Romanticism at its best: the love story of Cathy and Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's “Wuthering Heights”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Background1

Purpose of Study3

Problem Statement4

Importance of the Study5

Scope and Limitation of Research5

Literature Review5

Love Relation between Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights5

Interpretations of Catherine and Heathcliff's Love7

Methodology of Research8

REFERENCES10

Background

In the history of Western literature, numerous novels and stories have been conceived by authors to reflect true essence of love, which is a binding force of eternal relationships. Ground breaking novels and best seller publications have enlisted a varied range of literature work on romanticism or heart touching stories of love birds. However, Emily Brontë's “Wuthering Heights” is one of the classic literature writings, which have revolutionized the concept of love and its significance in human lives.

Researcher has selected this archetypical piece of work to prove the fact that “Wuthering Heights” portrays love and romanticism at its best. She has beautifully pictured self-centered love between the leading characters of this novel, which ties them into a holy, eternal and life long relationship.

Main theme of this novel is a pure relation of love, which brings Catherine and Heathcliff into play. A pious relationship of love is beautifully portrayed by Brontë in a manner that love becomes an inhaled drug for them and when they confront each other, love takes them into spheres of their own life domains, alone and isolated from this materialistic world. Main character of this novel, Catherine, is a lady who has her personal desires, and she tries to make up her life decisions by herself (McGlinn & McGlinn, 1984).

Sentimental account of devoted love, which is presented in the story is outstanding and the story appears to be unreal in the life of Victorian era's women, who had no freedom of selecting their life style. In those times when this novel came, women had no freedom of action and speech. Women could not raise their voice, and had no right to give their opinion. All women had to stay as men used to dominate over them; however, Brontë broke the ice. She wrote this novel as a means of conveying her ideas to readers. The underlying theme to write this novel was that Brontë wants people to change their minds towards unimportant, incompetent, weak or irresponsible images of women (Brontë, 2011).

In this novel, a distinctive line is drawn between material life and eternal life that one can live by drowning into the ocean of love; however, no love story can become eternal, if there are no complications and hindrance into it. Likewise, the story sketches certain lackadaisical decisions taken by Cathy, which not only invite complications into her love story, but also affect lives of others who were directly or indirectly linked to her decisions. It is truly a model work on romanticism that captures the mind of reader and takes him into the world of its own visualization where love is eternal and immortal.

Author of the novel “Wuthering Heights” makes use of narrative methods in her writings, and speaks by means of several ...