Bachelor Thesis

2005:150 BACHELOR THESIS Criticism of Social Conventions and View of Nature and Civilization as illustrated in Wuthering Heights Anneli Wengelin Luleå University of Technology Bachelor thesis English Department of Language and Culture 2005:150 - ISSN: 1402-1773 - ISRN: LTU-CUPP--05/150--SE Criticism of Social Conventions and View of Nature and Civilization as illustrated in Wuthering Heights ANNELI WENGELIN Department of Languages and Literature ENGLISH C Supervisor: Billy Gray 1 Contents Introduction 2 1. Criticism of Social Conventions in the 19th Century 4 1.1 Gender 4 1.2 The Class Issue 6 1.3 Symbols for different classes 7 1.4 The male class trip 8 1.5 The female class trip 9 1.6 Criteria for class identification 10 1.7 Thoughts about the class system 13 2. Nature – Civilization/Culture 17 2.1 Brontë’s description of nature 17 2.2 Brontë’s description of civilization 18 2.3 Is nature the same as freedom? 19 2.4 The development from nature to civilization 21 2.5 Is nature better than civilization? 23 3. Conclusion 27 2 Introduction Wuthering Heights, a novel written by Emily Brontë and published in 1847, is an early contribution to the discussion about women’s situation that had arisen during the early 19th century. During the Victorian Age some ideas about democratization of the parliamentary representation for the people were discussed and at the same time it was a puritanical age. Anthony Burgess describes the era as “an age of conventional morality, of large families with the father as a godlike head, and the mother as a submissive creature like Milton’s Eve”.1 Emily Brontë illustrates different difficulties that women had to deal with during these times by using her characters. The first Catherine, who is born at Wuthering Heights, pictures the way a woman’s future will depend on what kind of man she marries. The second Catherine, born at Thrushcross Grange, is a woman whose personality has grown and whose self-esteem is leading her on her way. Catherine II becomes an independent owner of two estates even though she gets married. Brontë pictures both these characters as individuals who are masters of their own future, which supports the idea of equality between the two sexes. As well as being a novel about women’s situation in society, Wuthering Heights can be interpreted as a criticism against the social class system. Brontë describes two families that belong to the gentry, who have a constant struggle to keep their position. They did not have an important name, like the aristocratic families, which could assure them of being considered high class members of society. Brontë wants to show that a person’s character and behaviour do not depend on class. A third theme in Brontë’s novel describes a conflict between nature and civilization. Emily Brontë lived her life on the Yorkshire moors which she loved with all her heart. Due to this, 1A. Burgess, English Literature (Essex: Pearson Education, 1974) 181 3 the novel can be seen as a tribute to her home and its surroundings. On the other hand Brontë’s novel views a conflict between nature and civilization, which is illustrated by the two families and their homes. This essay is going to examine, how Brontë describes the social situation for women in the middle of the 19th century, her view of social classes and the conflict between nature and civilization which she pictures in her novel Wuthering Heights. 4 1. Criticism of social conventions in the 19th century. By writing Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë attacked the social conventions that existed in her lifetime. She criticised both the social rules of how an ideal woman was supposed to be, and the importance of which class a person belonged to. These ideas were considered “the eccentricities of ‘woman’s fantasy’”2 by critics of her own time. As a way of getting her ideas accepted she gives her male characters feminine features and the female characters have many male traits and therefore, both sexes often act in a rather unconventional way. Brontë even gives the two families female and male features. The marriage between Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton gives the reader a hint of how devastating it can be to let social class be more important than love and happiness. By criticizing the Linton family, Brontë wanted to question the prevailing prejudices that existed about lower social class members being weaker and perhaps even more stupid and unfeeling people, than those belonging to a higher social class. 1.1 Gender In this novel, Catherine Earnshaw is described in a manner that made her contemporaries raise objections to how she spoke and acted. Catherine was not the soft and tame woman she ought to be, if she was to be accepted by society. At the beginning of Ellen Dean’s story, it is known that Catherine, at the age of six, could “ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip” (Brontë 44) when her father promised to bring her something from Liverpool. In the 18th century this was unusual for a girl of Catherine’s age and it gives the reader a picture of a tomboy with her own ideas, and of a rather unusual father, who taught his daughter such things even if he had an older son. Throughout the story Catherine continues to be very eager 2E.Moers, Literary Women (London: The women’s P: 1986) 100 5 to have her way. She is described by Ellen as a girl whose “spirits where always at high-water mark, her tongue always going – singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild wicket slip she was - …” (Brontë 49). When she was scolded she gave her opponent “a bold, saucy look and her ready words” (Brontë 49). Edgar Linton, who marries Catherine Earnshaw, has some traits which in contemporary novels are usually connected with women. He is very constant and tender, especially to his daughter Catherine, and he is indulgent towards his nephew, Linton. In the editor’s preface to the novel it is explained that Brontë did not like the thought, that such feelings and qualities were typical of women, only. To her, every human, created by God All Mighty, had these features. Compared to Heathcliff, Linton’s manners appear to be even more pleasing. Sometimes, the women are given features that place them in a higher position than the men. One example is Catherine Linton (Catherine II) and her cousin Linton Heathcliff. These two characters are described without any notice being taken of their sex at all. Catherine is a very healthy and active girl with a positive way of looking at things, while Linton is weak and dependent. The male cousin tries to get his way by crying and sulking, and he even acts like a lady when he has Catherine come to him. The housekeeper at Wuthering Heights describes him in the following way when she meets Ellen in Gimmerton: “And I never knew such a faint-hearted creature,” added the woman; “nor one so careful of hisseln. He will go on, if I leave the window open a bit late in the evening. Oh! It’s killing! a breath of night air! And he must have a fire in the middle of summer; and Joseph’s bacca pipe is poison --- And if Hareton for pity comes to amuse him, --- they’re sure to part, one swearing and the other crying”. (Brontë 182) 6 Linton is described as having feminine characteristics, and Brontë gives him delicate features with blond flaxen hair. Brontë uses colours as a sign of male or female character; therefore Catherine has darker hair than Linton. The author gives the two families different gender. The Earnshaw’s are dark, strong and healthy, which in Bronte’s novel are male features, while the Linton’s are more delicate and more sensitive to illnesses, which on the other hand are feminine traits. This way of mixing the genders without following the norms of society made critics in the 19th and the early 20th century unmasks the prejudices that existed about women and their authorship. In Reviewing Sex, Nicola D Thompson cites Herbert Read, who 1903 wrote an essay on the three Brontë sisters: In the case of Emily, the same causes [as Charlotte] produced a ‘masculine protest’ of a more complex kind, showing indeed, the typical features of what I think we must, with the psycho-analyst, call psychical hermaphroditism….In her childhood the villagers thought her more like a boy than a girl….much deeper and more powerful must have been the masculine assumptions of her mind. These found their fit expression…in Wuthering Heights.3 Herbert Read’s words about Brontë is an example of the reception Wuthering Heights received after it was common knowledge that Ellis Bell was a woman. 1.2 The class issue. In the 18th century, land and manner were of great importance regarding what social class a person belonged to. A man had to own a lot of land and behave like a true gentleman to be considered a man of high class. A woman, on the other hand, had to marry such a man in order to get the favours of being a member of a high social class. Land was much more 3 N.D.Thompson, Reviewing Sex, Gender and the Reception of Victorian Novels (London: MacMillan: 1996) 60 7 important than money; earning money from business was not ranked as an acceptable way to get a high position in society.

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