CÁC YẾU TỐ GÔ-TÍCH CHỦ ĐẠO TRONG TIỂU THUYẾT ĐỒI GIÓ HÚ CỦA EMILY BRONTE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION
GRADUATION PAPER
Dominant Gothic Elements
in Wuthering Heights - the Only Novel
by Emily Bronte
Supervisor: Lê Thành Trung, M.A.
Student: Nguyễn Mai Ngân
Course: QH2010
HÀ NỘI - 2014
ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ
KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH
KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP
CÁC YẾU TỐ GÔ-TÍCH CHỦ ĐẠO
TRONG TIỂU THUYẾT ĐỒI GIÓ HÚ
CỦA EMILY BRONTE
Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Lê Thành Trung
Sinh viên:Nguyễn Mai Ngân
Khóa: QH2010
HÀ NỘI - 2014
ACCEPTANCE PAGE
I hereby state that I: Nguyen Mai Ngan, QHF2010.E4, being a candidate
for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the
2
College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper
deposited in the library.
In term of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited
in the library should be accessible for the purposes of the study and research, in
accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care,

loan or reproduction of the paper.
Signature:
Nguyen Mai Ngan
Date: 05/06/2014
3
table of contents page
Acknowledgements iii
Abstract iv
Chapter 1: introduction

1.1. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 1
1.2. Aims and objectives of the study 2
1.3. Significance of the study 2
1.4. Scope of the study 2
1.5. Research methodology 3
chapter 2: literature review

2.1. What is Gothic fiction? 4
2.1.1. History of the Goths 4
2.1.2. Connection to the Gothic Novel 4
2.2. Female Gothic 6
2.3. Review of previous researches on Wuthering Heights and the Gothic. 7
2.4. Emily Bronte and the novel Wuthering Heights 10
2.4.1. Emily Bronte 10
2.4.2. Wuthering Heights 11
2.4.2.1. Setting 11
2.4.2.2. Summary 12
Chapter 3: ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION
3.1. Gothic elements in the setting of the novel 13
4

3.1.1. Extreme landscapes and weather 13
3.1.2. Isolated and haunted house 14
3.2. Gothic elements in the theme of revenge 18
majorly seen in the actions of the Gothic villain - Heathcliff.
3.2.1. Heathcliff’s revenge on other characters 19
3.2.1.1. Heathcliff 's revenge on the Earnshaws: 20
Hindley and his son Hareton
3.2.1.2. Heathcliff 's revenge on the Lintons 22
3.2.2. Heathcliff’s revenge on himself 25
3.3. Gothic elements in the Female Characters 27
3.3.1. Catherine Earnshaw 28
3.3.2. Isabella Linton 35
3.3.3. Catherine Linton 39
CHAPTER 4: Conclusion
4.1. Summary of key points 43
4.2. Limitations of the study 45

References

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I am particularly thankful to many people for their invaluable help during the
conduct of my study. My teachers at college of Languages and International Studies,
5
VNU, friends and family have given me support and have in one way or another
contributed to the work presented here.
First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to Mr. Le
Thanh Trung, MA - my supervisor and advisor who has been encouraging me since
the start. He follows the research from the initial stage giving support and constructive
criticism. He is also the one thanks to whom I was introduced to English literature and
held the intention to study on the field.

Furthermore, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks my friends who have
always been helpful to me during the time of conducting this study, without their help
it would not have come to fruition.
Last but not least, my sincere thanks will come to my family, without the love
and support from them this thesis would not have been as successful.
ABSTRACT
So far, Emily Bronte has been recognized as one of the best English authors
with her masterpiece Wuthering Heights. With the aim of drawing a detailed and vivid
“picture of analysis” of dominant Gothic elements appearing in the only novel by
Emily Bronte, the study takes three main aspects of Wuthering Heights into
consideration. Firstly, the setting of the work obviously should be the one representing
the Gothicism distinctly. The author emphasizes the extreme landscapes and harsh
6
weather through the eyes of an outsider – Lockwood. Gothic atmosphere is reflected in
the isolation of the two houses from other societies and also the feelings of creep
bringing about by the haunted castle. Secondly, the Gothic villain in Emily’s novel
devotes his whole life to take revenge on people both in the Heights and the Grange as
he believes they have wronged him. However, at last, everything he gains does not
entertain him at all. The miserable mental life he has to suffer in the later part of the
novel is definitely the revenge he takes on himself. The final significant element I
consider in my thesis is how the author characterizes her heroines relying on
traditional stereotypes of Gothic literature. What is noticeable is that despite depicting
her heroines with several features that is similar with traditional ones, Emily Bronte
finds a way to make hers distinctive, breaking the norm, beyond the cage of patriarchy.
Emily gradually makes her female characters shift into more lively figures.
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study
When mentioning the literature in 19
th

