A Study on the Prototypes of Heathcliff in Wuthering
Heights Introduction
When published in 1847, Emily Bronte's only novel, Wuthering Heights ranks high on the list of major works of English literature. And Emily Bronte is also called a "sphinx of literature" for her mysticism. Various mysterious and Gothic images pervade in the novel which makes readers feel confusion. In this thesis, I will attempts to explore some association between Emily Bronte and the protagonist Heathcliff in terms of Emily's unique personality, life experience and her living background and to find out the prototypes of Heathcliff in Emily's world.
Chapter one Heathcliff: Reflection of Emily Bronte Heathcliff is a many faced character and arouses more interest in the reader. Basically what Emily Bronte tries to do is to call the attention by means of Heathcliff and to break with the established model of romantic hero of works of her time. Emily put her all passion and spirit into Heathcliff. In a sense, Wuthering Heights is something kind of auto biological. Emily maybe the first prototype of Heathcliff . Because they are solitary, strong and arbitrary in personality, at the same time, they strive to earn liberty and equality and both have passion for moorland. In addition, Emily's masculinity is well-performed in Heathcliff, who is the embodiment of all the passionate sides of Emily's personality, and what's more he is indeed Emily's alter ego. Emily pours
her idea of freedom, her subjectivity and melancholy, her spirit of rebelliousness and feeling of solitude into Heathcliff to create such a complicated character. Undoubtedly, Emily writes this novel in the base of putting herself as the first prototype of Heathcliff. So in this sense, Emily Bronte is the prototype of Heathcliff.
Chapter two Analysis of Other Prototypes in Emily's World When Emily Bronte creates Heathcliff, Emily's living environment influences her a lot. The persons, appearing in her life, also provide authorship in her creative work, such as her father Patrick Bronte, who is a domineering, irritable and unsociable person; her brother Branwell Bronte, who makes him drunk to remove his sorrow after the failure of his love affair can be considered as the original prototype of Heathcliff.
2.1 Emily's Father: Patrick Bronte
Emily's life has been largely confined to the village. of Haworth, Yorkshire. It seems that she doesn't have any love affairs. So her Reverend Patrick Bronte, influences her a lot in both living and writing. It is easy to find Patrick Bronte's shadow in Heathcliff. In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, being very tough, rude and cruel, is a devil-like figure. His behavior of mistreating Isabella, Hareton, Cathy, and his son, and even the unfortunate Hindley:is cruel to the point that lacks of humanity. Although Patrick is not as cruel as Heathcliff. He is still considered as a rude person. Being eccentric, odd and selfish, Patrick
keeps the Bronte household in strict order and is known to fly into a rage when things do not turn out the way he thought they should. His rudeness can be seen in his outrageous interfere with Charlotte's marriage. He is cruel and morose. According to the Letter of Mrs. Gaskell to Catherine Winkworth in 1850, she describes something about Patrick Bronte. Ever since his wife's death, Mr. Bronte and his children have never eaten together, he doesn't teach his children anything. They can only learn to read and write from the servant. His stubbornness and selfishness can be seen everywhere in the HeathclifF, who starves to death in the pursuits of his stubborn love for Catherine. Perhaps, like Patrick Bronte, he was Irish. But he rises and rises. Degraded and abused as a child and adolescent, he becomes, by his own efforts, a man of property, interest, local influence, wealth, success, iron willpower, even cultivation. In order to revenge, he had his own natural son as a bait, and torture Cathy and Hareton mentally and physically. Heathcliff's stubbornness resembles much to that of Patrick Bronte. From that sense, Patrick is also one of the prototypes of Heathcliff.
2.2 Her Brother Branwell Bronte
The only brother of the famed Bronte sisters-Charlotte,Emily, and Anne-Patrick Branwell Bronte has often been viewed in stark contrast to these gifted and successful writers. Branwell Bronte is the fourth of six children and the only son of Patrick Bronte and his wife, Maria Branwell
Bronte. Of the four Bronte siblings who survived into adulthood. Emily also loves his brother deeply. In spite of this, Emily shows her emotional closeness and spiritual connection with her brother and loves him without judging him. She devotes her youth to her bad-behaved and unfortunate brother. It is reasonable to believe that Branwell's deep love gives Emily unforgettable memories and shock and makes her realize that -the destructiveness of a love that never changes. In Wuthering Heights, After his cruel revenge, Heathcliff begins to look forward to dying because there is no sense in his life and he has been haunted by the memory of Catherine. Heathcliff begins to act more and more strangely, and becomes incapable of concentrating on the world around him. He saunters on the moors all days, in pursuit of Catherine's ghost and drowns his trouble in drink. After four days' fast, Heathcliff dies. In Emily's real world, Branwell acts in the same way after his dismissal. In this sense, Heathcliff is a reflection of Branwell in reality. Therefore, Branwell Bronte is Heathcliff's another prototype.
