Connections between Readings

When reading the first couple of chapters for Wuthering Heights I continue to see that same abuse of power that we see in so many other readings. Nelly begins to recant the stories of everything that has gone on in Wuthering Heights and our eyes begin to open to all the things that were going on prior to the time period of the book. I see this most prominently when Hindley is able to get away with treating Heathcliff the way he does since he is in authority or of a higher social class that Heathcliff. We tend to see this happening very frequently and it comes up as a common discussion in class. I also thought of another slight connection to our discussion of Queen Victoria in relation to our readings about Carlyle. This situation is similar to how Queen Victoria took in a child of a low social class. It reminded me of this, however it is clearly very different because Queen Victoria treated her god-daughter like her own, since she was so smart. Hindley knows that no one will question his treatment of Heathcliff because of his position in society. This is why the greed and power theme is always reiterated in my head while reading Victorian Literature, because everyone in higher society or simply a position of power had a sense of that.

While reading about how young Catherine was changing due to the people she was surrounding herself with I was thinking about George Eliot’s essay. Woman are always expected to act a certain way and keep a certain type of company. I was making this connection and thinking about the premise of the paper and how women should be able to do anything and not be held to a certain standard that is drastically different from the one created for men.

When thinking back to the treatment of Heathcliff I recall he was being treated different because he looked different and was different from everyone else. He was not allowed to play with the same children as Catherine. Instead of being treated like he was apart of the family, he was being treated as a “worker”. This brings me back to the discussion we had about how what you wear and your appearance carried such weight, especially in this time. Heathcliff was excluded and not treated fairly as a child, simply because of the way he looked and dressed.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.