century, nobody can bypass Wuthering
Heights - the only novel which laid the foundation of Emily Bronte’s significant role
in literature. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights has been described as “the one perfect
work of art amid all the vast varied canvasses of Victorian fiction” (Cecil, 1965).
When first issued in 1847, it was not warmly accepted, Victorian readers found the
book shocking and inappropriate in its depiction of passionate, ungoverned love and
cruelty. Although it took a long period for Wuthering Heights and its author to win
world recognition, today, the novel was regarded as a masterpiece of English
literature, and Emily Bronte as one of the greatest authors.
Wuthering Heights is based partly on the Gothic tradition of the late 18
th
century, a style of literature that featured supernatural encounters, crumbling ruins,
moonless nights, and grotesque imagery, seeking to create effects of mystery and fear.
According to Oxford dictionaries, Gothic novel is an English genre of fiction popular
in the 18th to early 19th centuries, characterized by an atmosphere of mystery and
horror and having a “pseudo-medieval” setting. But Wuthering Heights exceeds its
genre in its “sophisticated” observation and artistic subtlety.
The novel has been studied, and discussed from every imaginable critical
perspective. Although there are many experts studying of this work in the world, very
few critiques or analysis regarding Wuthering Heights have been written by
Vietnamese critics. If any, the preferable issues are character analyses or themes of
love or relationships, for example, rather than genre.
In this thesis, therefore, I want to take the Gothic genre as well as its elements
in the novel into consideration. To be more specific, what I would like to see in this
paper is how Emily Bronte received the Gothic and how her work is influenced by the
8
genre. The analyses of the work focus on the expression of Gothic fiction in the
settings, the theme of revenge and the characterization of female gothic in the story.
1.2. Aims and objectives
The ultimate objective of this study is to draw a detailed and vivid “picture of

analysis” of dominant Gothic elements appearing in the only novel of Emily Bronte -
Wuthering Heights because Emily realizes characterization through Gothic elements
and in the novel; they function as a means to reveal the suppressed feelings of the
major characters. Consequently, readers would be able to have a thorough and
profound understanding of the influence of these elements on the development of the
work.
1.3. Significance of the study
As stated above that there are few data related to this literary work as well as
this issue in Vietnam, the study could be a useful reference source for further studies.
Also, it will help people who are interested in this novel understand more about the
genre of the novel as well as Gothic features. Hopefully, the paper will provide
students with an overview on the historical and social background of the novel, thus, to
a certain extent, can contribute to the studying of English literature in Victorian time in
general and in Bronte’s works in particular. Especially, university students may have
more materials which will support them during the first semester of the third year
when they study “ English Literature”.
1.4. Scope of the study
It can be seen that Wuthering Heights is not merely a Gothic novel but it
obviously contains elements of the genre. Also, Emily applies the type of literature to
several aspects of the novel. However, this study will concentrate on depicting those
Gothic features in the Emily’s work, focusing on its setting, theme of revenge majorly
seen in actions of the villain Heathcliff and the three female characters.
9
1.5. Research methodology
To conduct this research, first and foremost I read the novel in both English and
Vietnamese to get the critical ideas of the entire of this work.
The next stage is searching from a number of sources to find the related data.
The types of sources are various and useful materials such as books, literature
critiques, online journals, and previous studies relating to the topic. Although data in
both languages are encouraged, in fact, very little of Vietnamese sources can be found.