In conclusion, apart from Herself, Emily Bronte takes her father Patrick Bronte and her brother Branwell Bronte for reference to create Heathcliff. Owing to these factors, the image of Heathcliff can become so vivid and brilliant that is accepted and favored by the critics and readers.
Conclusion
Although no reviewer could provide a definite interpretation of Emily
Bronte's single novel, the difficulty of reading Wuthering Heights, with its multiple narrators, in this way, has led to a different kind of fascination with Emily Bronte's enigmatic life and this novel has been considered a classic of English literature. Of many characters in Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is the most striking one and the novel centers on the story of him. His vengeful machinations drive the entire plot, and his death ends the book. It ’s a mystery for all of us. In this paper, we discuss the prototypes of Heathcliff in Emily's real world from her living background and life experience. After discussion it can be concluded that Emily integrates herself into the image Heathcliff, besides that, she takes her father, brother and Byronic hero for reference make Heathcliff so vivid and impressive.
Bibliography:
Allott, Miriam. Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights. A Case book. London: The Mecmillan Press Ltd., 1992.
Barker, Juliet. The Bronte.s. London: Phoenix Press, 1994.
Bronte, Charlotte. "Editor's Preface to the New Edition of `Wuthering Heights"'
Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte. London: Penguin Books Ltd, I 994. Woolf, Virginia, Woman and Writing. London: Women's Press, 1979. 艾米莉·勃朗特:《呼啸山庄》，杨该译，南京:译林出版社，2002年 简·奥尼尔:《勃朗特姐妹的世界》，叶婉华译，海口:海南出版社，三
环出版社，2004年
邓颖玲:“在希斯克利夫形象的后面一《呼啸山庄》中希斯克利夫创作模型考证”《外语与外语教学》，2003年第6期
玛格丽特·盖斯凯尔:《夏洛蒂·勃朗特传》，张淑荣等译，北京:团结出版社，2000年
玛格丽特·莱恩:《勃朗特三姐妹》，李森等译，天津:天津人民出版社，1992年.
蒲若茜:《呼啸山庄》“与哥特传统，”((外国文学评论》，2002年第1期。.
A Study on the Prototypes of Heathcliff in Wuthering
Heights Introduction
When published in 1847, Emily Bronte's only novel, Wuthering Heights ranks high on the list of major works of English literature. And Emily Bronte is also called a "sphinx of literature" for her mysticism. Various mysterious and Gothic images pervade in the novel which makes readers feel confusion. In this thesis, I will attempts to explore some association between Emily Bronte and the protagonist Heathcliff in terms of Emily's unique personality, life experience and her living background and to find out the prototypes of Heathcliff in Emily's world.
Chapter one Heathcliff: Reflection of Emily Bronte Heathcliff is a many faced character and arouses more interest in the reader. Basically what Emily Bronte tries to do is to call the attention by means of Heathcliff and to break with the established model of romantic hero of works of her time. Emily put her all passion and spirit into Heathcliff. In a sense, Wuthering Heights is something kind of auto biological. Emily maybe the first prototype of Heathcliff . Because they are solitary, strong and arbitrary in personality, at the same time, they strive to earn liberty and equality and both have passion for moorland. In addition, Emily's masculinity is well-performed in Heathcliff, who is the embodiment of all the passionate sides of Emily's personality, and what's more he is indeed Emily's alter ego. Emily pours
her idea of freedom, her subjectivity and melancholy, her spirit of rebelliousness and feeling of solitude into Heathcliff to create such a complicated character. Undoubtedly, Emily writes this novel in the base of putting herself as the first prototype of Heathcliff. So in this sense, Emily Bronte is the prototype of Heathcliff.
Chapter two Analysis of Other Prototypes in Emily's World When Emily Bronte creates Heathcliff, Emily's living environment influences her a lot. The persons, appearing in her life, also provide authorship in her creative work, such as her father Patrick Bronte, who is a domineering, irritable and unsociable person; her brother Branwell Bronte, who makes him drunk to remove his sorrow after the failure of his love affair can be considered as the original prototype of Heathcliff.
