Closure type - In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

Main points of debate:

- The inner conflict

- The „premonition” of impending death

-Heathcliff’s inexpressible joy

-Heathcliff’s beliefs towards death

- Human relations:

-The rife rumours-and the manner in which people regard this strange death

-The irony from the last page of the novel

- The symbol of the ending

-The symbol of one ending and the beginning of anoher

-Catherine and Hareton seen as a unit

Bibliography:

1. Emily Brontë, 1975,”Wuthering Heights” by Keith Sagar. Number 150, The British Council

2. Emily Brontë, 1962, ”Wuthering Heights”, Edited with a critical commentary by T.Crehan, M.A, University of London Press LTD, Warwick Square, London E.C.4

3. Emily Brontë, 1932, ”Wuthering Heights”, Jonathan Cape, London- in romaneste de Henriette Yvonne Stahl, prefata de Ana Cartianu, Editura de Stat Pentru Literatura si Arta, Clasici Literaturii Universale

4. Readings in Literary Criticism2, 1971 ”Critics on Charlotte and Emily Brontë”, Edited by Judith O’Neil, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, London

5. Rod Mengham, 1988, „Wuthering Heights”, Penguin Critical Studies

6. Ph.K.Wion, 1992, ”The absent Mother in Wuthering Heights”, in Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism, ed Linda H.Peterson

7. Margaret Homas, 1992, ”The name of the Mother in Wuthering Heights”, in Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism, ed Linda H.Peterson

8. Mira Stoiculescu, Monica Botez, 1985, ”An Anthology of English Literature”- Buc

The inner conflict

Unlike most Gothic romances, Wuthering Heights does not build to an intense, violent climax before its ending; rather, its tension quietly unravels as the inner conflict within Heathcliff gradually dissipates, his love for Catherine becoming stronger than his lust for revenge. Although the novel’s happy ending is not possible until Heathcliff’s death, his influence has become menacingly in the preceding days, and thus his demise does not constitute a dramatic reversal of the book’s trends.

”Why, almost bright and cheerful. No, almost nothing- very much excited, and wild and glad!” she replied.(Chapter XXXIV pp.270)

The „premonition” of impending death

As time passes, Heathcliff becomes increasingly obsessed with his dead love, and he finds reminders of her everywhere. He begins conversing with her ghost, and, after his climatic night on the moors—a night that we do not see or hear anything about, because Nelly was not there— 1. a strange cheer comes over him, a happy premonition of his own impending death.

”Yet, certainly, he had a strange, joyful glitter in his eyes, that altered the aspect of his whole face”(Ch XXXIV pp.270)

2. Heathcliff dies without accepting the judgement of men, or the judgement of God. He never feels remorse for any of his actions: “as a repenting of my injustices, I’ve done no injustice, and I repent of nothing”(Ch XXXIV pp 276). And his last instructions to the bewildered Nelly show an insurmountable indifference to orthodox Christianity,

“No minister need come; nor need anything be said over me- I tell you, I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of other is altogether unvalued, and uncoveted by me!” (Ch XXXIV pp.276)

Because he rejects all religious notions of the afterlife, Heathcliff does not fear death. Although the text frequently likens him to the Devil, he does not believe in Hell, and his forced religious education as a child has caused him to deny the existence of Heaven. His lack of religious belief leads him to refuse to allow Nelly to Christianize his death by calling for a priest. Rather, for Heathcliff, the end of life can mean only one thing: the beginning of his reunion with Catherine.

” I want to be carried to the churchyard in the evening. You and Hareton may, if you please, accompany me: and mind, particularly, to notice that the sexton obeys my dirrections concerning the two coffins!” (Ch XXXIV pp.276)

”And supposing you persevered in your obstinate fast, and died by that means, and they refused to bury you in the precincts of the kirk?” I said, shoked at his godless indifference. ”How would you like it?”

”They won’t do that”, he replied; ”if they did, you must have me removed secretly: and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically, that the dead are not annihilated!”(Ch XXXIV pp 276)