A Look Through the Lenses: An Analysis of the Critical History of Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is considered “one of the greatest works of English Literature, a classic” (Kindelan 115). Not only is it trending in popular culture, with a new Hollywood adaptation hitting the silver screen every twenty years or so, but it has also established itself as a crucial part of high school and higher education curricula. Sadly, but not surprisingly, this popularity and critical appraisal were not the case when Wuthering Heights was first published in 1847. It was not until the early 1900’s that public opinion turned in favor of Wuthering Heights, recognizing it as a work of classical genius. Despite the changing public reception, the work's nonlinear structure, class tensions, and gothic undertones have made it difficult for scholars to agree on a single interpretation. Throughout time, scholars have addressed Wuthering Heights through a variety of critical lenses. These perspectives range from Victorian moral, biographical, reader-reception, formalist, structuralist, Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, and New Historicist theories.
This paper argues that Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights, examines the fallibilities and possibilities for redemption of human nature, as evidenced by the cyclical, intergenerational relationships of Catherine, Heathcliff, Catherine Linton, and Hareton. Through tracing the development of the critical analyses throughout the course of the novel’s existence, not only will the differences between critical perspectives be revealed, but also the ways in which they complement Brontë’s complex portrayal of human nature.
Critical History of Wuthering Heights
Through A Victorian Moral & Biographical Lens
Early Victorians were most concerned with the morality of an author and the propriety of the literary text said author produced. Literary criticism during this time differed from other critical lenses in that it judged the work not by its artistic merits, cultural critique, or feminist stance, for example, but through the societal expectations of what was deemed morally acceptable for that time period. Arnold Shapiro, in his article “Wuthering Heights as a Victorian Novel,” argues against the Victorian moral lens that claims Wuthering Heights needs a “special set of criteria to evaluate it” (284). He contends that Brontë was intentional and fully aware of the fallibility of her characters, stating that she “remains in firm moral control” (285). Brontë portrays her characters with sympathy while simultaneously revealing the darker sides of their human nature (285). Shapiro claims that Brontë uses the fallibilities of her characters and their actions to criticize the hypocrisy of Christianity in Victorian society (286). Ultimately, Shapiro asserts that the tragic fates of the first generation, with Catherine and Heathcliff, lead the way for the reconciliation that occurs with the second generation, with Cathy and Hareton (294).
Closely following Victorian Moral theory, Wuthering Heights encounters reader reception and biographical approaches to its criticism. Paz Kindelan in “The Theory of Reception and Wuthering Heights” evaluates the why behind the biographical and reader-reception analyses of the text. These analyses judged Brontë as a person, usually unfavorably, and focused on the controversial reception of her novel (115, 116). Kindelan argues against these criticisms, but also uses them to explain why such a variety of interpretations exists. She states that the text “comes alive and remains open to successive generations of readers and critics” (121). Kindelan also highlights Brontë’s narrative distance, with her use of multiple narrators as an act of authorial control (117). Kindelan’s argument counters the view of early critics who labeled the novel as savage and immoral (117).
Through a Formalist & Structuralist Lens
Hans Bertens describes formalism as “primarily interested in what makes literature different from other ways of using language and in the literary reasons for literary-historical change” (65). Formalist criticism distinctly shifts away from focusing on the author’s morality and instead treats the literary text as a self-contained object. Instead of asking whether Brontë’s work is immoral, Formalists ask how the language and structure of the work itself produces meaning. One such formalist critic of Wuthering Heights is Jemma Militonyan with her article “The Use of Simile in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.” Militonyan argues that Brontë’s use of figurative language, particularly similes, is an essential part of how readers derive meaning from the text (38). Through the abundance of similes in her work, Brontë makes the unfamiliar elements of her story and characters familiar to readers (45). Militonyan's analysis underscores that part of the novel’s ingenuity lies in Brontë’s artistic use of figurative language (45).
Similar to Formalism, “Structuralism seeks to establish the structures that underlie narratives and that make meaning possible” (Bertens 65). Structuralists derive meaning from the relationship between the different parts that construct a literary work. In “The Struggle for Deliverance from the Father: The Structural Principle of Wuthering Heights,” Terence Dawson uses a structuralist lens with psychoanalytic concepts of Carl Jung to argue that the meaning of the novel emerges through the cyclical patterns between the two generations of characters, namely, Catherine and Heathcliff, and Cathy Linton and Hareton (303). Dawson takes special interest in the similarities between the narratives of Catherine and Cathy Linton, comparing the similarity of intervals to crucial plot events (291). Dawson’s structural approach shifts further away from Victorian moral, biographical, and reader- reception theories through his emphasis that the novel is governed by deliberate narrative patterns.