As a result, the documents used in this thesis are mostly in English.
Thereafter, the data are read thoroughly so that the information can be
evaluated and the most suitable and reliable ones are picked up being analyzed. After
having edequate knowledge and information, it would be much easier for me to reflect
and evaluate the work of fiction. Besides, the material of literary history and literary
theory also consults as reference to the theoretical background for the subject.
Finally, the entire outcomes are filtered and recapped into refined manuscripts
before reaching the conclusion.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. What is Gothic fiction?
“Gothic fiction is hardly “Gothic” at all. It is an entirely post-medieval and
even post-Renaissance phenomenon”. (Hogle, 2002)
According to Oxford dictionaries, Gothic novel is an English genre of fiction
popular in the 18th to early 19th centuries, characterized by an atmosphere of mystery
and horror and having a pseudo-medieval setting.
2.1.1. History of the Goths
The Goths, one of the many Germanic tribes, fought numerous battles with the
Roman Empire for centuries. In this sense, “Gothic” has decidedly negative
connotations. The Goths were the chaps who along with Vandals, Huns and assorted
barbarian invaders, sacked the Roman Empire and destroyed classical culture,
replacing classical buildings with the more primitive versions of their own.
1
2.1.2. Connection to the Gothic Novel
The word “Gothic” was not at first used relating to the literary genre. During
the Renaissance, Europeans rediscovered Greco-Raman culture and came to be
associated with a certain type of architecture. The term “Gothic” as applied to
architecture resonates with ideas of “grandeur, massive size and space, alongside
intricate, delicate gardens of stonework…” (Williams, 2006, p.1). Obviously, there
was no connection between the type of architecture and the Goths, the reason was just

people at the time considered these buildings barbaric and definitely not in the
classical style and as a result marveled at. In the eighteenth century, “Gothic” had got
1 As stated by Williams, R. in his Gothic Elements in Jane Eyre and Wuthering
Heights, 2
nd
. (2006)
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both negative and positive connotations as the term could be used applying to anything
“medieval” or what came before the previous hundred years, being “remote,
mysterious, complex, disordered and exaggerated” (Williams, 1).
The term "gothic" is really used to refer a certain type of novels several years
later. As David De Vore, Anne Domenic, Alexandra Kwan, Nicole Reidy wrote in
their article The Gothic novel: “[People in this period] named because all these novels
seem to take place in Gothic-styled architecture - mainly castles, mansions, and, of
course, abbeys.”
Gothic horror emerges, like the detective novel, popular romance and science
fiction, with modernity. David Punter ties its rises to the Industrial Revolution,
but paradoxically in the midst of the 18
th
century “Enlightenment” the Gothic
harked back to an idea of the pre-modern. The term “Gothic”, originally a
medieval style of architecture came to mean “all things preceding about the
middle of 17
th
century”.
(As cited by McCracker, 1998)
The English Gothic novel began with Horace Walpole's The Castle of
Otranto (1764), which was enormously popular and quickly imitated by other
novelists and soon became a recognizable genre. It was, as the writer said, “an attempt
to blend the two kinds of romance, the ancient and the modern”, with “terror as its

principal engine to prevent the story from ever languishing” (Walpole, 6).
Leading to his research “The Gothic - Function and Definition”, Snorri
Sigurdsson wrote:
Martin Luther King had a dream of a better world, a world where injustice was
done away with and everyone lived in peace and harmony. Horace Walpole
also had a dream – but not one of a happier world or peace. His dream led him
to write a novel that became the first Gothic novel.
Early Gothic novels include Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
and Matthew Lewis's The Monk (1796) or William Beckford's Vathek (1786). Mary
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Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) shows the early link between the gothic and science
fiction, which continue up to present.
2
The genre then disseminated its components into various forms such as
Victorian novel, plays and operas, magazine, newspaper articles and stories,
“sensational novels” for the working class and women, poetry, painting, etc. In the
1890s, there was a concentrated revival of Gothic fiction, particularly in prose
narrative, highlighted by “such now-classic Gothic” (Hogle, p.2) as Oscar Wilde’ The
Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”
(1892), Bram Stocker’s original Dracula (1897), and Henry James’s serialized novella
The Turn of the Screw (1898).
During the 1900s, it was observable that the Gothic spread out “across the
widest range in its history, into films, myriad ghost stories, women’s romance novels,
television shows and series, romantic and satirical musical plays, and computerized
games and music videos, not to mention ongoing attempts at serious fiction with many
Gothic elements.” (Hogle, J. E.,2002, p.2)
In the late 20
th
century, there was an expanse in the academic study of Gothic
fiction at many colleges and universities and also in the genre publications.

