Wuthering Heights may end on a relatively hopeful note, but that does not erase how wholly heartbreaking the novel is. One of the most dismal aspects of the story being the way that Heathcliff becomes what he once hated: a tyrant, and one that seems to be far worse than Hindley. This structure, a depressing story with an ending that betrays the tone of the rest of it, reminds me of Shelley’s poem, “England 1819″. Not only that, but I cannot help but feel that Heathcliff, at the end of his life, can be described by the poem as well. Heathcliff is the country of England in which everything is going wrong. He is the ” old, mad, blind, despis’d, and dying king,” and yet, he is also that person “starv’d and stabb’d in the untill’d field.” Hate and suffering has made him into that hated and dying king, but a false king at that. It was a role that he never fit into, and really never wanted. So though he was the master of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange at the time of his death, he died as the lonely orphan boy he once was. And yet out of all of this, that “glorious phantom may burst to illuminate our tempestuous day;” Hareton and Cathy go on to live what could have been between Catherine and Heathcliff, as Heathcliff is laid to rest, finally with the person he loves for the rest of eternity in “that quiet earth.”

As I was reading these chapters of Wuthering Heights, I could not help but focus somewhat on the relationship between Heathcliff and his son, Linton. The father and son first meet when Linton is 12 years old, as he has spent his life up to that point being raised by his mother, Isabella, in London. When the young boy comes to Thrushcross Grange, he is of sickly temperament, and it is clear his upbringing has predisposed him to incessant whining. For these reasons, Heathcliff takes an instant disliking toward his son. He cannot even stand to be in the same room as him for very long, as Nelly comes to find out from the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights: ” Mr. Heathcliff seemed to dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to conceal it: he had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes together” (Chapter 21). Unsurprisingly, Linton takes after his mother much more than he does his father. Heathcliff despises everything about his son that he once hated in his wife and her brother: their refinement, fragility, and spoiled entitlement. Whereas Heathcliff grew up treated as a ward, and later more like a servant or a slave, Edgar, Isabella, and now Linton, all enjoyed comfortable and pampered childhoods. I believe that this leads to Heathcliff having much difficulty in accepting him as his son, since he embodies so much of what he resents.

While thinking about this relationship, I was reminded of the poem “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point,” by George Eliot. The poem is told from the point of view of an enslaved African woman who is running away from her master. A master with whom she shares an infant son. There is a line where she says ” My own, own child! I could not bear to look in his face, it was so white.” Like Linton to Heathcliff, the woman’s child embodies what she hates most: her master. For this reason, she cannot stand to look at him, and struggles with the idea that he is even her child in the first place. Unlike Heathcliff, however, she also takes pity on the child, as she knows that he will be brought up into slavery. Because of this, she ends up killing him to spare him from this fate.

Something that strikes me in Wuthering Heights, and especially interests me because I do not recall it from high school, is the portrayal of the female characters. Of course, it is much less surprising than if the author had been a man, but it is still exciting to see. The first woman that is introduced to the reader is Mrs. Heathcliff, and though she seemingly embodies the qualities of an ideal lady, is cast in a decidedly negative light. Isabella, another prim and proper, is similarly criticized by the author. A particular line in chapter two reminded me greatly of Eliot’s essay on Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft. After an argument between Heathcliff and Mrs. Heathcliff, Lockwood observes, “Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off, where she kept her word by playing the part of a statue during the remainder of my stay.” In Eliot’s piece, she recalls an ancient Roman quote, ” Sit divus, dummodo non sit vivus” meaning: let him be a god, provided he be not living. She applies this to Fuller and Wollstonecraft’s views on how men treat their wives at the time; let them be thoughtless idols, in other words, let them be statues like Mrs. Heathcliff. She is a doll sitting in her shrine, just as Eliot says. Eliot also comments on Fuller and Wollstonecraft’s ideas of encouraging female independence. Eliot dismisses this, claiming that women lose strength through this “false position.” It seems that Catherine exists to defy that. She is described multiple times as independent, wild, and strong; all things that were unacceptable for women to be. And yet, Catherine is the female character that Bronte wishes her audience to favor. This in itself is a rather radical position for an author to encourage.

The excerpt from Harriet Martineau’s Society in America, “Political Nonexistence of Women,” deals with a concept established in the Declaration of Independence: consent of the governed. Specifically, Martineau makes the claim that women, by virtue of being entirely excluded from all political activity, are being controlled by a government to which they have never assented to. Ultimately, Martineau calls for a reformation of the government through suffrage and equal representation for women.

Thomas Carlyle employs the metaphor of clothing in Sartor Resartus to communicate the need for social change. Instead of focusing this argument on the basis of gender, however, Carlyle calls for action from the oppressed classes who are forced into their societal roles with little say in the matter. He urges them to reject the customary clothing that was pushed upon them and to make their own clothing. This directly relates to the issue of consent of the governed that Martineau speaks about in her piece. While there is some ambiguity in Sartor Resartus as to who has the authority to restructure, or retailor, governmental and societal institutions, Martineau maintains that women be given equal representation in political matters. This effectively tasks women with the responsibility, or perhaps rather the right, to retailor such institutions.