator of the house. And he wants Catherine to act like a real lady, rather than the “dirty dog” wandering outside. Therefore, he strictly watches over Catherines every movement, and if she does something just a little beyond his expectation, he will punish her. From the novel, we often see the scene of punishment on Catherine: she is often asked to stand at the corner of the wall, not allowed to eat and would be given numerous scolding by Hindley. Besides, she never receives any bit of love from her brother, in other words, she lives in a family lacking in love and caring. Therefore, when Heathcliff shows up in the house at the beginning, Catherine shows great interest to him. More importantly, she begins to show sympathy with Heathcliff and becomes good friends with him. They help each other rebel Hindleys abuse and care about each other. Catherine, in her deepest heart, is a girl desiring for the wild and free life. From the novel, we can often see her and Heathcliff run on the hillside of the Wuthering Height, which shows that they are all free souls. In this sphere, she loves Heathcliff from the deepest heart and their love is pure because it is built on the basis of mutual understanding. Before she gets married with Linton, she innocently believes that by marrying Linton, she can not only obtain the comfort of life, but also get her true love from Heathcliff. But Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Height, and this is a big shock to her. She runs and seeks him madly in the rain, thus resulting in his disease. But when Heathcliff comes back with success and a totally new look, Catherines calm is broken again, being too excited to sleep. Her peaceful world begins to shake: she is annoyed by Lintons sullenness, and is overjoyed at Heathcliffs visit. Only Heathcliff is an “idol” in her mind. Such kind of the contradicted, violent passion, which is full of willfulness and faith, makes the Lady distracted. “Willfulness” is superior to all. She accepts his domination of her because she is instinctively and naturally aware that her motivation has a deeper significance than the mere acquisition of property. In desperation, she chooses to destroy herself, locking herself in the room and refusing to eat anything for several days. Despite of such a deep love to Heathcliff, she can not give up all the comfort that she owns when being with Linton. From all above we can clearly see her double personality, and just because of this, she gets trapped and finally dies of the pain brought by the contradiction.This kind of double personality also contributes to her false choice between the worldly love and pure love:From the experience of visiting the Thrushcross Grange, Catherine, for the first time in her life, sees and understands what the life of the real upper class should be: it is full of civilization and elegance. Catherines behavior is changed by Linton, and Heathcliff cannot follow her. Although Catherine still cares for the happy time when she and Heathcliff run wildly together, she is under a lot of pressure to become a lady. When she comes back to Wuthering Height, she, on one hand, is eager to play with Heathcliff and flows to embrace him and kisses him on the cheek; on the other hand, she fears that Heathcliffs dirty hands will leave embellishments on her dress. It is just the time that she finds Linton attractive for he holds the quality of grace, being educated and handsome. As a result her sudden good feeling about Linton is understandable, and she understands this kind of emotion in her own way, “well, because he is young and cheerful”, “and because he loves me,” “and he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighborhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.” Of course, those are all her reasons to marry Linton, and Heathcliff is not able to meet these demands.” “if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars” However, in terms of the love towards Heathcliff, Catherine is more enthusiastic, which is commonly believed to be innocent, “I love him: and that, not because he is handsome, Nelly, but because he is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of , his and mine are the same；and Lintons is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” “I can not express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you.” “My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliffs miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is he. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he was annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it; Im well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He is always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”From what Catherine says, we can clearly understand that her true love is for Heathcliff rather than for Linton. However, she makes a totally false choice by herself-she chooses Linton, just for the sake of admiring his fortune and fame. In other words, she submits to her snobbishness and hypocrisy. She can not make a reasonable decision between true love and those things associated with common custom, which gives rise to the tragedy.3.1.2 Catherine cares too much about the prejudice of the community Compared with her own heart, Catherine prefers to a person who has all the qualities such as elegance, noble origin, being well educated and good-looking, which win the respect of people around. In this respect, Catherine is so shallow that she can not understand that the core of marriage is love, which is endurable and permanent, but not the desirable condition of a person. All those things are transient. This kind of material-oriented love will be doomed to confront extinct, just as Catherine puts it, “my love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it.” At the same time, she is not courageous enough to choose Heathcliff and the poor life. She dares not choose the true love because she can not bear prejudice by other people. Catherine is so ignorant of the definition of happiness, which is built on the basis of ones own attitude and satisfaction towards love.3.1.3 She holds a wrong attitude towards marriage. According to Catherine, marriage should be based on comfort and affluence, in other words, the material factor comes first, rather than deep love. Catherine chooses Linton because she wants to encourage Heathcliff, making him more progressive. But this is ridiculous-marriage is based on the mutual respect and trust, and most importantly, piety towards each other. She even tells her servant Nelly, “if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brothers power.” But things do not go as she hopes. Heathcliff, shocked by the betrayal of his love, leaves Catherine and plans a cruel revenge, which makes all the people involved greatly suffer, especially Catherine. As a result, Catherines “good intention” turns out to be the direct reason for the tragic fate between them. When Nelly doubts the possibility of her innocent hope of getting together with Heathcliff after she got married with Linton, she exclaimed with an accent of indignation, “who is to separate us, pray? Not as long as I live, Ellen, for no mortal creature. Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing, before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff.”3.2 Heathcliff3.2.1 He is defeated by prejudice and loses his confidence and self-esteem.In fact, if he only suffers mistreatment from other people, it is far from tragic. However, Heathcliff deserts himself just like others. He never discovers his own value, struggling in the distorted indignation that comes from other peoples disdain. One who loses confidence and self-esteem is no more than giving up himself. If he still has confidence, he will believe Catherine still loves him as usual, and he will not choose the way to revenge. He loses the ability to love himself and to love Catherine. 3.2.2 Heathcliff does not give enough trust to Catherine. He lacks enough communication with Catherine and does not have enough patience when pursuing love .Heathcliff once tells Catherine he will kill those people who tried to take her away from him, including Catherine herself. From this we can see that he does not believe Catherine remaining loyal to him. More importantly, Heathcliff does not give himself the chance to make clear the true thoughts of Catherine. Heathcliff once hears about Nelly and Catherine talk about Linton and himself in the kitchen. He hears Catherine tell Nelly that she cannot marry him because Hindley has cast him down so low; to marry him now would be to degrade her. Heathcliff withdraws in a rage of shame, humiliation and despair, but he can not hear the following words said by Catherine: she loves him more than anyone. Had Heathcliff calmed him down and kept listening to the last, or had he talked with Catherine face to face, there would not have been such a big tragedy like this.3.2.3 His Male ChauvinismHeathcliff is so eager to give happiness and protection to Catherine, but he has no money, fame or respect from other people. If he could accept what he is and the environment around him, he would be not so frail and sensitive to other peoples opinion about him. If he preferred to choose to stay beside Catherine, despite of all the negative comments on him, things would be different. In fact Heathcliff, though poor, remains a deep chauvinism in him. He believes a man should first be respected and proud of himself, and only in this way can he get what he really wants. Though he loves Catherine, he can not lose his dignity as a man, and he can not tolerate such kind of love at the expense of his confidence and pride as a man. In this way, we can say that Heathcliff treasures his dignity more than the love toward Catherine. Suppose he deserted his brittle feeling and chauvinism, and put up with all the difficulties confronting him, he would not torture himself and Catherine with action of his brutal revenge. 3.2.4 reasons of his own characterHeathcliff, a gipsy waif of unknown parentage, is picked up by the old master Mr.Earnshaw in the street and treated well by him. And the servant Nelly and Catherine treats him kindly. When he is ill, Nelly takes good care of him everyday. Nelly says “he seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment; he would stand Hindleys blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident and nobody was to blame.” From these we can see Heathcliff, in his youth, is a strong, kind, pure and a child who understands to repay for the kindness from other people. However, after Mr.Enshaw dies, and Hindley becomes the dominator of the family, Heathcliff is maltreated. Hindley deprives him of the right to receive education, go to church, and does not allow him to be with Cathrine, and all these can explain the following revenge of him. But as we see, all these factors are not strong enough to make him a crazy person desired for revenge. On the other hand, this unfair treatment has made a deep mark on his heart, and he says, “Im trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I dont care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!” “God wont have the satisfaction that I shall; I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and Ill plan it out while Im thinking of that I dont feel pain.”As mentioned above, all these factors are exterior reasons that contribute to his brutal revenge. The most important is that he is a person, in his deepest heart, depending on love.Though he later changes into a merciless evil, he is actually a man with a brittle heart. From the beginning, his spiritual backbone is Catherine. All the paining he suffers is not so important if Catherine is by his side and gives him comfort. However, to his deepest sorrow, his world elapses, and his hope disillusions, when he overhears the conversation that Catherine decides to marry Linton. Heathcliff believes that Catherine has already forgotten and betrayed their love. Heathcliff feels that he is entirely separated and deserted in the cruel world. He has no way out but escapes from the family. Heathcliffs destructive power is unlashed and he sets on the road of revenge. His vindictive hatred for all those who bullies him and who stands between him and his love is another main moving force in his life.And we should not neglect the fact that all the revenge he put on others comes from his deepest love for Catherine. When Catherine dies, “he dashed his head against the knotted thought; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears.” The love between him and Catherine is not a usual one, but a kind of love that surpasses life. He regards her as himself, the only fancy thing in the world. If she disappears, all the things will be the objective of his revenge. All his evil behaviors reflect other sides of Heathcliffs personality: endless love for Catherine and the fearless rebellion to the fate. Were it not for the deep affection for Catherine, he might have married another girl, noble and beauty when he gains the material wealth; he might have shouldered the responsibility of a husband and led a happy life with Isabella, a pretty and noble woman, after their marriage. But he never gives up the struggle against the unfair fate, and he insists on to the l