2.2. Female Gothic
One of the earliest forms of Gothic literature, the Female Gothic often aims to
socialize and educate its female readers and is usually morally conservative.
When Ellen Moers wrote of the "Female Gothic" in Literary Women in 1978,
she created a new term bringing about a new way of thinking about women and the
Gothic genre. The woman admits that a definition of the Gothic was less easily stated,
“except that it has to do with fear” (Moers, 90). Also Fred Botting states that the
Female Gothic is "easily defined: the work that women writers have done in the
2 As in Botting, F. (1996). Gothic. London: Routledge, page 162-8.
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literary mode that, since the eighteenth century, we have called the Gothic" (Botting,
p.123).
3

The Female Gothic can also express criticism of patriarchal, male-dominated
structures and serve as a representation of feminine liberty. This form is often centered
on gender differences and oppression. In Gothicism works, readers usually observe a
female protagonist pursued and persecuted by a villainous patriarchal figure in
unfamiliar settings and terrifying landscape.
4

This kind of fiction first gained controversial celebrity in the late 18
th
and early
19
th
century. The initial development of this form was led by writers such as Clara
Reeve, Sophia Lee, and Anne Radcliffe, and later by Mary Shelley, the Brontes and
Christina Rosetti.
Also mentioned in their book, Fred Botting, Dale Townshend Taylor & Francis

(2004) add “the central figure [of the genre] is a young woman who is simultaneously
persecuted victim and courageous heroine.” (p.124)
2.3. Review of previous researches on Wuthering Heights and the Gothic.
Among the literary works of Emily Bronte, the genre that is most noticeable in
her own writing is probably the Gothic. Wuthering Heights (1847) is notable for its
atmosphere, and for its typical characteristics such as multiple narration, framework
narratives, inhuman characters, ghosts, violation of graves, the revenge motif, sadism,
doubles and captive heroines, which explain why the novel is often placed in the
Gothic genre.
5
3 As also mentioned in the very first page of The Female Gothic:Then and Now by Andrew
Smith and Diana Wallace.
4 The idea is taken from A Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms by Douglass H. Thomson. Page
10.
14
In the world, there have been studies of Wuthering Heights in many aspects
such as setting, characters and relationships between them, the love and revenge
between Catherine and Heathcliff. While Dawson (1989) was attracted to find ways to
approach this novel, Adam would like to dig further into the use of fiction factors like
dreams in the work which was demonstrated in an article “Wuthering Heights: the
Land East of Eden” (1958). Allan R. Bruck carried out a study on the narrators,
audience and message of Wuthering Heights. Stephanie Verhoff examined the wild
versus domestic through narrative structure, doubling, and romance in Wuthering
Heights which discusses a conflict between the civilized and domestic and the
untamed and wild. The story of the second generation brings to a conclusion the
conflict between domestic and wild.
6
Besides, the relation between Wuthering Heights and the Gothic form has been
discussed in some ways. It has been demonstrated in most research that Emily “used
the Gothic to explore her own creativity, but that her novel reached new levels of

originality; the book is filled with Gothic themes but is not merely a Gothic novel”
(Oda, 2009, p.1). Edith M. Fenton, for instance, has discussed how Emily Bronte
produced the realistic features and individuals in her theatre of the moors, taking
Gothic Romance as a “stage”. Patrick Kelly distinguishes the sublime in Wuthering
Heights from the Gothic: “[i]n Catherine’s words, ‘Whatever our souls are made of,
his and mine are the same’. It is this last and deepest mystery of character, finally
inexpressible though it is, that Emily Bronte intimates through the sublime” (Kelly,
5 As I have read in Women Writers: Emily Bronte (1989) by Lyn Pykett
6 The same idea can be seen in Verhoff, S. (2005)’s Wild versus Domestic:
Narrative Structure, Doubling, and Romance in Wuthering Heights.
15
1994). In addition, Syndy McMillen Conger, taking a feminist view, states that the
novel demonstrates women’s right to be respected as human beings in the convention
of the Gothic.
Also concerning about the issue, Robyn Williams’s Gothic Elements in Jane
Eyre and Wuthering Heights take into consideration two novels: Emily Bronte’s
Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte’ Jane Eyre. In the very first words of this
work he says that exploring the Gothic elements in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights
is “rather a daunting task” yet “fun”.
…I set out to try to pin down the term “Gothic” and found myself in a forest of
meanings and attitudes that have attached themselves to the word over time.
(Williams, 2006)
The author provides readers with a comparative view on the two novels,
nevertheless, from my point of view, the analysis is not deep enough for those who
want to go further in the issue.
Another critic studying on Emily Bronte and the Gothic - Yukari Oda, in her
analysis of female characters in Wuthering Heights, suggests that Emily gradually
makes her female characters shift into more lively figures, and Gothic heroines are
“transformed into several versions of more animated women” in Wuthering Heights,
and “echo” each other, “mirror” each other, and “collaborate with” one another to

