A Critical Analysis of Wuthering Heights and Romanticism - Term Paper Example

A Critical Analysis of Wuthering Heights and Romanticism       Romanticism is a much discussed literary conception in the arena of world literature. This term, which gradually developed to a conception and further elevated to a philosophic level, has been interpreted in different ways by different literary figures in different times. However, there are three basic elements, which are integrally related with the term romanticism, namely, humanitarianism, love for nature and enlightenment through sensibility. Whenever the term romanticism is pronounced, automatically we start thinking about the romantic verses and the great romantic poets. At the same time, it needs to be remembered that apart from elements of romanticism can be cited in the writings of several novelists. Such was the effect of romanticism that it transcended its specific time period and made its access in the writings of several other authors of future. However, in the writings of those authors the elements of love for nature was not so conspicuous but presence of two other elements prevailed to a great extent in a way that they were aimed at complementing and supplementing each other. Humanitarianism is essentially considered as such a virtue, which is aimed at welfare of the total mankind and fellow feeling for each other. At the same time it is believed traditionally that human beings are required to forget their personal wises, requirements and desires to elevate themselves at the level in order to be recognized as humanitarians. Thus, according to this conception a person has to forget about his individual humane entity, which is in other ways denial of humanitarianism itself. In order to respect the human entity of fellow human beings, it is required for an individual to respect his fellow feelings at the first place. Attainment of such feeling can only be possible if he/she feels that he possesses a separate identity, which is very much integrally related to the macrocosmic human existence. In a more precise way it can be said that to realize the humanitarian feeling, a person needs to realize the connection between both macrocosmic and microcosmic existence. In this context, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights contains several elements of romanticism as the author has provided a great deal of emphasis on the matter of humanism through the way of self realization or enlightenment.       According to the opinion of Margaret Drabble romanticism is “…an assertion of the self and the value of individual experience ….The stylistic keynote …is intensity, and its watchword is “Imagination.”” (Day, 1996, p.1) The Wuthering Heights is considered by several critics as one of the earliest examples of feministic approach in the tradition of novel writing in English. Writings of Jane Austen, another great woman novelist of the period, also contain certain elements of feminism but those were not so prominent. Wuthering Height, in terms of characterization, depicting psychological development of the characters and orientation of the whole plot, has represented such prevailing charm that female writers of the later part, especially n the modernist era, were highly influenced. Wuthering Heights has been highly praised by Virginia Woolf, as she was simply influenced by Emily Bronte’s feminist approaches and at the same time she was also marveled by Bronte’s treatment of the women characters. The Victorian period, though during this time women received a great deal of social exposure but at the same time, they were also subjects to different types of social oppressions regarding expression of their emotions. That is the most startling fact about the Wuthering Heights; the author has made her women characters speak just as free human beings and not as some mechanized creatures, who were oppressed by the society. It is due to such bold actions Emily Bronte was hugely criticized by several scholars of her contemporary times. A simple reading of the novel shows that the author has emphasized to a great extent over the aspect of so-called romantic love but at the same time she has also presented such criticism of the love that had never been witnessed before. One of the contemporary critics wrote about the book that, “Wuthering Height is a strange sort of book, baffling all regular criticism; yet it is impossible to begin and to finish it.” (Feldman and Kelley, 1995, 158) It is through her novel, the author has presented her understanding of the civilization, gender hierarchy, and the frailty of such gender hierarchy construction also. This is such a civilization that forbids a human being to imagine according to his wishes. Imagination is a spontaneous faculty of every human being but in case of women, they are always prohibited from imagining. The very essence of their existence is chained. However, in the course of the novel the author has attempted to break the cycle and wished to present a harmonious existence of the women and human beings. The cosmos that Emily Bronte has presented in her novel, Wuthering Heights, is a cosmos of extremity, where mediocre existence does not carry any significance. It is the monotonous world of people like Edgar Linton, where inheriting and respecting the career interest of the ancestors are considered as great duty. He is like his father has pursued the path o being a magistrate and through this way he has become the inheritor of the patriarchal tradition. He feels that it is due to his hierarchy in the society, he demands respect of all the people around him. Looking at the characters, we see that either the human beings are servants or they are ladies and gentlemen, belonging to the higher social designation. Thus, cosmos of the novel represents such a social structure, where people are born wither to rule or to be rules. Catherine Earnshaw’s character is very interesting in the same context as she was portrayed basically as a violent woman and later on, has been transformed into a well manner elite class lady.  “She is washed, her hair combed, given fine clothes, taught to speak a refined language, provide with a respectable husband.” (Mellor, 1993, 197) The feminist as well as romantic approach of the author becomes clear as she transforms Catherine into a refined lady against her wises and she has expressed her disliking clearly in the narrative style of the novel. “Emily Bronte makes it clear that Catherine’s transformation into a lady is a fall, a crippling, a self division.” (Mellor, 1993, 197)       Bronte would have supported Catherine’s transformation into a fashionable lady if it would have happened in a spontaneous manner but the way she has portrayed the process of her transformation, reminds the reader that she is like a creature snatched away from the bosom of the earth. She is confined against her wishes and her transformation is done by violating the spontaneity of her soul. Now, if we judge such transformation process in contrast to the definition of romanticism provided at the beginning of the paper, we understand how much the very philosophy of romanticism has provided the author with the impetus to develop her feminist approach. At the initial part of the paper it has been told that romanticism is humanitarian from the very core and at the same time such humanitarian approach develops through the process of self enlightenment. Catherine was basically a woman from rustic background, who is deprived of her native existence, and her transformation is done in such ways as if to show that she is an untamable beast, who needs to learn certain lessons of the civilization. Catherine’s transformation clearly expresses that people do not know how to respect the expectation of other people and at the same time they do not understand the ways to respect theirs. They only glorify their own existence and level of status in the society, which they mistakenly perceive as very essence of their own existence as well. They also believe that all people must come under the scope of their dazzling existence and the whole world must be transformed just the way they want to see it. However, adoption of such methods cannot said to be humanitarian as those aspects, at the first place, are violating the rules of free human existence.       If Catherine would have transformed into an elite class young lady by her own wish then there would not have been a single place of objection. However, such transformation does not happen through the ways of self realization or enlightenment. Catherine always wished to remain in her own ways but her transformation has happened in a desperate way, violating the freedom of her soul, which in other ways implies that she has been transformed without any opportunity to depend over the process of her self-realization or enlightenment. According to the tradition of romanticism, such approaches of transformation can never be supported and in the entire novel the author has adopted highly sarcastic notes to criticize the system. In addition to both these aspects, the system has also deprived Catherine from her world of imagination. Her rustic existence, her acquainted ambiance everything was existent at a position of perfect harmony but she has been deprived of it in such a manner that her capacity of spontaneous imagination has also been halted. She finally realizes that she is divided into a complex character, such a character that though on one hand seeks her lost existence but on the other hand, is trying the level best to position her at the level of elite society. Ultimately, such splitting of her soul became unbearable for her. Anne Kostelanetz Mellor observes, “…she finally dies of the recognition that she has split her soul by marrying Edgar , that she can never possess both Edgar and Heathcliff….Separated from Heathcliff, from nature, from her own spirit/soul, Catherine cannot live.” (Mellor, 1993, 198) Thus, through the exposure of the fact that Catherine’s forceful transformation is actually violation of the rules of nature, anti-humanitarian and violative of the spontaneous process of self-enlightenment, the author has showed that the society has turned to be anti-romantic. Such analysis of human life clearly exposes the fact that spontaneous human existence is essentially romantic in nature but the transforming society is ready to breach the ways of the romanticism.         References 1. Day, A. 1996, Romanticism, Routledge 2. Kelley, T. M., Feldman, P. R. 1995, Romantic women writers: voices and countervoices, UPNE 3. Mellor, A. K. 1993, Romanticism & Gender, Routledge Read More