英语本科毕业论文-On the Love and Marriage in Wuthering Heights.doc

内江师范学院本科毕业论文设计ContentsAbstract. . .2Introduction. . .3A. Emily Bronte.3B. The Social Background of Wuthering Heights.5I. The Theme of Wuthering HeightsLove.6A. The Love Between Catherine and Heathcliff.6B. The Love Between Catherine and Linton.9II. The Marriages in Wuthering Heights. 9A. Heathcliff and Isabella. . .9B. Cathy and Linton.10C. Cathy and Hareton.10III. Brontes Attitudes to Love and Marriage. .11Conclusion .12Notes.13Bibliography. 14Acknowledgements. 15Abstract: Wuthering Heights is the only work of the great British romantic writer Emily Bronte. The novel has always been regarded as “the most unusual book” in the history of English literature and it is a mysterious and unpredictable book. It depicts the love and marriage of the main characters: Catherine and Heathcliff, Catherine and Edgar, Heathcliff and Isabella, Cathy and Linton, Cathy and Hareton. On one hand, this paper focuses on the analysis and research on their love and marriage and proposes that a happy marriage should be based on true love. On the other hand, this paper explores Emilys attitudes to love and marriage: personal independence, personal freedom and sexual equality are the prerequisites and basis of a good romantic relationship and a happy marriage.Key Words: Emily Bronte; love; marriage; theme 摘要：呼啸山庄是英国浪漫主义作家艾米丽勃朗特的唯一著作。这部小说一直被认为是英国文学史上最不寻常的，同时又是奇幻和无法估量的书。它描绘了几位主人公的爱情和婚姻：凯瑟琳和希刺克里夫，凯瑟琳和埃德加，希刺克里夫和伊莎贝拉，凯西和林顿，凯西和哈里顿。一方面，本篇论文以对爱情和婚姻的分析和研究为中心，并提出幸福的婚姻要以真爱为基础的观点。另一方面，本篇论文还探讨了艾米丽对爱情和婚姻的态度，那就是人格独立，个性自由和男女平等是追求人类美好爱情婚姻的先决条件和基础。关键词：艾米丽勃朗特；爱；婚姻；主题 On the Love and Marriage in Wuthering HeightsIntroduction Wuthering Heights, the great novel by Emily Bronte, like Maugham said,“It is not a pretty love story; rather, it is swirling tale of largely unlikable people caught up in obsessive love that turns to dark madness. It is cruel, violent, dark and brooding, and many people find it extremely unpleasant. And yet it possesses a grandeur of language and design, a sense of tremendous pity and great loss that sets it apart from virtually every other novel written. Most critics considered it “coarse and disagreeable” and “amoral”. Wuthering Heights reveals us a world-shaking undying love. As Arnold Kettle, the English critic, said, “Wuthering Heights is an expression in the imaginative term of art of the stresses and tensions and conflicts, personal and spiritual, of nineteenth-century capitalist society.”1The characters of Wuthering Heights embody the extreme love of the humanity. The novel has been studied, analyzed, dissected, and discussed from every imaginable critical perspective, yet it remains unexhausted. And while the novels symbolism, themes, structure, and language may all spark fertile exploration, the bulk of its popularity may rest on its unforgettable characters. As a shattering presentation of the doomed love affair between the fiercely passionate Catherine and Heathcliff, it remains one of the most haunting love stories in all of literature. A. Emily BronteEmily Bronte was born on 30 July 1818 at 74 Market Street in Thornton, Bradford, Yorkshire, England. Virginia Woolf said, “That Yorkshire played an important role in Bronts life and art is indisputable. Except for several brief absences, she chose to spend her remaining years at the parsonage.” Emily Bronte lived an eccentric, closely guarded life. She lived with her older sister Charlotte, her brother Branwell, her younger sister Anne and her parents. Her mother died a young age. Her father worked as a church rector, and her aunt, who raised the Bronte children after their mother died, was deeply religious. Emily Bronte did not take her aunts Christian favor, the character of Joseph, a caricature of an evangelical, may have inspired by her aunts religiosity. All their family members lived a quiet and solitary life. They read a lot and regarded fantasy as their relief. As witnessed by their extraordinary literary accomplishments, the Bronte children were a highly creative group. They invented a series of imaginary kingdoms and wrote a lot of journal stories, poems and plays for their own amusement around their inhabitants. Emily and her sister Charlotte spent a year of study and teaching in Brussels in order to establish a school, but failed. They came back to their hometown and started to write novels pseudonymously. Largely left to their own devices, the children created imaginary worlds to play in. Yet the sisters knew that the outside world would not respond favorably to their creative expression; female authors were often treated less seriously than their male counterparts in the nineteenth century. Thus the Bront sisters thought it best to publish their adult works under assumed names. Charlotte wrote as Currer Bell, Emily as Ellis Bell, and Anne as Acton Bell. Emily was becoming an independent and opinionated young woman as her poem “The Old Stoic”reveals,And if I pray, the only prayerThat moves my lips for meIs,Leave the heart that now I bear,And give me liberty! 