provide a whole view. (Oda, 2009)
Investigating the elements of the Gothic in the Emily Bronte’s novel, Guðbjorg
Skjaldardóttir (2012) concentrates on the sublime Landscape, the Elements, the
Supernatural Effect, the Antiquated Castle and the Villain-Protagonist. He claims “the
true sublimity of Emily Bronte’s Gothic story lies, not in the classic elements of the
Gothic, but in her vision of man falling from nature.” The critic mainly focuses on the
setting and the surrounding elements rather than analyzing the novel protagonists.
ZHAO Juan (2011), in his Female Consciousness in Wuthering Heights,
investigates the female consciousness in the tale and analyses how Catherine rebels
against the male-dominated society and pursues her love. The author claims that in
16
Emily Bronte’s novel, she did not “directly call for free live and equal marriage” like
the contemporary female novelists. (Juan, 2011)
As mentioned in the very first part, very few critiques or analyses regarding
Wuthering Heights can be found in Vietnam. Nguyen (2003) carried out a study on the
wildness in the novel in which she provided a lot of her understanding about this
literary work as well as her profound analysis on the sense of wildness, the
environment and the characters of Wuthering Heights. Another study was conducted
by Le (n.d) who paid much of his attention to love and feud presented in the novel.
However, as far as I am concerned, themes or character of the work have received
much interest from Vietnamese critics than Gothic genre. Thus, I decide to conduct my
paper studying the genre and its elements in the novel.
2.4. Emily Bronte and the novel Wuthering Heights
2.4.1. Emily Bronte
Emily was born in July, 30
th
, 1818 in Thornton, Yorkshire, England. She was
the fifth child among six siblings in a literary family of Patrick Bronte and Maria
Branwell. The family moved to Haworth in April 1821. Only a few months after the
birth of her sister Anne, her mother died of cancer at the age of thirty. After that,

Maria’s elder sister, Elizabeth came to live with the family to help care for the
children.
At the age of 6, Emily joined her three older sisters Charlotte, Elizabeth and
Maria at the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge. Elizabeth and Maria became
seriously ill at school and returned home. In 1825, they died of tuberculosis. Bronte's
father removed both Emily and Charlotte from the school as well. However, they were
encouraged to develop creativity and artistic goal. Emily read extensively and began to
make up stories with her siblings. In 1835, Emily tried leaving home for school. She
and Charlotte went to Miss Wooler's school in Roe Head where her sister worked as a
teacher. She stayed only a few months and then backed to Haworth because of her
homesickness. In September 1838, at the age of twenty, she began to work as teacher
at Law Hill, Halifax. However, after six exhausting months, she resigned. Then, she
17
helped her sister with her own school girls at Haworth. Four years later, she went to
Brussels to learn foreign languages and school management holding an objective to
obtain sufficient education to open a small school of their own. In 1845, Charlotte
found some of her poetry and persuaded her to attempt to publish the work. Emily’s
life, like her mother’s and sisters’, does not last long. In fall a year later, Emily Bronte
left home to attend her brother Branwell's funeral at which Emily catches a severe cold
that spread to her lungs. On 19 December, 1848 she died of tuberculosis.
Emily Bronte was the most reserved and least social among Bronte children.
She pined for home and for the wild moorland where she lived. Like most authors, she
was a product of her environment and this influenced directly in what she had written
and Wuthering Heights was an example. All these elements make both her poetry and
Wuthering Heights more attractive.
2.4.2. Wuthering Heights
2.4.2.1. Setting
The narration takes place in the harsh and isolated Yorkshire moors in Northern
England, Wuthering Heights practically makes a character out of its geography.
Gimmerton is the nearest town and provides the location for other characters like the

