Summary:
A psychoanalytical and historical criticism of Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights. A reading of the novel reveals various characters who serve as direct reflections of the love that Brontë herself desired and cherished.
The Desire of Emily Brontë
Love is a pursuit that never ends. After people finally find love, it slips right out of their hands. In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, the story demonstrates two generations of lovers that chase one another. She creates a story which could relate to the 21st century. Emily Brontë's wants and needs for love led her to create Wuthering Heights. The characters Catherine Earnshaw Linton, Heathcliff, and Catherine Linton Heathcliff Earnshaw in the novel Wuthering Heights are direct reflections of the love Emily Brontë desires and cherishes.
Throughout the book, the love Emily desired for is illuminated through Catherine Earnshaw Linton. Emily Brontë lived a life which had death surrounding her like the moors. The death of her mother might have not been as significant, but the death of Maria, Elizabeth, and Branwell were, "The eldest sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, became so ill that they had to be taken home, and died shortly after their return, the former on 6 May and the latter on 15 June 1825" (Allingham). Through all those traumatic events, one obviously must long for a person to take some of the burden. This leaves one to assume that she might have established a relationship. Emily shows this in Wuthering Heights through the sudden marriage between Catherine and Edgar Linton, ""'If you talk so, I won't tell you any more,' she returned peevishly, rising to her feet. 'I accepted him, Nelly. Be quick, and say whether I was wrong!'" (79) Since Catherine makes such a haste decision, she regrets it and pleads for Heathcliff. As Catherine's feeble life continues, she ceases to want Edgar and looks for Heathcliff. In "Remembrance" by Emily Brontë, she speaks of a past love which she now longs for which relates to the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff,
Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee
While the World's tide is bearing me along:
Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong (13-16).
This love that Catherine denies herself causes the mysterious delusions in which she believes she is Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, ""Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being" (83). All of this correlates to the life of Emily Brontë in a sense that she had events that scarred her soul, and she needed a man to fill that void.
Another character Emily utilized to depict her desires is Heathcliff. Her life during the time of Wuthering Heights must have been miserable. Since she had returned to the moors, she was isolated from the world and especially from the person whom she longed to be with. This yearning for a forbidden love is composed through pen and pencil in Wuthering Heights, "He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I dare say: but then my mistress had kissed him first," (164). A human's first instinct on death of a loved one is to be with that person, no matter the cost. Brontë had already suffered four deaths in her life before the age of thirty. One can infer that she must have longed to be with them in life or death. She must have expressed this through Heathcliff, who also desires to be with Catherine upon death,
I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the earth off her coffin-lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again - it is hers yet - he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change, if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up, not Linton's side, damn him! (Brontë.297)
This eternal love that Heathcliff had for Catherine could represent the undying love Emily Brontë had for her family. The third and final character that reflects the love of Emily Brontë is Catherine Linton Heathcliff Earnshaw, the daughter of Catherine Earnshaw Linton. This Catherine symbolizes the portion of Emily that wants to leave the depressing moors that held her captive. Allingham provides information which describes places Emily ventures to in order to leave the Haworth,
From 29 July through October 1835 Emily taught at Miss Wooler's School at Roe Head, where Charlotte had taught in 1831-32. After service as a governess in Halifax, Yorkshire (the second half of the year 1838), in 1842
Emily accompanied her surviving sisters, Anne and Charlotte, to Brussels, where from mid-February through the beginning of November they attended the Pensionnat Héger with the goal of improving their proficiency in French in order to start their own school. Their 1844 plans for their own school, however, foundered, and the sisters were reunited at Haworth in August 1845.
This links with Catherine and how leaves the lavish lifestyle of Thrushcross Grange and begins to become a resident of Wuthering Heights. As she begins to attach herself to Linton Heathcliff, she states "You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in the pace and way each thought pleasantest? This is nearly yours, only there are clouds; but then they are so soft and mellow, it is nicer than sunshine. Next week, if you can, we'll ride down to the Grange Park and try mine" (Brontë.269). As Linton deceases and Hareton remains, Catherine begins to forge a relationship with Hareton. Their love story began with a simple present, "I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but on looking round again, I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of the accepted book that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified, on both sides, and the enemies were thenceforth, sworn allies" (Brontë.325). This love which forms between Catherine and Hareton also formed between Emily and her new found lover.
Emily Brontë shows her needs throughout the book, which mirrors the thoughts in her head. Her desire must have been rooted into her head from the trauma she experienced as she grew up. Sigmund Freud's theory expresses, "Freud viewed one part of the human psyche, the id or the unconscious, as the site of our instincts, or the unconscious parts of ourselves that is biologically rooted and is always pressing for some kind of satisfaction. For Freud, the id basically fulfilled the principle of life he called the 'pleasure principle'" (Sanger.969). This theory links with the way Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights. Since this desire for a lover trailed her throughout her life, she found a way to express it through her writing. In his theory, Freud also expresses that people will act out their fears through their actions, "Freud also expanded our sense of how language and symbols operate by demonstrating their ability to reflect unconscious fears or desires" (Kennedy.1804). This explicitly explains why Emily Brontë's desires were transmitted from her brain to her hand in writing.
Throughout the book, Emily Brontë obviously illustrates that she desires love. Through the events with Catherine Earnshaw Linton, Heathcliff, and Catherine Linton Heathcliff Earnshaw, she personifies the loves she desires. Her soul had been rooted with fears and ordeals before she wrote this novel. With the death of her family lingering around her, Emily's way of relieving the desire was through pen and paper. Wuthering Heights is truly an intricate novel of complex love triangles. One must wonder how Emily's life would have been if she did not have this mysterious man or failing family.
