Wuthering Heights: Key Skills English Assignment Essay, Research Paper
In chapter nine, Isabella and Heathcliff
went back to Wuthering Heights, and Isabella wrote a letter to Nelly describing
what she had encountered upon moving into the Heights. ????? Isabella does not react positively to her
new home; she is very unhappy and regrets wholeheartedly her marriage to
Heathcliff. Although she attempts to stand up the characters of Hareton and
Joseph, she eventually cannot cope because of her upbringing; all her life she
was waited on. Isabella depends on the strength of men, which is illustrated by
the fact that she becomes weak only weak Heathcliff treats her cruelly and she
is rejected by Edgar. ????? The way she describes the house seems to
reflect the people who inhabit it. Currently living in the house when Isabella
arrived were Joseph, Hareton and Hindley. There was no housekeeper or maid to
wait on the master. She described the kitchen as a "dingy, untidy
hole". This indicates it must have changed since she had last seen it,
when Nelly worked there. It suggests that when the women, Nelly and Catherine,
moved out, the house lost its beauty. Also the kitchen has connotations of
being a very female environment. She describes Hareton as "a ruffianly
child" and "dirty in garb". This seems to represent what had
happened to the Heights. "Ruffianly" conveys that the child has no
discipline, and perhaps suggesting that the house has little order now. Also
his dirty appearance was mirrored in how she described the Heights. Isabella comments
on Joseph’s rudeness, "? thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his
(Joseph’s) rudeness." This was after Isabella had enquired about if he
would accompany her. This shows how Joseph was very cold and uninviting, much
like the Heights. Isabella entered through the kitchen, rather than the front
door, which seems to suggest that the Heights were not very inviting. The
master of Wuthering Heights, Hindley, had since gone made since the death of
his wife, Frances. His mental state and appearance all mirror that state of
Wuthering Heights. His appearance is described as "a tall, gaunt man,
without neckerchief, and other wise extremely slovenly; his features were lost <
in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders?". The fact he does
not have a neckerchief shows that he does not conform to how the typical male
should have appeared in the 18th Century. This also represents the
way Wuthering Heights has its own conventions and is a hegemony. Both when she
describes Hareton and Hindley, she mentions the way that have Catherine’s eyes.
Particularly when she describes Hindley, she says: "? and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly
Catherine’s, with all their beauty annihilated." It is interesting that
she uses the word "ghostly" as later on in the story, Heathcliff talks
about how Catherine is haunting him as a ghost. What it could also mean though,
is that only a small part of Catherine remains in Wuthering Heights, and what
was once her has faded away. Life within the Heights has changed in this manner
as well. ????? Isabella’s feelings about Wuthering
Heights heavily contrast those of Catherine. Where as Catherine has happy
childhood memories of living there, Isabella only sees the pain and the misery
and the violence that she experienced. Catherine may have had such better
memories of Wuthering Heights than Isabella because their characters differed
so much: Catherine was wild and passionate; Isabella was homely and a
romanticist. Life, for Catherine, was a lot different. When she was growing up
she was given an education by her father. Hareton, however, who lived in the
Heights later on, was denied of this. Also Catherine was around people she
could talk to and confide in, like Nelly; Catherine confided in Nelly about her
engagement to Edgar. Isabella has no one she can talk to when she arrives at
the Heights because there is no maid or housekeeper. However, it is Nelly that
Isabella chooses to write to, showing that she is trying to create a link to
Thrushcross Grange, where Nelly is living. Catherine and Isabella both have
different experiences of Heathcliff. Heathcliff treated Isabella in a very
violent and cruel way. Catherine remembers Heathcliff as her playmate when she
was young, someone that she would be with on the moors and Heathcliff never
treated her in that way. They were both experiencing Heathcliff before he
started his revenge and afterwards.
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