Elements of Gothic

Setting:

Nature- the moors (in which C+H play, C goes exploring, and Lockwood gets trapped after walking through), nature linked to character, wildness, and passion (something outside the suppressed Victorian nature) 

Pathetic fallacy- natural imagery usually describing the person, or relationship, the storm representative of his outpour of emotions

Heathcliff’s home- Heathcliff lives secluded in Wuthering Heights, but for the servants, darkness, demonic images, ‘wuthering’ 

The Moors, and what that represents- threat and menace, wildness, linked to Heathcliff, isolation,

The relationship of Catherine and Heathcliff: 

Extremes of emotions- their love is obsession, they become each other, ‘Nelly, I am Heathcliff’, ‘do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!'-short sentences showing his desperation, hyperbole, release of emotion that is perhaps forbidden, Catherine wills herself to die after staying out in the storm  

Represented through nature imagery- their ghosts are seen wandering the moors, ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire’-intense passion, contrast of her wildness to Linton’s mildness, 

Physiognomy: 

Joseph- thick Yorkshire accent-working class servant, religious elderly man, adheres to the scripture in a Gothic way, part of Old Testament harsh religion, extreme.

Heathcliff- dark, and gloomy appearance, mirrored in his personality. Looks like a villain, and is a villain. The Devil-threat, becomes more associated with darkness as the novel goes on, changes when he’s with Catherine, suffering is designed to create pathos,

Death and the supernatural: 

Catherine’s ghost appearing to Lockwood at the beginning-’I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes’-, haunting Heathcliff, several allusions to the Devil-religion was very much a apart of people’s lives, and superstition-, C+H ghosts wandering the moors-an ideal, Victorian sentimentality-death is a good thing, an afterlife in which they meet-, death of characters usually from an illness, Heathcliff at the grave

The depiction of transgression:  

Semi-incestuous relationship- possibility that Heathcliff is the illegitimate son, and therefore brother of Catherine 

Illegitimate child breaking the family- Hindely becomes evil after Heathcliff is introduced, Catherine moves to The Grange,  

Wild conflicting with Victorian- Catherine is linked to fire, and wildness (chapter 8 where she slaps Linton), Heathcliff is both wild in appearance and in his villainous personality 

The relationship of Catherine and Heathcliff: 

Extremes of emotions- 

Thrushcross Grange- heavenly place, rich and beautiful, represents a temptation for her to be part of typical Victorian nature

Branwell Bronte, and Byronic hero in Heathcliff-

Catherine, and her split identity- 

‘do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!'-short sentences showing his desperation

‘Nelly, I am Heathcliff’

Represented through nature imagery- 

‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire’-intense passion, contrast of her wildness to Linton’s mildness

Gothic Elements

Quotes