Through a Psychoanalytic Critical Lens
By the late twentieth century, literary criticism of Wuthering Heights encounters another shift. Literary criticism, which focused on examining the formal elements of the novel, now focuses on what the text unconsciously suppresses. In “Repression and Sublimation of Nature in Wuthering Heights,” Margaret Homans, using Freudian psychoanalytic theory, claims that the limited interactions or scenes in nature are evidence of Brontë’s repression of nature (15). By omitting direct written descriptions of nature, Brontë ensures that nature remains primary (11). The act of writing about nature would, according to Homans, make nature secondary (12). To avoid stifling her creativity, Brontë had to repress nature by “not naming it directly in order to write” (15). Homans contends that this absence is significant as it enforces that nature is not simply a gothic backdrop for the narrative. Instead, it suggests that the moors and nature in general are suppressed and only resurface during moments of psychic conflict (11). For example, during Catherine’s illness, when her psyche is in conflict, her childhood memories with Heathcliff in the moors are revealed (17). Homan's interpretation draws attention to Brontë’s intentionality about what she highlights as sacred through omission.
A similar psychoanalytic focus is used by Liam Butchart and Julia Tsvyakh in their article, “Totemism and Thanatology on the Moors: A Freudian Psychoanalytic Approach to Wuthering Heights.” Butchart and Tsvyakh utilize a Freudian approach with a biopsychosocial model to analyze Heathcliff and Catherine. They use concepts such as the Oedipus complex, repetition compulsion, and thanatos (2). They claim that Catherine and Heathcliff are governed by unresolved psychological fragmentation, rather than by outside circumstances (1). For instance, Heathcliff’s obsessive fixation on Catherine and his cyclical reenactment of rivalries across the first and second generations of characters is indicative of repetition compulsion (3). Meanwhile, Catherine’s death drive is caused by a break in her psyche after a dramatic altercation between Heathcliff and Edgar Linton, leading to her illness and subsequent death (6). Combined, these psychoanalytic critiques offer a reinterpretation that the novel’s emotional depth and complexity are evidence of subconscious conflicts induced by the rigid societal expectations.
Through a Marxist & Feminist Lens
A later critical approach to emerge after psychoanalysis is Marxist critical theory. Bertens states that “In Marxism criticism social class and ideology function as central instruments of analysis…” (66). Marxist critics reveal how the violence portrayed in Brontë’s narrative inherently points to a capitalist system of commodity desire. In “Impossible Love and Commodity Culture in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights,” Daniel Garofalo claims Heathcliff is a representation of Victorian capitalism. Heathcliff’s obsessive love for Catherine becomes “a necessary fantasy that energizes a culture of both production and consumption” (Garofalo 819). Furthermore, Garofalo contends that Heathcliff’s mourning translates into his desire to possess Catherine. His obsession with Catherine, which continues even after her death, is the motivation for acquiring Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange (826). Heathcliff’s control of Linton, Cathy, and Hareton reflects his need to possess people who remind him of Catherine (827). In contrast, Catherine’s view of love, with how she wishes to marry Edgar Linton and remain friends with Heathcliff, represents her rejection of Victorian capitalist ideology (835).
The views of Marxist critics can be extended to feminism, as in Mădălina Elena Mandici’s article, “Self-Education and Narrative Power in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights: (Re)Discovering Marginal Women Characters.” Mandici claims that the female characters in Brontë’s work expose Victorian society as patriarchal because they gain narrative authority through acts of reading, writing, and education (62). Mandici focuses specifically on Catherine, Cathy, and Nelly Dean as representations of women who resist social marginalization through literacy and narration (60). For instance, Catherine’s childhood diary, written in the margins of a Bible, becomes an act of rebellion (65). Nelly Dean’s control of the main narrative of the story gives a woman of the lower class power over the history of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange (62). The reader witnesses at the novel’s end Cathy teaching Hareton to read. This signals a resolution between the cyclical oppression of the two generations of characters (67). Mandici’s article demonstrates not only the class restrictions that existed in Victorian society but also the patriarchal system at work.