doctor, the lawyer. The extreme weather and landscapes in the novel play an important
role and tend to reflect some of the desolate attitudes of the characters. It is easy to get
lost in the snow. The two main sites of action, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross
Grange, are conflicting in many ways.
Wuthering Heights was written in nineteenth century-the time of new kind of
social morality which resulted from Industrial Revolution (Shapiro, 1969). The
Emily’s novel depicted negative effect of the society by main characters. For instance,
the effects of racism on relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff when Catherine
is criticized for her love and acceptance of Heathcliff, she decides to marry a socially
accepted Linton. Heathcliff is despised by Hindley, judged due to his race, is called
18
gipsy. Social class and spouse selection are also demonstrates as when Catherine talks
to Nelly about who she should get married. All the things lead to the protagonist’s
passion of revenge. Putting the action of characters in the whole context, it’s easier to
see Emily’s creation over the works in earlier and also the same stage.
2.4.2.2. Summary
The narrative is started by Lockwood who visits the home of his landlord. A
subsequent visit to Wuthering Heights makes Lockwood curious when coming back
Thrushcross Grange and recuperating from his illness. Lockwood begs Nelly Dean, a
servant who grew up in Wuthering Heights and now cares for Thrushcross Grange, to
tell him of the history of Heathcliff. Mr. Earnshaw, owner of Wuthering Heights,
brings home an orphan from Liverpool. The boy is named Heathcliff and is raised with
the Earnshaw children, Hindley and Catherine. Catherine loves Heathcliff but Hindley
hates him because Heathcliff has replaced him in Mr. Earnshaw's affection. After Mr.
Earnshaw's death, Hindley inherits all the property including Wuthering Heights. What
he can do is to destroy Heathcliff, but Catherine and Heathcliff grow up playing wildly
on the moors, until they encounter the Lintons. Edgar and Isabella Linton live at
Thrushcross Grange and are the complete opposites of Heathcliff and Catherine. When
Heathcliff overhears Catherine tell Nelly that she can never marry him, he leaves the
Heights. Catherine gets married to Edgar. Three years later, Heathcliff comes back and

starts to take revenge on the two houses. He marries Isabella-Edgar's sister, soon after
his marriage, Catherine gives birth to Edgar's daughter, Cathy, and dies. Heathcliff
revenges Hindley by taking all his property then gaining control of Thrushcross
Grange and to destroy Edgar. Heathcliff forces Cathy to marry his ailing son, Linton.
After Linton and Edgar’s death, he becomes the owner of the two houses. However, he
suffers a mental misery, being haunted by the ghost of Catherine till death. Hareton
and Cathy at last are stated going to get married.
19
CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION
3.1 Gothic elements in the settings of Wuthering Heights
The influence of the Gothic literature that can be first observed in Emily
Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is setting of the castle of the same name. The writer has
used Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights as well as the environment of
Yorkshire to depict the isolation and separation from all other societies.
The castle plays such an important role that it has been called the main
character of the Gothic novel.
7
Wuthering Heights’s isolation and ghostly impression
present the genre’s archetype while the weather mirrors the passion and wildness of its
inhabitants. The houses, the wild weather, and the mysterious feeling combine to
create a truly Gothic setting of the novel.
3.1.1. Extreme landscapes and weather
Within the novel, Wuthering Heights is first introduced to readers through a
storm, which gives a strong feeling, provides an unusual insight that visitors may
perceive at first view. Wuthering Heights is a place of passion, life and a sense of
wildness. It is an ancient mansion located on a high vertical ridge overlooking an
inhabited wasteland. Mr. Lockwood when first comes to the Heights experiences: “…
on that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost and the air made me shiver
7 As mentioned in The English Gothic Novel: A brief Overview from
Academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu

20
through every limb…, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled…” (Bronte, p.8).
Or another time when “[they] came to the chapel, [he] have passed it really in [his]
walks, twice or thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near a
swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the
few corpses deposited there” (p.20)
In addition, the extreme weather in the moor is also illustrated several times in
the Gothic novel. At the night when Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights and
Catherine spends the night outdoors in the rain, sobbing and searching for him, “it was
a very dark evening for summer: the clouds appeared inclined to thunder”.
About midnight, […] the storm came rattling over the heights in full fury. There
was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off
at the corner of the building: a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked
down a portion of the east chimney stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot
into the kitchen-fire” (Bronte, p.72)
To Lockwood, the moors serve as a confusing expanse that is not an effortless
task or even almost impossible to pass through on his own. The moors confuse him,
especially when it snows, the roads seem to be a big trouble. He sees them as "one
billowy, white ocean" (Bronte, p.26) full of pits, depressions, rises, and deep swamps,
“a line of upright stones, continued through the whole length of the barren” (p.27). The
muddy parts of the roads can mean death for anyone who does not take caution just in
a twinkling.
The Yorkshire moors are described throughout the novel as very large, wild
expanses which as in Lockwood’s description is really a threatening land. The weather
is also a big trial for those coming to the Heights. This concept is mentioned in several
events occur during the narration, and thus emphasizes that the Yorkshire moors serve
as a symbol of wild threats from nature. From the first view till numerous facts
revealed in later part of the narrative, readers still find the moors very dangerous and
uninviting to outsiders. This can be considered a reason for the isolation of the two
castles in the novel.

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3.1.2. Isolated and haunted house
The two houses are both located at such bleak and desolate place, which estates
on the moors are distanced from one another, renders them difficult for people to get
access to.
For Wuthering Heights, even its name reveals the severe conditions, a wide
moor and inaccessible to many people. The building also contrasts with the refinement
associated with its neighbor, Thrushcross Grange. Before entering the house,
Lockwood observes several features relating to Gothic architecture as the deep set
“narrow windows”, “large jutting stones”, and “grotesque carving” (Bronte, p.4). His
landlord's house was constructed in 1500 - a long time before the stage of the
narration. It can be considered another Gothic trapping, as the settings of many Gothic
novels were often medieval buildings with baleful past. The nature of the building is
expressed right in its name: “‘Wuthering’ being a significant provincial adjective,
descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy
weather.”(p.4)
As mentioned in previous part, the location of the house causes difficulties for
people to travel through even those who are familiar with the territory. For an outsider
as Lockwood, when visiting the Heights in a snow storm, he may have to take risks of
being lost in the marshland without any guidance. “I had on one side of the road,[…]a
line of upright stones continued through the whole length of the barren: these were
erected and daubed with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark,[…]deep
swarms on either hand with the firmer path” (Bronte, p.27) In addition, the
surrounding area is depicted as a bleak landscape “with a long line of mist winding
nearly to its top […], the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows
the bend of the glen.” (p.79)
Besides, Wuthering Heights is also portrayed with old, dark and haunting
feelings. The house which gives the novel its name is old, mysterious, unwelcoming
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and possibly haunted. Even its location is inhospitable - its nearest neighbor is four

miles away, and its position on the moors leaves it exposed to the roughest weather:
“one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive
slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all
stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun” (p.4).
It is not difficult to observe in the describing that the construction itself is
gloomy and unwelcoming: “the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the
corners defended with large jutting stones” (Bronte, p.4). The house is also very old –
the date “1500” appears in plain sight, right at the main door, acknowledging readers
that it may have a long and dark history. “It is not so buried in trees […] and it is not
quite so large… You will perhaps, think the building old and dark at first” (p.174).
Images of windows and doors are used intentionally by Emily in the novel, as
people and ghosts are always trying to climb in or out, people are getting locked, doors
are slammed, keys are hidden, and so on. Several actions and emotions of the
characters are observed by the windows. Also considering the Gothic elements, but in
both novel Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, Robyn Williams states that “the window
[figuring] spectacularly in Lockwood’s dream, […] introduces the essential
‘supernatural’ ingredient in a Gothic tale”. (Williams, 2006, p.16). In the tale,
Heathcliff is often depicted standing in the doorway of Wuthering Heights observing
who crosses the threshold. What is more, at the center of the house is Catherine's oak-
paneled bed providing with the setting for the more mysterious and terrifying episodes.
They are Catherine's ghost fighting to get in against Lockwood's brutal refusal, and
later the discovery of Heathcliff's rain-soaked corpse. The new comer to the Heights
discovers that the house may be haunted when he sleeps in the old bed of dead
Catherine. His sleep is distracted by a troubling dream in which a child – Catherine –
scratches at the window “in the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow”. The child, in
“most melancholy voice”, pleads to be allowed in after roaming the moors for twenty
years. Being a stranger to the world of Wuthering Heights, he is terrified and alarmed
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by the appearance of Catherine’s ghostly form, and proclaims that the house is
“swarming with ghosts and goblins!” (p.23). In his conversation with Heathcliff,

