ENGL1000
Introduction to British Literature

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

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Think about, and be prepared to discuss, these questions. Check any word you don't understand in a dictionary or glossary of literary terms.

  1. What is the topographical setting of the novel? How does this colour our sense of the action? How does Brontė play with ideas of enclosed and open space? (Think about enclosure/exposure in other texts we've read: Beowulf and Gawain, for instance.)
  2. Is it useful to historicise the text? Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange seem very cut off from the outside world, but what was happening in the real world at this time?
  3. What does Brontė reveal about nineteenth-century class issues?
  4. What is the role of books and education? How does the novel view knowledge and learning?
  5. Where does Wuthering Heights "fit" in terms of the literary tradition and genre? Romantic? Victorian? Romantic Gothic? Domestic Gothic? What kind of hero is Heathcliff? Catherine Earnshaw? [Check terms in a glossary.]
  6. When does the narrative start? When does it end?
  7. How is the narrative conveyed to the reader? Are events recounted chronologically? Wuthering Heights is often referred to as a frame narrative. Given the role of Ellen Dean and Lockwood, what might that mean?
  8. What propels the action? For your tutorial preparation, you might consider two of the following: psychology, repetition, Fate, passion, sex, love, hate, narcissism, the desire to inflict pain, the desire for power, revenge, class struggle, education. Is happiness important in the scheme of the novel? Is it important in terms of your pleasure as a reader?
  9. What does Lockwood consciously or, perhaps more interestingly in terms of our discussion of the dramatic monologue, unconsciously, reveal about himself? (He's viewed by critics as the quintessential unreliable narrator. J. Hillis Miller [Bronte 378] sees him as a naive and inept reader and, since he's our delegate, as a warning to us as potentially over-confident readers.)
  10. Paradise Lost has long been considered an important influence in this text. Why, do you think?
  11. This is a very carefully planned and patterned text. Think, for example, about the mirroring love stories of Catherine/ Heathcliff and Cathy/Hareton.In what way might Cathy and Hareton's love suggest the possibility of an alternative narrative?