呼啸山庄中的爱情悲剧（全英文）.docx

呼啸山庄中的爱情悲剧(全英文)Love Tragedy in Wuthering HeightsAbstract: Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Bronte, is a magic masterpiece in English literature. This book reveals us the real life in a deformed society, draws outline of twisted human nature and terrible events caused by this human nature. This paper probes into introducing their love story, the relationship of true love and revenge, the reasons causing Heathcliffs revenge and the background of the novel so as to show a story of love tragedy in Wuthering HeightsKey word: tragedy, love, revenge艾米莉的呼啸山庄是英国文学史上的一部奇书。这部书通过一个 爱情悲剧，向人们展示了一幅畸形社会的生活画面，勾勒了被这个畸 形社会扭曲了的人性及其造成的种种可怖的事件。本文将通过分析 介绍希斯克利夫和凯瑟琳的爱情，悲剧与复仇的关系，希斯克利夫复 仇的原因以及小说背景来说明呼啸山庄里的爱情悲剧。IntroductionWuthering Heights (1847) is a story narrated by Lockwood, a gentleman visiting the Yorkshire moors where the novel is set, and of Mrs Dean, housekeeper to the Earnshaw family, who has been witness of the cause trouble to him. As a member of the lower class, when he enters the upper-class, Headthcliff longs for the acceptance and respect from the upper society, and love from everyone. Because of this notion, Heathcliff sits down under others' abuse. But in capitalism society, Romany do not belong to its nobility, rather that Headthcliff is a Romany foundling, no matter how much effort he makes, he cannot join them . The process of Heathcliffs revenge reveals the injustice of the society (the lower people get little chance to enjoy their rights). Emily Bronte thoroughly describes the warm work in Heathcliffs psychology: under the appearance of a little lamb, Heathcliff is filled with enmity in his depressive heart. Heathcliff is the product of the inequitable society. At the beginning of the novel, we knew that Wuthering Heights is the name of Heathcliffs house. Wuthering has a special meaning in the local language, which is used to describe the fierce and wild winds that blow during storms on the moors. "Then, the writer describes the environment of the heights, it is not hard to find that the twist of the tree stands for the distort of human being. Wuthering Heights, in this close place, love is replaced by hatred , none of the beautiful feelings of the people is left .Serving as a foil to Heathcliff,Brant characterizes those so-called upper class people :Mrs Earnshaw, Catherine,Edgar.they all appears to be kind but in fact they are marble-hearted. In the novel, Cindery is the representative of the noble, the conflict between Heathcliff and him is in fact the rivalry of two different classes. Because he was the representative of the dominator self-concern ,marble-hearted, and takes his father as an oppressor Just for fear of letting his beautiful sister marry a peasant ,he destroyed his sister's love .What he does to Heathcliff is enough to change a saint into a devil. It is him who smashed Heathcliffs love and human nature, and directly inspired the hatred hidden in Heathcliffs inner world, changed him into he embodiment of Belial.3.1.3 Betrayal of CatherineWe can say that love from Catherine was the only help that can retrieval Heathcliffs human nature. zzYou teach me how cruel you've beencruel and false. Why do you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry, and wring out my kisses and tears; theyll blight youthey1! damn you. You loved methen what right had you to leave me? What rightanswer meor the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heartyou have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine (pl70), Heathcliff gets his love from the friendship they have gained since childhood .He cannot obtain a good fate, but he puts all his love on Catherine. Catherine means everything to him, just like sunshine, warming his cold body in this frozen world. So she is his hope. He regards her love more important than his own life .However, the society can not bear their love, except for Old Earnshaw, no body supports them. After his foster father dies, Cinderly comes back home with his wife and becomes the new host of the heights. As the defender of the upper-class, he could not place himself on an equal footing with Heathcliff. Heathcliff shares his father's love with him , he would not let him win his sister's heart. As soon as he returns home, he forces Heathcliff to live with the servant, deprives Heathcliffs right of receiving education and asks him to work on the farmland Joseph and the priest incites Hinderly to punish Heathcliff and Catherine. The priest could ask Catherine to recite the Bible at his will. Joseph could lash Heathcliff until his own arms ached. No matter how hard they try to put girl in the machine, they could not damage the two young peoples' love. When he is suffering from all kinds of abuse, Catherine accompanies him. As long as he has