Wuthering Heights and the

Gothic
To what extent is Wuthering
Heights a Gothic Novel?

Assessment and learning objectives

AO2 Demonstrate detailed critical
understanding in analysing the ways in
which structure, form and language
shape meanings in literary texts.
AO4 Demonstrate understanding of the
significance and influence of the
contexts in which literary texts are
written and received.

Band

AO2 Demonstrate
detailed critical
understanding in
analysing the ways
in which structure,
form and language
shape meanings in
literary texts.

AO4 Demonstrate
understanding of the
significance and
influence of the
contexts in which
literary texts are
written and received.

Skills ladder

Band 6

Evaluation of how
Evaluation of relevant
the authors methods contextual factors arising
Evaluatio work
from the study of texts and
n
genre
Band 5
Analysis
Band 4

Analysis of how the

authors methods
work

Analysis of relevant
contextual factors arising
from the study of texts and
genre

Explanation of how Explanation of relevant

the authors methods contextual factors arising
Explanati work
from the study of texts and
on
genre

Is Wuthering Heights a Gothic

novel?

Gothic features of Wuthering

Heights
Heathcliff as the Gothic villain, destroying women and
pursuing inheritance
Rejection of Christian heaven
Transgression of boundaries of life and death
Cruelty and violence of patriarchal figures
Imprisonment and escape
Appearance of the supernatural
The mysterious identity of the central figure (the foundling
with no social status)
The wild and gloomy setting
The extremes of weather
Inclusion of taboos
Death and destruction of lives
Revenge

The Gothic Romance:

desire fulfilled and desire
frustrated
In the Gothic Romances of the eighteenth and

nineteenth century, with which Wuthering Heights

bears comparison, desire and the actions it provokes
have an important narrative function.
The typical Gothic Romance, follows a pair, or pairs, of
lovers through courtship, towards marriage or physical
union.
As the plot unfolds, these lovers will be subjected to
challenges that they will either overcome, to be united
at the resolution of the plot, or be overwhelmed by, to
be separated by the point of resolution.
The challenges that confront the lovers are typically
posed by an illness or death, a supernatural event, a
seemingly supernatural event, or a villain who may
wish to claim one of the lovers for themselves.
In Gothic Romance, illegitimate desires (including
adultery, incest, necrophilia, bestiality and rape) are as
likely to be fulfilled, or partially fulfilled, as legitimate

The Gothic Universe:

Inheritance in time
The universe of the Gothic text is a strange place in

which time appears to ignore the normal rules of

physics.
Characters typically experience time in unusual ways
(e.g: journeys are shorter or longer than anticipated;
twilight is briefer or longer than expected).
Seemingly long-forgotten historical events or figures
return to haunt the present (e.g: family curses; ancient
monsters; buried corpses).
Seemingly outdated practices or artefacts retain their
power in the present (e.g: feudalism, folk-charms).
Certain characters seem to possess a timeless quality
(e.g: Satan; demons; undead characters that age at a
different rate to human characters).
The hero/heroine of the Gothic text typically has to
contend with some kind of fearful inheritance in time
in the course of the plot.

The Gothic Universe:

Claustrophobia in space
The rules of space in the typical Gothic text show a

similar disregard for the laws of physics.

Seemingly vast Gothic castles, mansions and buildings
appear to have an endless series of tiny rooms, narrow
passages and subterranean chambers of which there is
little evidence from the exterior.
Gothic buildings seem to be frozen in a state of
perpetual disintegration or ruin, but rarely fall midnarrative.
Gothic bedrooms and chambers frequently take on the
airless, dingy, isolating qualities of the dungeon or
prison-cell.
Gothic heroes/heroines spend a lot of time
incarcerated in such claustrophobic spaces.
Given the remoteness of the conventional Gothic
location, the prevalence of such geographical features
as dense forests, impassable mountain ranges,
turbulent rivers and the proximity of dangerous wild

Is Wuthering Heights a Gothic

novel?
The Gothic novel characteristically includes a story of the
supernatural, the melodramatic or the macabre. It was a
fashionable form of writing in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries.
Often set in a sinister place such as a castle or ruined
building, preferably with underground passages, labyrinths
and dungeons.
The supernatural element of the story might result from a
curse or omen.
The supernatural may take the form of ghosts, nightmares
or animation of previously inanimate objects.
The hero is generally passion-driven, violent and
melancholic. The heroine tends to be weak enough to need
rescuing.

A summary of Wuthering Heights

(1847) by Emily Bronte (1818-1848)
Lockwood narrates the story as a diary. He has rented Thrushcross
Grange and his landlord is Heathcliff, who lives at Wuthering
Heights. Heathcliff is melodramatic, violent and solitary. Bad
weather forces Lockwood to stay the night at Wuthering Heights
and while he is there he wakes from a nightmare about a girl
called Catherine. Lockwood questions Nelly Dean (a housekeeper
of eighteen years who has worked at both houses) about the story
of Catherine [1].
Nelly tells him how Catherines father (Earnshaw) brought back
Heathcliff as a foundling from the streets of Liverpool. From the
start Earnshaws son (Hindley) bullies Heathcliff, but his daughter,
Catherine [1], forms a strong attachment to him. After Earnshaws
death, Hindley inherits the power, and effectively reduces
Heathcliff to the status of servant.
One day, Heathcliff overhears Catherine [1] telling Nelly that she
cannot marry him for economic reasons. He has already left by the
time she goes on to say that she loves him.

 He disappears for three years, returning with unexpected

wealth and discovers that Catherine [1] has married
Edgar Linton (whose family owns Thrushcross Grange).
The passion between Heathcliff and Catherine [1]
remains. Catherine [1] grows ill under the strain of
yearning for what she can never have. Shortly after, she
dies in child birth having given birth to a daughter
(Catherine [2]).
Heathcliff marries Isabella Linton (Edgars sister) and
mistreats her, and also encourages Hindley to drink
himself to death. This he duly does, leaving his son
(Hareton) to be raised predominantly by Heathcliff.
Heathcliff deprives Hareton of education and status. His
child with Isabella is called Linton.
Edgar does his best to prevent a friendship forming
between Catherine [2] and Linton Heathcliff, keeping
Catherine [2] in isolation at Thrushcross Grange.
However, after Edgar dies, Heathcliff imprisons
Catherine [2] and forces a marriage between her and
Linton, in order to ensure that Thrushcross Grange

Task: The Gothic Form

Band 4 Explain In which ways do you think
Wuthering Heights illustrates the conventions
of the Gothic novel? Can you point to a
passage which illustrates these conventions?
Band 5 Analyse How does Emily Bronte
challenge, extend or complicate the features
and conventions characteristic of the Gothic
novel? Choose another passage which
challenges or complicates the interpretation
of Wuthering Heights as a Gothic novel.

Key Gothic concepts

Horror and terror

The Sublime
The Uncanny
Taboos
The Supernatural
or Preternatural
Oppositions
Otherness
Obscurity

The Revenant
The Doppelganger
The Liminal
Abhuman

Which are present

within Wuthering
Heights?

Plenary
Gothic novels
Preoccupied with the supernatural
and the fantastic
Locations such as gloomy forests and
ruins
Charismatic villain (mysterious,
powerful, driven by ambition)
Gothic protagonist has contempt for
conventional forms of authority (eg
the church and law)
Landscape is charged with the
emotions of the characters
Brooding atmosphere of gloom and
terror
Dealing with aberrant psychological
states, looking at the realm of the
irrational
Aims to evoke terror by dwelling on
mystery and horror generally

Band 6 Evaluate
To what extent is
Wuthering Heights
a Gothic Novel?