2Their real identities remained secret until after Emily and Anne died, when Charlotte at last revealed the truth of their novels authorship.However, Emilys Wuthering Heights, published in 1847, not treated so much by readers compared with her sisters Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights seemed to hold little promise and sold very poorly and received only a few mixed reviews. Victorian readers found the book shocking and inappropriate in its depiction of passionate, ungoverned love and cruelty, and the work was virtually ignored. When it was published, Wuthering Heights was laughed at by some critics, “In no way interested in social issues, only the original expression of emotion is the most basic human and natural forces in outlet.”3 David Cecil claimed, “In the Victorian view of life is very prominent in the conflict of right and wrong were not within the scope of the Bronte sisters.”4 Tragedies loomed large in Emilys life as well: her brother Branwell had become an alcoholic and addicted to opium and the family were consistently dealing with his depressions and at-times mad ravings. He died in 1848 and while at his funeral Emily caught a cold and died soon after. Just she said in her poem “To Imagination”:Yet, still, in evenings quiet hour, With never-failing thankfulness, I welcome thee, benignant power; Sure solacer of human cares, And sweeter hope, when hope despairs! 5 Emilys works did not receive wide acclaim until after her death at the age of thirty. Wuthering Heights is still in print and has inspired numerous television and feather film adaptions, because the combination of its structure and elements of passion, mystery and doomed love as well as social commentary has made Wuthering Heights an enduring masterpiece.B. The Social Background of Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights was set in 19th century England where social and economic values were changing and it was a world where patriarchal value juxtaposed with the natural elements. Emilys own home in the bleak Yourshire moors provided the setting for the at-times other worldly passions of the Byronic Heathcliff and Catherine. At that time, the rich upper classes were enormously proud of their success and property. The secular sense of hierarchy penetrated into the daily life of common people, where money and property were nothing but everything. It was significant that Heathcliff began his life as a homeless orphan on the streets of Liverpool. When Bront composed her book, in the 1840s, the English economy was severely depressed, and the conditions of the factory workers in industrial areas like Liverpool were so appalling that the upper and middle classes feared violent revolt. Thus, many of the more affluent members of society beheld these workers with a mixture of sympathy and fear. In literature, the smoky, threatening, miserable factory-towns were often represented in religious terms, and compared to hell. The poet William Blake, writing near the turn of the nineteenth century, speaks of Englands “dark Satanic Mills.” Therefore, under the influence of this concept, the spirit of human was vehemently suppressed, and the humanity was cruelly twisted and deformed. At this time, Emily who had great rebelling spirit and strong desire for freedom, wrote Wuthering Heights, disclosed the evilness of society.The work depicts how humanity was twisted, broken. But the great death is the steady faith of love and yearns for happy life. In the world reined by Heathcliff, the bud of love, coming from Hareton and Cathy, broke through the hard soil of hatred. The betrayal of love brings the twist of humanity but pure love cures the wound, consoles the injured heart, and saves the degenerated soul. Emily shows her positive attitude to the pure love and their destructibility of humanity.Considering this historical context, Heathcliff seems to embody the anxieties that the books upper- and middle-class audience had about the working classes. The reader may easily sympathize with him when he is powerless, as a child tyrannized by Hindley Earnshaw, but he becomes a villain when he acquires power and returns to Wuthering Heights with money and the trappings of a gentleman. This corresponds with the ambivalence the upper classes felt toward the lower classesthe upper classes had charitable impulses toward lower-class citizens when they were miserable, but feared the prospect of the lower classes trying to escape their miserable circumstances by acquiring political, social, cultural, or economic power.I. The Theme of Wuthering HeightsLoveIn Wuthering Heights, the topic is love. The novel focuses on Catherine and Heathcliffs battle with the restrictions of Victorian society. The humanity has made love unchanged, but social pressures and restrictive cultural confines exile Catherine and Heathcliff from the world and then from each other. In the novel, Catherine and Heathcliff have the natural style and primitive naturefrankness, firmness, crazy behavior. They love very desperately; they hate regardless of everything. As a result, their love is quite strong, shaking-heart. However, their heirs love especially Hareton and Cathys love is moderate and has a happy ending. They try to overcome all obstacles despite prejudices and status. The first generations love is transcendental and the next generations love is earthy. Wuthering Heights has praised humans moral excellence and the fact that love is stronger than hatred. It is a magnificent epic in the world.A. The Love Between Catherine and HeathcliffWhen Catherine was a child, her father was too ill to educate the free spirited child, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favorite. Therefore, Catherine grew up in nature and lacked the sophistication of high society. As the description of Nelly said in Chapter five,she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day: from the hour she came downstairs till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minutes security that she wouldnt be in mischief. Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going-singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wicked slip she was-6Though born in a rich, high-society family, Catherine was not a lucky girl who enjoyed a noble and happy childhood. Heathcliff, a dark-skinned gipsy orphan, was picked up by Mr. Earnshaw in the street and was treated well by him. However, after Mr. Earnshaws death, Heathcliff and Catherines life were changed. On one hand, Catherine was badly treated by her brother Hindley and got little warmth from the family. She was often punished by standing at the corner of wall and was not allowed to eat and was given so much scolding by Hindley. On the other hand, Heathcliff was badly treated by Hindley, by being deprived the right of receiving education and even reduced to the position of a servant. Because he and Catherine had the same sufferings, so they became close friends at the age of their childhood. They helped each other and cared each other, and standed rebelling against the persecution by Hindley. They both promised to grow up as savages. Catherine did not reflect that of a lady, but it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remained there all day. Yet Heathcliff was not desperate because he had Catherine to understand him and love him. He had such deep affection for his lover Catherine. Together with Catherine, all unhappy things were not really important at all for Heathcliff, because she could share his sorrow and suffering. Thus, Catherine, the only person whom Heathcliff could turn to for his sorrow and complaint, was the sole support of his life. He fell in love with her so crazily and unselfishly that she was the only hope of his life. For him, she was the whole world, his hope and dream. Nothing could be more important than his true and sincere love for Catherine. When he saw Isabella and Edgar fighting for a litter dog, he laughed outright and despised them:When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted? Or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and sobbing, or rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? Id not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Lintons at Thrushcross Grange not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the house-front with Hindleys blood!7 From these words, we can feel his strong, pure and addicted love for Catherine. Heathcliff would never betray his love for the pursuit of the fortune and social status.Catherine has grown up and she also had her desires. Especially after she stayed a few weeks in Thrushcross Grange, her heart became complex and her behavior became much gentle like a lady. She has been deeply attracted by the dress and luxury of the Lintons, especially the handsome and gentle Linton. Although she still loved Heathcliff， she could not compare Heathcliffs snobbishness with the gentility of Edgar. She loved Heathcliff deeply with childlike passion, and her soul could not live without him. But her desire for fame and wealth made her betray the love, as she said marrying Linton would make her become the greatest woman in the neighborhood. When she came back from Tshshcross Grange, on one hand, she looked for Heathcliff everywhere and embraced him and kissed on his face; on the other hand, she was afraid that Heathcliffs dirty hands would ruin her beautiful dress. She also asked Heathcliff to behave gently, which made him very upset and annoyed. She would be proud of having such a husband. But “if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars?” The temptation of material made her betrayal, which resulted in Heathcliffs leaving. However, Catherines betrayal was not complete, which can be proved from her and Nellys conversation. Catherine was so sad for Heathcliff, she did not realize that she not only betrayed Heathcliff, but also has betrayed herself. She said,My heart miseries in this world have been Heathcliffs miseries, and I watched and felt each other from the beginning; my great thought in living in himself. If all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a might stranger, I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, Im well aware, as winter changes the treesmy love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneatha source of visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, Im Heathcliffhes always, always in my mindnot as a pleasure, any more than I am always pleasure to myselfbut, as my own beingso; dont talk of our separation againit is impractical.”8However, she married Linton and dreamed that if she married Linton, she could aid Heathcliff to rise, and placed him out of her brothers power. She was never happy in Lintons paradise, and found herself feeling empty without a soul. She was very lonely in her heart. Heathcliff came back with wealth and revenge. He wouldl take revenge on Hindley who maltreated him years ago, and Edgar who destroyed his love. Heathcliff took Hindleys Wuthering Heights and made his son Hareton a savage like Heathcliff himself years ago. He also seduced Edagars sister Isabella and ill treated her. Catherine was crushed by this situation and was in bad health. Her soul was so eager to meet Heathcliffs soul and she died in Heathcliffs bosom. She did not realize that her faults ruined not only her love and life but also their heirs. Her ghost came back Wuthering Heghts and she snobbed “Let me in-Let me in!” Heathcliff did not stop his revenge, he did crazy things just because he missed Catherine so much and wanted to rejoin her. Heathcliff was not cruel by nature, his emotion burst out because of Catherines betrayal and other peoples offence. His cruel and harmful behavior came from the pain of his love. His love with Catherine never changed no matter she was alive or dead. Whatever he looked at, he saw Catherine in it and heard her voice in every sound. Heathcliff succeeded in taking revenge, but he did not feel happy especially when he saw Hareton and Cathys love, which made him recall the happy days with Catherine love years