2.1 Emily's Father: Patrick Bronte
Emily's life has been largely confined to the village. of Haworth, Yorkshire. It seems that she doesn't have any love affairs. So her Reverend Patrick Bronte, influences her a lot in both living and writing. It is easy to find Patrick Bronte's shadow in Heathcliff. In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, being very tough, rude and cruel, is a devil-like figure. His behavior of mistreating Isabella, Hareton, Cathy, and his son, and even the unfortunate Hindley:is cruel to the point that lacks of humanity. Although Patrick is not as cruel as Heathcliff. He is still considered as a rude person. Being eccentric, odd and selfish, Patrick
keeps the Bronte household in strict order and is known to fly into a rage when things do not turn out the way he thought they should. His rudeness can be seen in his outrageous interfere with Charlotte's marriage. He is cruel and morose. According to the Letter of Mrs. Gaskell to Catherine Winkworth in 1850, she describes something about Patrick Bronte. Ever since his wife's death, Mr. Bronte and his children have never eaten together, he doesn't teach his children anything. They can only learn to read and write from the servant. His stubbornness and selfishness can be seen everywhere in the HeathclifF, who starves to death in the pursuits of his stubborn love for Catherine. Perhaps, like Patrick Bronte, he was Irish. But he rises and rises. Degraded and abused as a child and adolescent, he becomes, by his own efforts, a man of property, interest, local influence, wealth, success, iron willpower, even cultivation. In order to revenge, he had his own natural son as a bait, and torture Cathy and Hareton mentally and physically. Heathcliff's stubbornness resembles much to that of Patrick Bronte. From that sense, Patrick is also one of the prototypes of Heathcliff.
2.2 Her Brother Branwell Bronte
The only brother of the famed Bronte sisters-Charlotte,Emily, and Anne-Patrick Branwell Bronte has often been viewed in stark contrast to these gifted and successful writers. Branwell Bronte is the fourth of six children and the only son of Patrick Bronte and his wife, Maria Branwell
Bronte. Of the four Bronte siblings who survived into adulthood. Emily also loves his brother deeply. In spite of this, Emily shows her emotional closeness and spiritual connection with her brother and loves him without judging him. She devotes her youth to her bad-behaved and unfortunate brother. It is reasonable to believe that Branwell's deep love gives Emily unforgettable memories and shock and makes her realize that -the destructiveness of a love that never changes. In Wuthering Heights, After his cruel revenge, Heathcliff begins to look forward to dying because there is no sense in his life and he has been haunted by the memory of Catherine. Heathcliff begins to act more and more strangely, and becomes incapable of concentrating on the world around him. He saunters on the moors all days, in pursuit of Catherine's ghost and drowns his trouble in drink. After four days' fast, Heathcliff dies. In Emily's real world, Branwell acts in the same way after his dismissal. In this sense, Heathcliff is a reflection of Branwell in reality. Therefore, Branwell Bronte is Heathcliff's another prototype.
In conclusion, apart from Herself, Emily Bronte takes her father Patrick Bronte and her brother Branwell Bronte for reference to create Heathcliff. Owing to these factors, the image of Heathcliff can become so vivid and brilliant that is accepted and favored by the critics and readers.
Conclusion
Although no reviewer could provide a definite interpretation of Emily
Bronte's single novel, the difficulty of reading Wuthering Heights, with its multiple narrators, in this way, has led to a different kind of fascination with Emily Bronte's enigmatic life and this novel has been considered a classic of English literature. Of many characters in Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is the most striking one and the novel centers on the story of him. His vengeful machinations drive the entire plot, and his death ends the book. It ’s a mystery for all of us. In this paper, we discuss the prototypes of Heathcliff in Emily's real world from her living background and life experience. After discussion it can be concluded that Emily integrates herself into the image Heathcliff, besides that, she takes her father, brother and Byronic hero for reference make Heathcliff so vivid and impressive.
Bibliography:
Allott, Miriam. Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights. A Case book. London: The Mecmillan Press Ltd., 1992.
Barker, Juliet. The Bronte.s. London: Phoenix Press, 1994.
Bronte, Charlotte. "Editor's Preface to the New Edition of `Wuthering Heights"'
Wuthering Heights. Emily Bronte. London: Penguin Books Ltd, I 994. Woolf, Virginia, Woman and Writing. London: Women's Press, 1979. 艾米莉·勃朗特:《呼啸山庄》，杨该译，南京:译林出版社，2002年 简·奥尼尔:《勃朗特姐妹的世界》，叶婉华译，海口:海南出版社，三
环出版社，2004年
邓颖玲:“在希斯克利夫形象的后面一《呼啸山庄》中希斯克利夫创作模型考证”《外语与外语教学》，2003年第6期
玛格丽特·盖斯凯尔:《夏洛蒂·勃朗特传》，张淑荣等译，北京:团结出版社，2000年
玛格丽特·莱恩:《勃朗特三姐妹》，李森等译，天津:天津人民出版社，1992年.
蒲若茜:《呼啸山庄》“与哥特传统，”((外国文学评论》，2002年第1期。.