| 标题 | Analysis of Three Women in Wuthering Heights from a Female Gothic Perspective |
| 范文 | 张丽业 【Abstract】 Since it was published, Wuthering Heights has suffered many attacks and criticism. However, there is hardly any attempt to research it by combining its Gothic context with the feminist viewpoint. The paper mainly discusses three female characters, analyzes their emotional world and dig out the nature deep in the consciousness from a female Gothic perspective. 【关键词】 Wuthering Heights female gothic women characters; women consciousness I. Introduction Emily Bronte and her only work Wuthering Heights receive high evaluation in the world of literature, which gets comments from different angles by critics all over the world. Time has proven Wuthering Heights to be a true masterpiece and Emily Bronte is regarded as a genius of English literature. For more than one hundred and fifty years, Wuthering Heights has been interpreted from various angles. In this paper, an attempt is made to analyze the three women characters in the novel, dig out the nature deep in their consciousness from a Gothic perspective and reveal the process of womens emotional development from split personality, self-sacrifice to independence. Female Gothic novels usually focus on a female protagonist who is chased and tormented by villainous gothic figures with unfamiliar settings and horrible landscape as the background. The Female Gothic aims to socialize and educate its female readers by criticizing patriarchal dominion and serves as an expression of female independence. It not only marks the introduction of gendered perspective into Gothic studies, but also opens up a new space for feminist literary studies. Female Gothic is a form of literature, which expresses the inner secret resistance, fantasy, and terror of the female. 2. Catherine: a woman with split personality in a dilemma Catherines image symbolizes a subtle and sophisticated literary strategy, which gives literary fiction in the 19th century female Gothic elements. In Emily Brontes eyes, Catherine is a contradiction. In her girlhood, she was cheerful, vivid, willful and even a little wild. It seemed that nothing could stop her love to Heathcliff. But as time went by, when she grew up, Catherine has surrendered herself to the social convention, and was caught in a dilemma. When Grange Master Linton, the owner of Thrushcross Grange, proposed to her, she involuntarily agreed, because of his identity and status. The real-world traditional concept of marriage made it difficult for her to marry her lowborn lover Heathcliff and she had no alternatives but to choose her perfect-matched gentleman Edgar Linton. She was still naive enough to think that he can make use of the property to help Heathcliff promote to a higher position. Her choice gave Heathcliff a fatal blow and he left angrily. It could be said that it was her wrong choice that cast their tragedy life. When Heathcliff came back after three years as a rich merchant, he desperately took his revenge on those people who hurt him before. Married Catherine still loved Heathcliff, but she painfully sandwiched between the two men in the emotional entanglements. Catherines choice of marriage is actually a product between the yield of traditional practices and self- maintenance of the integrity. Because she chose the former, which meant she abandoned her integrity, she gradually lost its vigor, and became a victim of rigid social conventions, which caused her split personality.