Through a Postcolonial & New Historicist Lens
New Historicism can be described as having a “distinct interest in the disempowered, the marginalized, those whose voices we hardly ever, or never, hear. Although it depends on close reading of texts, its methods may be said to be anthropological rather than literary critical or historical” (Bertens 134). In “Relics and Death Culture in Wuthering Heights,” Deborah Lutz claims that the infamous passion between Heathcliff and Catherine is rooted in Victorian death culture. Lutz argues that Wuthering Heights is “more a tale about longing for the dead than it is one of earthly love” (390). “Things” served as “evidence” that the deceased continued to exist beyond physical death (399). Objects such as Catherine’s bed, her carved name, the locks of Edgar and Heathcliff’s hair, and the grave itself are remnants that connect the living world to Catherine even after her death (399, 400). Lutz also argues that Heathcliff’s obsession is not merely romantic but a participation in the eighteenth-century relic culture (398). Ultimately, Lutz situates Wuthering Heights within its historical and cultural context, adding depth to the meaning of the numerous deaths in the text.
Postcolonial theory, on the other hand, “emerged in an attempt to understand people from different cultures in terms of an important experience they all had in common: colonial domination by a superior European military force” (Tyson 245). In “The House of Trauma: The Influence of Frederick Douglass on Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights,” Deborah Denenholz Morse contends that Heathcliff’s characterization is deeply informed by transatlantic slavery discourse influenced by Frederik Douglass (169). Lutz argues that Heathcliff is classified as a subaltern in the text, which is evidenced by the racial language used by other characters to describe him. For example, “gipsy,” and “imp of satan” (170). Heathcliff experiences beatings, forced labor, exclusion, and denied literacy (170). Lutz draws a connection between Heathcliff and the experiences Frederick Douglass describes in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (172). When Heathcliff later reclaims Wuthering Heights as his own, Lutz asserts that this is an act of rebellion against the racial and class prejudices that Heathcliff endured (175). Lutz demonstrates that Brontë’s novel invites a broader conversation about the colonization and aftereffects of slavery in Victorian England.
The diversity of approaches to Wuthering Heights is not merely a matter of scholarly disagreement; rather, it reflects the novel's deep complexity. The Victorian moral critic appraises the text's ethical standards, while the formalist focuses on narrative construction. Moreover, the various approaches, ranging from psychoanalysis to Marxism, feminism, post-colonialism, and New Historicism, reveal different aspects of oppression that influence the drives of the main characters. Taken together, the critical lenses suggest that the novel cannot be understood from a singular perspective.
Evaluation of Critical Lenses
By examining the perspectives offered by each critic, it becomes apparent that some critical lenses are ideologically complementary. This can be seen in relation to Formalism and psychoanalysis; the former detects recurring patterns within the narrative, whereas the latter seeks to explain the characters' motivations and actions from a psychological perspective. This is evidenced when Militonyan asserts that “Similes elaborate, hopefully in a way that makes the writing more understandable or relatable. Using similes attracts the attention and appeals directly to the senses of readers, creating a picture in their minds which will make them experience what is being described in a more vivid way” (45). Militonyan identifies the recurring patterns of figurative language in the text and how Brontë uses it to make meaning clearer to her readers. On the other hand, Butchart and Tsvyakh state that “we will utilize a Freudian psychoanalytic lens to directly examine the characters of Heathcliff and Catherine, investigating their specific psychopathologies, their intertwined maladaptive patterns, and the interplay of psychology with societal demands” (2). By building on the formalist principles that seek to discover how the structures within the text create meaning, Psychoanalysis takes this a step further by seeking to make meaning from the characters' motivations by studying the patterns that emerge through their behavior. By combining formalist and psychoanalytic approaches, a more holistic understanding of the novel is presented: one that not only recognizes the significance of the text's stylistic patterns but also helps the reader better understand the characters' fallibilities.
