Wuthering Heights

1. Read the novel at any of the following sites:

http://www.literature.org/authors/bronte-emily/wuthering-heights/
http://www.online-literature.com/bronte/wuthering/
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/BroWuth.html

2. Go to http://www.online-literature.com/bronte/

1. Under what pen-name was the novel first published?
2. How has Emily Bronte been characterized by biographers?

3. Go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/index.html

1. How many children were originally in the Bronte family?
2. What were the names of the surviving children?
3. What hardships did the children struggle with?
4. What were Angri and Gonal?
5. What was Charlotte's novel Shirley about?
6. Chitharn equated Emily the person with which character in the novel?
7. What evidence is there in the novel of concerns relating to anorexia/bulemia?

4. Go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/charlotte.html

1. In what way did the Bronte's publisher take advantage of Charlotte's success with Jane Eyre?
2. What choice of the sisters added to the confusion?
3. Why did the women make this choice?
4. What were the early reviews of Wuthering Heights like?
5. How did rumours that the early reviews had all been negative spread?
6. Describe in your own words how Charlotte described her sister to the literary public:

5. Go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/themes.html

1. List the ten themes presented on this page, and briefly describe each in your own words:
2. Which theme do you find the most compelling and why (give evidence from the novel in your reply - preferably additional evidence to that which is presented at the site.

6. Go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/psych.html#jung

List the three psychological interpretations of the novel discussed here, and explain them each briefly in your own words:

7. Go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/narrator.html

1. Read this section on point of view - are Nellie and Lockwood opposites, or do they complete each other as narrator in some way? Explain your answer:
2. How reliable/trustworthy do you think Nellie and Lockwood are as narrators? Explain your answer:

8. Go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/mystic.html

1. Rather than the traditional sense of religion, in which we consider a particular religion or denomination, what form does religion take in this novel?
2. What did Otto refer to as "the numinous"?
3. What qualities of the numinous give rise to "numinous dread"?
4. What two feelings does "numinous dread" inspire?
5. Traversi sees the novel as a quest for religious experience toward what higher goal?
6. According to Winnifrith, the religious idea behind the story is that salvation is won by suffering...explain this idea as it pertains to the novel.
7. Scroll down and read "Wuthering Heights as a Metaphysical Novel" ...according to Van Ghent, the impetus of life is towards what?
8. In your own words, how do the relationships between Catherine and Heathcliff and Cathy and Hareton express this metaphysical idea?
9. Click on the "Two Children Figure" -- explain the two children figure and where else in Bronte's writing this figure appears.
10. Scroll back up to "Wuthering Heights as a Religious Novel" and click on the "English Gothic" link and read through the bulleted list of gothic features but do not copy them - do copy the material listed about the features of gothic literature that come immediately afterward:
11. Scroll down and read "the Gothic and Wuthering Heights" and list ways in which the novel is presented as gothic:
12. Scroll down and read "A Feminist Theory of the Gothic and Wuthering Heights" -- what does Ellen Moers say heroinism accomplished for women writers in an era in which their roles were too narrowly defined?
13. List the first three forms of heroines mentioned:
14. In your own words, explain the importance of the brother/sister relationship in Gothic fiction:

9. Go to http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/romantic.html#wh

Read through the list of romantic elements in Wuthering Heights -- based on this list, come up with your own list of concerns in the literary period of romanticism (i.e.what underlying ideas prompted the elements?)

10. Go to http://www.lyricsfreak.com/k/kate+bush/wuthering+heights_html

Read the lyrics inspired by the novel - then listen to/watch a version of "Wuthering Heights" at http://youtube.com by one of the following artists:
Kate Bush
Hayley Westenra
Pat Benatar