When Catherine was forced with the choice of Linton or Heathcliff, she went to the road of destruction and became insane.In her hearts depth, she felt that she was actually wrong, because Heathcliff is the same with her, she betrayed herself and her lover, and she became split and insane. Catherines miserable marriage is the most significant turning point in the book, which turned Heathcliffs immense love into furious hate and frenzied revenge. Catherines love tragedy is the tragedy of society, but also the tragedy of the times. Under the female gothic perspective, surreal ghost is often depicted as the soul of the deceased harassed the living soul. Although this harassment can cause horror, but its not evil, and its sometimes just to vent their desire for nostalgia of something alive, or to achieve lifelong pursuit, just as Catherines ghost. After these extreme horror experiences of insanity, madness, hallucinations and nightmares, Catherine became a wandering wild ghost. This typical Gothic imagery reflected that in the patriarchal society women paid a painful price for their choice of civilization, prosperity, identity and social status. 3. Isabella: a striving female different from the conventional literary characters In female Gothic novels, womens traditional simple, ignorant, and week image was completely reversed. They became ambitious, assertive and uninhibited. Another heroine in the novel is Edgars sister Isabella, she appeared to be weak, powerless and innocent, but shes actually bold and fearless, and had some kind of rebellious spirit inside. Isabellas experience, to some extent, represented the women in the dilemma of self-discovery, sudden wakeup and struggling process. In the patriarchal society, disguised as innocent victims, women defeated this system with the strategy of negative protest and self abuse, just as Isabellas fate and struggle. Heathcliffs cruel, ruthless and violent treatment to Isabella made one boil with anger. After Heathcliffs torture, Josephs violence and Hindleys threat, Isabella completely awoke from her lost world with fearless courage to fight against the persecution from the male group. She even became ruthless and fearless herself, so that she kept provoking Heathcliff, through which she could experience a thrill of revenge, and this pleasure also awakened her own protective instinct, so she openly and successfully escaped this perversion, violence, marital confinement, and got freedom. Isabella later died abroad, and her death made people sympathize yet admire, because she desperately struggled to make herself a person of integrity, which indicated that the tenacious struggle of women was able to give them exceptional power to protect themselves, and men and women should be equal in society. 4. Cathy: a victorious rebel against patriarchal system In the female gothic novel, the pain suffered by women, often becomes their spiritual strength to overcome adversity. Women are no longer just victims, and they rely on their own strength to win, whether it is a ghost or a living person. As Catherines daughter, Cathy was the extension of her mothers life and an inheritor of her aunt Isabellas fighting spirit. She was carefully sheltered under the patriarchal society, but ironically, it was she that launched the most powerful and deadly counterattack to the society.
From the female gothic perspective, women are no longer the role of savior, but the dominant force, the spiritual pillar of men, and even the savior of men. Cathys rebellion against patriarchy and possession of land and property symbolized the recovery and victory of female consciousness. Cathy rebellion seems to be stronger than Heathcliffs revenge, because it completely subverted the chain of command between male and female, and women became the dominant force in secret. Firstly, Cathy was tolerant yet held in contempt for little Lintons selfishness and dependence, because she indirectly determined his fate, which symbolized women could also dominate the fate of men, and show their tolerance, independence and courage to the men in the male-dominated society. Secondly, she educated the ignorant and rude Hareton into a civilized and decent gentleman. Womens talents and spiritual charm shattered the male discourse power. Her love completely destroyed Heathcliff revenge will, and aroused his conscience. Cathy and Haretons happy ending was not only a symbol of the ultimate home of Catherine and Heathcliffs soul, but also revealed that women had achieved their ego identity. Finally, she inherited the land and property in Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, which severely hit back at her father Lintons hypocrisy. In fact, both Lintons grace, tolerance, rationality and Heathcliffs wildness, cruelty, violence indicated the patriarchal authority in the male dominant culture. Cathys revenge represented the outbreak of feminine consciousness under the strong oppression in patriarchal society. Womens madness is due to the control, greed and lust under patriarchal hegemony. Women were forced to fight back. In the novel, Cathy received love, shelter, lies, force, and even beat from the male characters, which instead were used secretly as her cover against her own suffering and oppression from patriarchal society. For Heathcliff, at the beginning, Cathy “was amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on and cover revenge for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans without a visitation of remorse”. Then, she said “the Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my jailer. And besides, Im almost seventeen: Im a woman.” Later, she told him that “you shouldnt grudge a few yards of earth, for me to ornament, when you have taken all my land”. Cathys gradual change demonstrated to the world that womens mental strength and self-realization would subvert and dispel the male-dominated discourse power. Cathy won the final victory against patriarchy, and she eventually got economic independence, which was significant for Catherine and Isabella, as well as other women. She found a way of salvation for Catherines split personality and the indomitable spirit power Isabella needed. She aroused womens consciousness. 【References】 [1] Bloom, Harold. The Brontes, New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. [2] Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights, Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1996. [3] Chitham, Edward. The Birth of Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte at Work. London: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1998. [4] Davis, Steve. The Cambridge Companion to the Bronte, Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004. [5] Fleenor, Juliann. The Female Gothic, London: Eden Press, 1987. [6] Reed, Chris. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms, Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2000.
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