Marxist, feminist, and postcolonial approaches are complementary in that they underscore the varying contexts underlying the text. Garofalo underscores the novel's societal context by arguing that “His love is not the opposite of his culture of acquisition but the necessary erotic force that makes it work better” (819). Heathcliff represents a modern embodiment of capitalism through his obsessive desire to obtain the love of Catherine. This places Heathcliff and Catherine’s characters in the context of commodity and desire influenced by capitalist ideology. Moreover, Mandici reveals the gendered and patriarchal context of the novel when she contends that “Wuthering Heights concedes and hides at once the idea that solid knowledge, story-telling, and (self-)culture violate gender boundaries and make central what had been deemed marginal by the male literary canon and the 19th-century doctrine of separate spheres” (59). This set the tone for the female characters of the text by highlighting the disadvantages they faced in a patriarchal society. The act of writing, narrating, and teaching becomes a form of quiet rebellion for the female characters Catherine, Nelly Dean, and Cathy. Furthermore, Morse highlights the racial context surrounding the text when he argues that
The novel is a revolutionary transatlantic abolitionist text that unites Cathy Earnshaw, an English woman of ancient yeoman descent, with Heathcliff, the dark vagrant child of unknown origin, who is forced to work as a field hand by the brutal master Hindley Earnshaw, Cathy’s brother, and threatened with violence by Edgar Linton, scion of the rural gentry. (166)
This perspective offers a fresh insight into Heathcliff’s motivations and his vindictive nature in the novel by reframing him as a subaltern within a colonized society. Taken together, these approaches reveal the text's varying systems of oppression, offering readers deeper insight into Brontë’s flawed and deeply human characterizations.
Not all critical lenses complement each other; instead, they reveal the ideological differences that undergird them. In regard to the moral and biographical theories of the Victorian era, their excessive focus on the author's intent clashes with formalist critical theory. For example, Kindelan argues that “the manifest impressionism and didacticism which predominated literary theory of the nineteenth century led the critics of that time to concentrate on an examination of the author’s life and circumstances when judging the work of art” (1). Kindelan reveals the focus of Victorian critics who judged the work based on the author’s perceived morality, rather than judging the text on its own terms. Whereas a formalist approach to Brontë’s novel contends that “Stylistically, much ahead of her time, Brontë culled a form best suited to articulate her subject and ideas effectively” (Militonyan 38). Formalists shifted the focus from the author’s life and moral judgment of the literary work, and instead judged the text based on close textual analysis.
What is the driving force that connects each of these theories? The possible relationships between the critical theories listed in (and the many theories that are not included) in this paper are endless. Critical theories that share similar ideologies, such as Marxism and Feminism, will naturally complement each other. Theories that stemmed from a previous approach will carry ideological traces, such as formalism and structuralism. Critical approaches that are undergirded by opposing ideologies will, however, clash, as seen with Victorian Moral Theory and formalism. Each perspective attempts to understand, in its own way, the issues associated with human relationships presented in Wuthering Heights.
Toward a Holistic Interpretation: Human Nature & Redemption
Based on the critical lenses this paper has explored, it becomes clear that Wuthering Heights presents the fallibilities of human nature through the cyclical relationships between Catherine and Heathcliff and Cathy and Hareton. Brontë strategically uses repetition as the novel’s central structure to create deep meaning that is debated still to this day. Repetition is evidenced through the mirrored relationships and cyclical patterns between the two generations. Dawson notes how “Catherine’s birth leads inevitably to Cathy’s death, which is also Catherine’s birth. The novel begins and ends at Wuthering Heights” (303). Kindelan concurs with Dawson when she states that the “enigmatic quality of the book, which from the beginning has encouraged the most diverse judgements and opposite interpretations… continues to give rise to all kinds of interpretations about its structure and significance” (1). Dawson also observes how “the events in the ‘second generation’ (the Bildungsroman) determine those in the ‘first’ (the archetypal interactions). Linear repetition is thus completed by vertical interconnexion” (304). Based on Dawson’s and Kindelan’s analyses, the actions of the first generation are the catalyst for the disorder and chaos that spreads throughout the two houses and to the second generation of characters.
The first generation highlights unrestrained human fallibility through Catherine’s selfish, divided loyalties and Heathcliff’s obsession with vengeance. Catherine’s selfishness is most apparent when she agrees to marry Edgar Linton, despite her love for Heathcliff. When questioned by Nelly Dean about her choice, Catherine exclaims: ‘In whichever place the soul lives. In my soul, and in my heart, I am convinced I’m wrong!’ (Brontë 56). Catherine’s marriage to Edgar Linton results in catastrophe. Her divided loyalties culminate in an altercation between Edgar Linton and Heathcliff. The stress of this altercation caused Catherine to fall ill, with some scholars debating that her illness was toxemia and others arguing it was brain fever, or a psychotic episode. The exact type of illness Catherine suffered from is, for the purposes of this paper, secondary. Her tragic death and its effect on Heathcliff are what is crucial to the narrative.