Lockwood supposes that “[Catherine] wanted to get another proof that the place was
haunted, at [his] expense” (Bronte, p.23). Surprising to the visitor, Heathcliff flings to
open the window and “in uncontrollable passion of tears” (p.24) begs her to come back
again. The reaction of the master to this proves that what Lockwood has just
experienced is not a dream at all. Additionally, the symbols of open or closed doors
and windows are also seen till the end of Wuthering Heights. On last pages of the
novel, the doors are left open being the sign of the freedom of the inhabitants of
Wuthering Heights. At Heathcliff’s death, his window is discovered “swinging open,
and the rain driving straight in” (p.281). The scene makes readers to believe that
Heathcliff’s soul has finally been released from his own cage to join his beloved.
Bronte has used the ghostly setting of the house and the events that take place on
purpose to emphasize the Gothic feel of the story.
Unlike its neighbor, Thrushcross Grange is described “elegant and
comfortable a splendid place" (Bronte, p.40). In spite of this, the house is also
expressed as an isolated house from the society, which maintains little contact with the
world outside although it gives readers the sense of brightness, civility and
snobbishness. “Exactly an hour for every mine of the usual way” (p.27), Thrushcross
Grange is a much newer house in a protected area of the moors that keep the house
safe from the winds. The way Emily portrays the house was much milder than what
she does with Wuthering Heights, so it comes out more welcoming to outsiders:
…it was beautiful - a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-
covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower
of glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with
little soft tapers. (Bronte, p.40)
Considering the transfer of Gothic action from exotic to familiar location Emily
Bronte’s contribution to the Gothic genre, Winifred Gérin (1971) explains that “no
book was more rooted in its native soil, more conditioned by the local background of
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its author, than Wuthering Heights” (Gérin, p.225). Of the same opinions is Brendan
Hennessy (1978): “[ ] the story with all its passions is rooted in the reality of the

simple domestic life of the English countryside” (Hennessy, p.38). Emily’s sister
Charlotte remarks that “[The novel] is rustic all through. It is Moorish, and wild, and
knotty as a root of heath”. There is no doubt that Emily was perfectly familiar with the
landscape she was writing about. Her painting of it is realistic and skilfully
incorporated into the thread of narration. In the preface to Wuthering Heights Charlotte
Bronte also praises her sister’s descriptions of natural scenery: “Ellis Bell did not
describe as one whose eyes and taste alone found pleasure in the prospect; her native
hills were far more to her than a spectacle; they were what she lived in, and by, as
much as the wild birds, their tenants, or as the heather, their produce” (Wuthering
Heights, Preface).
The place becomes an active participant in the story. People living in the
Heights and the Grange are characterized as the reflection of their surroundings. The
Grange represents “civilization, warmth, and goodness”; the Heights signifies
“wildness, cruelty, and evil”. In other way, just as the surrounding moors shape the
nature of its inhabitants with the harsh actuality, the castle reflects the emotions and
psychological experience of many of the novel's characters, bringing about several
happenings throughout the story.
3.2. Gothic elements in the theme of revenge majorly seen in the actions
of the Gothic villian – Heathcliff.
The second Gothic element that should be mentioned in Wuthering Heights is
the theme of the revenge. In Gothic literature, Gothic villain is a character who is
“isolated from others by his fall and either becomes a monster or confronts a
monster”
8
, takes revenge on the ones who have treated him or her in a harsh way. In
8 The quote is taken from Textual Characteristics of The Gothic on Resources.mhs.vic.edu.au
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