her love, Heathcliff could forget all pain and abasement, he could even endure more fierce tribulation. Since he is not allowed to receive education from the priest, Catherine tells him everything she has learned in the class; when he is working on the farmland Catherine works with him, then they plays together. As long as they got together, they could forget everything at once, only their love excites them.The novel studies the conflict love relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, it shows Catherine's bewilderment, this kind of bewilderment could be described as our human nature. Catherine was an unconstraint, brave girl, she is difficult to tame. Behind this character, she obtains a rebelling power. Heathcliff has this power in common. As Catherine puts it am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mindnot as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being” while Edgar was the man she is forced to love by the public opinion. When she first experiences the civilized life, Catherine is very excited. Living under this different environment, she tries to hold in her desultoriness nature. In her opinion, Edgar is very attractive just like a fertile valley: he is handsome, rich, graceful and well-educated while Heathcliff is a desolate coal area. In fact, this is a conflict between two lifestyles. The combination of Catherine and Edgar is a beautiful aureole covered by the social ethic, Catherine blinded her eyes to marry Edgar and lost herself. Heathcliff could not accept Catherine/s choice. As a foundling living in a freaky family, followed by the broken dream of his first love, proceed from human instinct, he attributed all his sufferings to people who had harmed him. He chooses the way of revenging.3.2 Background of the novelApart from the above reasons, background information cannot be neglected. If we are familiar with their living environments, we may get a deeper understanding of why their love turns to be a tragedy.3.2.1 Catherine's living environmentCatherine lives in an isolated situation and nobody could help her. Though under her father's protection, she gets a happy childhood; after the death of his father, her brother inherits everything legally, she has to live under Hindely's control. In spite of her objection, she could not change the fact. She receives stricter restriction. As a householder, Hinderly is a round tyrant. He hates the low-born Heathcliff, isolates Catherine from him, and tries every means to abuse Heathcliff. As to Catherine, he is never concerned about her. As a woman of middle class, Catherine's only way out is to obey the tradition, marry a man whose background is equal to her, and be a good mother and wife, or conventional megalith would break her down. Her love with Heathcliff could not be accepted by the society at all. In the novel, Joseph sneers at her being outside alone for amorism: what a nonessential behavior that she is in the afield after midnight with Heathcliff. For this matter, Old Linton goes for Hindly by himself and accused him of not teaching his sister strictly. Mr and Mrs Hindly use beautiful clothes to flatter their sister to raise her self-dignity, so that she would feel ashamed to be a wild boar. They taught her the bred-in-the-bone values and gradually changed her will. Everybody thinks that the marriage of Catherine and Linton means she enters heaven ,but in Catherine/s heart she knew she made a serious mistake. /zMy love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods; time will change it, Tm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mindnot as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being" (p88).We can see that Heathcliffs revenge is not only for himself but also for Catherine. They have the same character, they have the same fate. But when confronted with traditional value, they chose different method; Heathcliff chooses rebel. After he lost Catherine, he carries out his revenge gradually, and at last he success, while Catherine gives in to the traditional values and marries Edgar of the equal status. She once dreamed of taking advantage of Lintons' wealth to help him be independent so that her brother had no right to bother him. Of course, this dream could not turn into reality. We can learn it from the following scene: when Heathcliff reappeared, Linton advises him to sit in the kitchen but not in the sitting-room, she is trapped in the toil she had set by herself. She becomes ill when Heathcliff and Edgar fight, and dies in childbirth. ''Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed youhaunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believeI know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me alwaystake any formdrive me mad! Only 