Comparing the Themes of Wuthering Heights and Of Mice and Men

Trauma and tragedy are inevitably regular and pervasive outcomes in romantic literature. Our literary heritage is filled with heartbreak, failed relationships and broken individuals. Wuthering Heights and Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns both exhibit broken relationships, through a backdrop of conflict in swar torn Afghanistan and the restrictions of Victorian social hierarchy played out on the wild and windswept North York Moors- destroying these implied impervious bonds.

However Catherine lured Heathcliff into a relationship, brain washed him into thinking that she truely loved him and was going to marry him one fine day. Instead she discarded their relationship and decided to marry Edgar Linton, a wealthy man. Catherine discarded her relationship with Heathcliff, for one main reason and that was because he was not a wealthy man. It was obvious that Catherine married Edgar so she could be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood and if she married Heathcliff it would degrade her and they would both end up as beggars . This a good example of how Heathcliff was a victim of class hatred.

   "My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff" (81)" These words, uttered by Catherine, in the novel Wuthering Heights are for me the starting point in my investigation into the themes of love and obsession in the novel. Catherine has just told her housekeeper that she has made up her mind to marry Edgar Linton, although she is well aware that her love for him is bound to change as time passes. That she is obsessed by her love for Heathcliff she confirms in the above quotation and by saying that she will never, ever be separated from him. Why does she not marry him then? Well, she has

Catherine's decision of marriage is one example. "My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary Nelly, I am Heathcliff." In this quote, Catherine

Heathcliff is introduced in Nelly's narration as a seven-year-old Liverpool foundling (probably an Irish famine immigrant) brought back to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw. His presence in Wuthering Heights overthrows the prevailing habits of the Earnshaw family, members of the family soon become involved in turmoil and fighting and family relationships become spiteful and hateful. Even on his first night, he is the reason Mr. Earnshaw breaks the toys he had bought for his children. "From the very beginning he bred bad feelings in the house". Heathcliff usurps the affections of Mr. Earnshaw to the exclusion of young Hindley-: "The young master had learnt to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a

In the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Heathcliff is introduced as an orphan. Thus, leading to the development of his character and his many relationships, both healthy and negative. Heathcliff is discriminated against throughout the novel because of his origin. The relationships he bore reveals how it effects his character and also further develops the novel due to Heathcliff’s connection to the characters. In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte creates the character of Heathcliff by utilizing relationships and the significance of origin.

Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship shows how love and hate intertwine because they both love each other, but also betray each other many times and even marry other people. Bronte shows this concept when Heathcliff confesses his love to Catherine on her deathbed, and says, “'It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,' he answered. 'Kiss me again; and don't let me see your

In her statement, Catherine, is describing how strong her love is for Heathcliff. She states that her love will never end. Catherine states that she is one with Heathcliff, for they share the same thoughts and the same mind. This quote shows that the bond of love cannot be broken and will stand the test of time.

The social classes in Wuthering Heights are an insight to the society that  Emily Bronte experienced. The British society of 1770 wasn’t accepting of a person with darker features which is reflected in how Heathcliff is treated in the novel. Orphans were also never meant to rise from their station below the servants. This is an insight into why Hindley Earnshaw hated Heathcliff and referred to him as a usurper of his father’s affections. When Hidley became master of Wuthering Heights he returned Heathcliff to his “rightful” place.

Yet there is a contradiction between the meaning of love that Catherine and Heathcliff communicate to one another in comparison to their actions. In society, when a person loves another person, it is a social norm that they get married to prove that they are committed to one another. However, Catherine refuses to marry Heathcliff despite the emotional and spiritual bond they share because marrying him would be beneath her. The sense of love between the two is so deep that for them not to be wed creates a confusion surrounding their meaning of love.

Bronte, The author of the Wuthering Heights, expresses many themes and morals in her book. The one most important in the Wuthering Heights is the theme of love and cruelty. The main characters, Catherine and Heathcliff, show these actions time and time again. They occur because of the other, much like the yin and the yang. Love leads to cruelty and cruelty leads to love. In Wuthering Heights, there are two different types of love shown: platonic and passionate. Both of these types of love lead to cruelty to other characters. As Heathcliff states boldly within the first few chapters of the novel, love’s cruelty survives even beyond death. “Cathy, do come. Oh do – once more! Oh! My heart’s darling; hear me this time, Catherine, at last!”

In Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff and Cathy both refuse to change their ways or their childlike views of the love that they share with each other, and it is shown through the way they speak. Heathcliff becomes vengeful and aggressive, in order to try to bring himself closer to Cathy, despite the fact that she’s dead, by possessing everything that was dear to her- including the people she was close with, whom he begins to abuse. ‘And what does not recall her? … and caught by glimpses in every object by day, I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!’ (Brontë, 400-401). Heathcliff speaks about the world after Cathy’s death with abhorrence. He cannot believe that the

Catherine had from the start of the story had a love for Heathcliff. " I

The novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847) by Emily Brontë and the film adaptation ‘Wuthering Heights’ (2011) by Andrea Arnold each convey respective values and perspectives reflective of the contrasting contexts and forms of each text. The novel, set in the Romantic period, is centred around two families living on the isolated, Yorkshire moors, and the explosive interactions between them. The concept of confinement contrasts against the freedom of nature throughout the novel. Nature is another key theme and a fundamental aspect of the Romantic period, used to present ideas such as rebellion and freedom. Finally, passion within human relationships is thoroughly explored through Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship within the novel. However, as the film adaptation is a product of a contemporary post-feminist, post-colonial time period, these themes can now be explored through lenses such as racial discrimination, feminism, and human connection.

Love can take many forms. Sonnet 18, undoubtedly one of Shakespeare’s most famous works and believed to be one of the most famous love poems of all time, illustrates the timelessness and true beauty of love in a natural, pure way. In contrast, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights takes a far darker, more intense yet somewhat sinister twist when exploring the themes of love, passion and cruelty. One of the greatest love stories in English literature, the love-hate passionate relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff ignites the question of what love really is: “A bond between them, which interweaves itself with the very nature of their existence” (Beversluis, p.77).