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Essay / Wuthering Heights - 1019
In the gothic novel Wuthering Heights, a man named Lockwood rents a mansion called Thrushcross Grange on the moors of England in the winter of 1801. Here he meets its owner, Heathcliff , a very rich man who lives 6 km away, in the mansion called Wuthering Heights. Nelly Dean is Lockwood's housekeeper, who worked as a servant in Wuthering Heights when she was a child. Lockwood asks her to tell him about Heathcliff, she accepts, while she tells the story Lockwood wrote in his journal. Nelly worked at Wuthering Heights for the owner, Mr. Earnshaw, and his family. One day, Mr. Earnshaw leaves for Liverpool and returns with an orphan boy. Catherine and Hindley β the two Earnshaw children, cannot stand Heathcliff. But Catherine and Heathcliff quickly become friends and fall in love, which makes them inseparable. Mr. Earnshaw begins to prefer Heathcliff to his own son. Hindley becomes very cruel to Heathcliff and is sent to college by his father. Earnshaw died three years later and Hindley inherited Wuthering Heights. He comes home married to a woman named Frances. Hindley becomes very cruel to Heathcliff and makes him become a servant of the manor. Catherine and Heathcliff remain close until one night they sneak off to Thrushcross Grange, where Catherine is bitten by a dog and forced to stay there for 5 weeks. When Catherine returns, she has been taught to be a proper lady and has become infatuated with Edgar. Catherine is still in love with Heathcliff but for her need for social advancement, she becomes engaged to Edgar instead. Hindley's wife, Frances, died giving birth to their son, Haerton, which pushed Hindley into alcoholism. Then Heathcliff runs away from Wuthe...... middle of paper......the characters in Wuthering Heights, and they come to the same conclusions. William Crimsworth (in The Professor) and Jane Eyre reject the master-slave relationship as static and stultifying and view the teacher-student relationship as one that allows for the growth and fulfillment of human potential. Similarly, Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw see the futility of Heathcliff's desire for vengeance and domination (the fact that he sees the world only in terms of a master-slave relationship when love fails him) and affirm civilization and civilized values ββin terms of teacher-student relationship. . (Knoepflmacher)Works CitedKnoepflmacher, UC Laughter & Despair; Readings in Ten Novels of the Victorian Era. Berkeley: University of California, 1971. Print. Bronte, Emily Wuthering Heights; Needham, Massachusetts, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: 1847. Print.