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!" (pl76). Heathcliff passionately pleads for Catherine not to leave him after she has died.3.2.2 Heathcliffs living environmentIt is significant that Heathcliff begins his life as a homeless orphan on the streets of Liverpool. When Bronte composed her book, in the 1840s, the English economy was severely depressed, and the conditions of the factory workers in industrial areas like Liverpool were so appalling that the upper and middle classes feared violent revolt. Thus, many of the more affluent members of society beheld these workers with a mixture of sympathy and fear. In literature, the smoky, threatening, miserable factory-towns were often represented in religious terms, and compared to hell. The poet William Blake, writing near the turn of the nineteenth century, speaks of England's "dark Satanic Mills." Heathcliff, of course, is frequently compared to a demon by the other characters in the book.Considering this historical context, Heathcliff seems to embody the anxieties that the book/s upper- and middle-class audience had about the working classes. The reader may easily sympathize with him when he is powerless, as a child tyrannized by Hindley Earnshaw, but he becomes a villain when he acquires power and returns to Wuthering Heights with money and the trappings of a gentleman. This corresponds with the ambivalence the upper classes felt toward the lower classesthe upper classes had charitable impulses toward lower-class citizens when they were miserable, but feared the prospect of the lower classes trying to escape their miserable circumstances by acquiring political, social, cultural, or economic power.ConclusionBefore finishing this paper we find the following aspects noteworthy:1) After he becomes the owner of both Wuthering Heights and Thrashing Heights, smashes all his foes, even repays their offspring, Heathcliff does not have the sense of success nor happy feelings. Just as he puts it: "My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives-! could do it, and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don't care for striking, I can't take the trouble to raise my hand.” (p336) Heathcliff has given up on revenge, as no longer has the will for it. It is only because of this that he is able to see Catherine again. They finally get together in the heaven.2) The tragic love in Wuthering Heights roots in the society where self-dissimilation of human nature and the seriously distorted idea of family status take place. The marriage of Catherine and Linton is not from Catherine/s original intention, she has betrayed herself. Because of the setback of his love, Heathcliff carries out his revenge madly, he violates the feelings of normal people and the social ethics. Human nature of honesty and goodness is destroyed and distorted in the capitalism society. The originally great love is exterminated at last. So we can say that the love tragedy in Wuthering Heights is the tragedy of both the society and themselves.interlocked destinies of the original owners of the Heights. In a series of flashbacks and time shifts, Bronte draws a powerful picture of the enigmatic Heathcliff, who is brought to Heights from the streets of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw. Heathcliff is treated like Earnshaw's own children, Catherine and Hindley. After his death Heathcliff is bullied by Hindley, who loves Catherine, but sees her marry Edgar Linton. Heathcliff 's destructive force is unleashed, and his first victim is Catherine, who dies giving birth to a girl, another Catherine. Isabella Linton, Edgard sister, whom he has married, flees to the south. Their son Linton and Catherine are married, but always-sick Linton dies. Hareton, Hindley son, and the young widow become close. Increasingly isolated and alienated from daily life, Heathcliff experiences visions, and he longs for the death that will reunite him with Catherine.Reading closely, we gain some insight.zzWuthering,z being a local adjective used to describe the fierce and wild winds that blow during storms on the moors. The home of the Earnshaws and then Heathcliff is called "Wuthering Heights/' and in the first chapter Mr. Lockwood says that "wuthering" is a significant adjective, as it is ndescriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. It shows us an atmosphere of tragedy and foreshadows a love tragedy.1. LoveCatherine and Heathcliffs passion for one another seems to be the center of Wuthering Heights, given that it is stronger and more lasting than any other emotion displayed in the novel, and that it is the source of most of the major conflicts that structure the novel's plot.1.1 True loveRegardless of family and social values, two young men get together only for personal attraction. This true love arises our appre