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Friday, April 1, 2016

Wuthering Heights? What's That?



Welp, I’m back. My class and I just finished reading the Gothic novel, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. I have to say, it was probably one of the most challenging book I have ever read, and I loathed this book at first. I dreaded picking up this book, but I forced myself to read it anyways because it was for class. However, by the end of the book, I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book and that I completely understand (I think) what Brontë is saying. For today’s blog post, I wanted to explore the reasoning behind the family tree that Emily uses. Emily decided that she wanted to utterly confuse her readers and create a family tree that is intertwined literally EVERYWHERE and for everyone to have similar names. Let me show you the family tree:


https://arqshah.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/wuthering-heights-family-tree.png

As you can see, it is very mind-boggling and it relies on the readers’ intellectuality to actually break this down. For me, this was the hardest part in the book-discovering all of the relationships and what they mean symbolically. Well, it’s your lucky day! I am going to give some insight to Brontë’s every move on her character choices, because they actually do have reasoning behind it.
            First is the fact that this whole family tree, starting from the second generation, is basically incest. And this boils down to Brontë wanting to illuminate that people are who their parents are and cannot control that. Back then, it was a common thing and was not frowned upon like it is now, so it honestly just adds to the complexity of the novel. I think it is also there to show the different generations and the combinations of each relationship. For example, usually offspring represent one half of their mother and one half of their father. Brontë illuminates this ideology by creating the intertwined family, showing how the generations changed over time. Let’s take Catherine and Edgar for example. Catherine came from a father who neglected her and lived a care-free childhood. Edgar came from the total opposite, and was always raised as a poised gentleman. Together, they created Cathy, who has the want to go and roam but loves the social status as well. Get it? So, by creating the connected family tree, Brontë shows that children are really products of their parents, which is why as the generations move forward, so do the children. SPOILER ALERT! At the end of the novel, you will see that Cathy and Hareton end up together and they break-free from the “norms” of their family because the parents have partners (Edgar and Frances) that are not from the same family.
            DO NOT get me started on the character names. UGH. It was so hard trying to decipher them because Catherine was also sometimes called Cathy, which is her daughter’s name and etc. Emily Brontë DEFINITELY wanted to confuse her readers on this one (I’m only kidding). But the similar names connect back to illumination of the children being a product of their parents. I think the names symbolize that they will always still have some of their parents, just maybe not some of the same characteristics.
            This must have been very confusing for some of you who have not read the novel yet. But, PLEASE. Go read it!! It’s is worth it.


Until next time.

EG

4 comments:

  1. Let me first just say how every time I go onto your blogs, I'm always excited to see something funny. Weird right? But anyways, when I read this blog I was really intrigued and amused at what you were doing. You did something with Wuthering Heights that no one ever has done yet. I liked it. You kept me anticipating to read more, but sadly like every post it has to end. After reading the post, I just want to say that the only problems I had are with your introduction and flow. There's nothing wrong with your introduction, but doesn't it get boring saying "Hey I'm back at it again with another post"? Maybe next time you do a post, start off differently. With the flow, it has to with your transitions. You just need to fix that and some minor grammar errors and you're good. I look forward to your next post!

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  2. I love how you added the family tree in your post! I am always so impressed with how tech savvy your posts are. In addition, they are always spunky and entertaining! I had trouble understanding the connections with the family tree at first. However, after drawing the character map a million times I finally had figured it out. I still cannot quite fathom how Brontë comes up with all that she does , especially all the different characters and their own little personas. For me the names being alike did not bother me as I know it did several of our classmates…again its most likely because I made a character map like every other chapter or so. I feel as if you have grown so much in your posts and have begun to really analyze while still being funny and straight forward. I defiantly would second that this is one of the more difficult novels I have encountered. However, I am excited to be able to say that I finished a gothic novel and look forward to experiencing more of them. Hopefully we will all one day look back and try and read Wuthering Heights again and maybe understand the plot and mind behind Emily Brontë better next time. Keep writing, reading and analyzing!

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  3. Another great post! I really liked the family tree you included within your blog post, it added a face to the characters in the novel (to be honest though, Frances looks like a baddie haha). Like Rose, at first I had a hard time knowing the characters and how each were related to one another but with time (basically by going back a rereading chapters) knowing the characters somewhat became an easy task. I never really thought about the symbolic meaning of the characters taking names after their parents, I just thought Brontë was having a lot of fun purposely confusing all of us haha. Although now, a few things are starting to make a lot more sense, so I'm glad you made such discovery and shared that with us. However, for your blog posts to come, I would recommend that you spend some time going over your post to make sure that it's free from minor errors so your ideas flow nicely and I'd encourage you to upgrade your vocabulary a bit to strengthen your sentences and claims. Overall, I really loved your post, and can't wait for you to write soon and analyze more on the different works of literature you encounter :)

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  4. I completely agree with you on the confusion of the names, and the intermingling of the two families. I was very confused as well and hated the book, but my hatred still lives on. I really like the family tree because it gives us a visual image to refer to while reading your post, and it also helps the people who take a good 20 minutes trying to break down the different names, and the different marriages (me). I really like your insight on how the names themselves are a way of Brontë trying to show the reader that children are a product of their parents. I personally never thought of it that way, I believed that Brontë was trying to confuse everyone with the different names, however, your insight has brought light to the subject. What I would recommend is that you double check your post to correct any errors and grammar (I know I need to do that). Also the picture for Heathcliff in the family tree is weird, because he looks caucasian, and Linton looks like a girl haha. Your blog post are hilarious, and insightful at the same time. Keep writing!!

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