Heathcliff’s vindictive characterization gradually progresses throughout the novel. An example of Heathcliff’s drive for revenge can be seen in him even in his youth, when he proclaims to Nelly Dean, ‘I’m trying to settle how I should pay Hindley back! I don’t care how long I wait, if only I do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!’ (42). Spurned by Catherine after eavesdropping on her and Nelly Dean and hearing that she thinks him inferior, Heathcliff flees the moors, signaling his revenge arc. Garofalo argues that “Heathcliff represents a particularly Victorian desire for consumption and production associated with death and loss, an association that makes him not the anachronistic other of modernity but its most seductive avatar” (819). Once Catherine has died, his bitterness and vindictiveness grow only stronger, leading to his acquiring Thrushcross Grange, as well as his brutal treatment of Linton, Hareton, and Cathy.
Brontë strategically shifts the narrative halfway through the novel from the tragic end of Catherine and Heathcliff’s lasting obsession over her, even in death, to the second generation of younger characters. At first, Catherine treats Hareton with disdain due to his illiteracy and his status as a servant, as recounted by Nelly Dean:
‘He’s just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?’ she once observed, ‘or a cart-horse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally! What a blank, dreary mind he must have! Do you ever dream, Hareton? And, if you do, what is it about? But you can’t speak to me!’ (Brontë 225)
The reader sees the transformation of their relationship upon Lockwood’s final return to Wuthering Heights:
‘Contrary, then,’ answered another, in deep but softened tones. ‘And now, kiss me, for minding so well.’
‘No, read it over first correctly, without a single mistake.’
The male speaker began to read: he was a young man, respectably dressed and seated at a table, having a book before him. His handsome features glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled him by a smart slap on the cheek, whenever its owner detected such signs of inattention. (223)
Mandici notes that “Violence, it seems, has been domesticated within the world of the Heights. Book-love, instead, becomes a means of domestic enjoyment” (69). Cathy and Hareton transcend the cruelty and selfishness of Heathcliff and Catherine through education and mutual understanding.
Brontë does not leave Heathcliff and Catherine’s story without any semblance of closure, however. Nelly Dean’s encounter with a little shepherd boy on her way to Thrushcross Grange in the final chapter gives the reader a glimpse of their reunion:
‘What is the matter, my little man?’ I asked.
‘There’s Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t’ nab,’ he blubbered, ‘un’ I darnut pass ’em.’(Bronte 244)
Heathcliff could not be at peace in life because Catherine was his life. As Lutz observes, “When Heathcliff dies in order to join Catherine, he clears a space for another love, one formed for success premortem. Catherine's daughter and Hareton repeat many aspects of the love between Catherine and Heathcliff” (404). Catherine and Heathcliff’s storyline is ultimately resolved by Cathy and Hareton, who symbolize the two houses and the two generations making peace. One generation achieves it in life, and the other in death. In this way, redemption emerges not through erasing the past, but from learning from it and choosing not to continue in its destructive patterns.
Conclusion
The theoretical implications of this viewpoint offer arguments against a single interpretive analysis. Each theory illuminates one aspect of the novel. Psychoanalysis underscores compulsive desire; Marxism and feminism highlight hierarchy and systems of oppression; Postcolonial and new historicism reveal Victorian ideologies and the cultural context of the novel; and formalism and structuralism bring to light the structural and thematic patterns of the text. These critical theories are not exhaustive, but provide a brief overview of the types of critical theories Wuthering Heights has encountered throughout the years. None of these critical lenses by themselves paints the entire picture. Each critical lens is like a puzzle piece, informative on its own, but when combined together, the whole picture begins to emerge. It is essential that literary interpretation remain integrative, especially with complex novels such as Wuthering Heights.
Wuthering Heights is a deeply complex classical work of British literature that reveals Brontë's view of human nature. One that is deeply flawed and cyclical, and yet capable of humility, reconciliation, and mutual understanding. Wuthering Heights should not be seen solely as a tragedy, but as a lesson in the possibility of overcoming cycles of hatred and trauma that are embedded in every human being. The possibility for destruction and redemption that lives within every human being is the very reason why Wuthering Heights has maintained its lasting scholarly and critical discourse, and will continue to do so for many generations to come.
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