"Wuthering Heights"

Book Review # 114217

English > Analysis
Literature > English

"Wuthering Heights"

An analysis of the themes of exiles and intruders in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights".

1,183 words () | 2 sources | MLA | 2009 Canada

Paper Summary:

Emily Bronte's classic Victorian novel "Wuthering Heights" contains many notable examples of exiles and intruders. This paper briefly discusses the theme of exiles and intruders within the novel and suggests that, despite many turbulent events, this theme comes full circle and resolves itself by the novel's close. The paper also discusses how, although "Wuthering Heights" is ultimately a story of love between Catherine Linton/Earnshaw and Heathcliff, the boy found on the streets of Liverpool and adopted by Mr. Earnshaw, there are a number of other themes worth noting. Included among these are the novel's Gothic conventions, its sense of class struggle, and specific to this paper the theme of exiles and intruders.

From the Paper:

"Perhaps the most obvious intruder in the story is the one who is telling it, namely Mr. Lockwood - a self-styled misanthrope who has rented out Thrushcross Grange, a fine house and park in Yorkshire (Bronte 3). Though Mr. Lockwood appears in the narrative in 1801, having missed more than thirty years worth of events occurring at Thrushcross Grange and the neighboring house, Wuthering Heights; he is nevertheless present during the last year or so of the narrative events. While Nelly tells much of the novel's story to Mr. Lockwood, he nonetheless interacts with characters such as Heathcliff, Hareton, Catherine and Joseph - by this time all residents of Wuthering Heights. All of these characters suggest that though Lockwood is now the tenant of the Grange, his company is not looked for, nor very welcome. "

Sample of Sources Used:

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Pauline Nestor, ed. London; Penguin Books, 1995.
Baillargeon, Gerry. Engl 221: English Literature of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Revised First Ed. Unit Three. Burnaby, BC: Open Learning Agency, 2001.