I find it really interesting how so far, across the Victorian literature we have read there’s a lot of thematic commonalities, particularly in regards to the treatment of the working class. This makes perfect sense considering the historical context, with the Industrial Revolution changing the makeup of the work force and the looming threat of revolution after both the American and French Revolution. In my blog post last week I touched on the racial aspects and comparisons used in the readings we had done. The poems from last week, however, instead of appealing to their audience through the degradation of the work class by comparing them to members of lower racial and socioeconomic. status, there was a greater call to religion and its corruption as a place of blame for the conditions the working class experienced. For example, in “The Chimney Sweeper”, the final couplet reads, “And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King/ Who make up a heaven of our misery.” These lines suggest that the elite are not only turn a blind eye to the misery of the working class but also that they revel in it and even prosper from it.

The way in which Heathcliff and Catherine are treated reflects the discrimination targeted at. Prior to meeting Heathcliff, Cathy lived comfortably with her brother, Hindley. Mr. Earnshaw promises to get the children a gift on his journey, to which they request a violin and horsewhip. These material items show the financial status to which these children inherited by birth. Once Heathcliff arrives, however, there is a shifting dynamic in the family. Heathcliff is treated as inferior based on the difference in his skin color. Arguably, racial biases are a stronger tool for oppression than gender in the Victorian era. 

When Catherine and Heathcliff are discovered by the Linton’s, the treatment of each child shows how women were still treated better than non-white individuals. From his moment of arrival at the Earnshaw home, he is simply identified as a “dirty, ragged, black-haired child.” There isn’t a high chance for him to be accepted into this family due to being “as dark almost as if it came from the devil.” These disparaging remarks are constantly made about Heathcliff, which may reflect his attitude towards humans later in life.  Despite the “proper” lifestyle that women of this time were expected to follow, Catherine breaks these rules in favor of a more adventurous lifestyle with Heathcliff. She is constantly causing trouble with her brother, but Heathcliff suffers far greater consequences. 

Women of this era undoubtedly faced oppression, exhibited in the restriction to domestic and social spheres. Being a woman of the working class, however, was much different than one of a higher rank. The fictional Earnshaw family did well for themselves, as evidenced by Catherine’s upbringing. Another woman of privilege was Ada Lovelace, the real-life daughter of Lord Byron. Like Cathy, she shared greater access to resources than what was afforded to most women at the time. As an upper-middle-class woman, she was still expected to adhere to traditional roles. Gaining an education was just an additional expectation for someone of such rank. Lovelace emphasizes her love for mathematics and the use of geometric models as a learning tool. With guidance from professors at the top universities, Ada became known as the earliest developer of technology used in programming. This success may not have been possible without her social standing, especially given the intensity of the white male-dominated society.

Growing up in a well-known family gives Catherine Earnshaw a special pass that is not given to her own male brother, Heathcliff. In their encounter with the Linton family, the treatment of each Earnshaw child is very different despite the exact same offense. Isabella Linton is absolutely terrified of him, exclaiming, “Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He’s exactly like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant.” Like the comparison made by his own family to the devil, there is racial bias against non-white people as being savages with no morales. The Linton family recognizes Cathy and is shocked that she is around a “gypsy.” They don’t stop to consider that he could be with her for a valid reason. Instead, they are upset that she is around such a “heathen” and ensure that she receives proper care.

The issue of gender roles in Victorian society has been discussed by many writers of then and now. Racial differences were overlooked at the time since White women would still have been considered superior to any individual of a different race. This isn’t to suggest that Catherine Earnshaw and Ada Lovelace went through life without unique difficulties as women. Rather, we see how racial biases were just as, if not more, detrimental to one’s survival. 

Surprisingly, I found an intriguing connection between The Cry of the Children and Wuthering Heights. Since the infamous Catherine and Heathcliff love story in Wuthering Heights begins when they are children, I found a few comparisons between the two. Throughout the poem, there is a contrast between playful times on the countryside versus the sad, dark, industrial reality that children face. “They are binding up their hearts away from breaking, / With a cerement from the grave. / Go out children from the mime and from the city – / Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do – / Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty . Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through! / But they answer, “Are your cowslips of the meadows / Like our weeds anear the mine? / Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal shadows, / From your pleasures fair and fine!” Catherine and Heathcliff spend so much of their childhood playing out on the moors. Yet, when Catherine stays with the Lintons when she becomes a more mannerful young lady, in contrast to a reckless, wild girl. Heathcliff, on the other hand, remains the same as he continues to work and play while she was away. When Heathcliff confronts Catherine, the argument ends with Heathcliff telling Catherine he will be as dirty as he wants. Like the poem, he wanted to be left in his fithly and fun youth, away from the fair and fine pleasures of well-mannered adulthood. In a completely dfferent direction, the first line of the poem also connects to Wuthering Heights. In the heat of this argument between Catherine and Heathcliff, it is like they are arguing for the purpose of protecting their hearts and feelings. She wants to believe he is dull, as he tends to express his emotions through his angry outbursts. Overall, these two texts seem unrelated on the surface, but with a more depthful analysis, there is connections between them to be unearthed. 

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is a depiction of the intricacies of class structure during the 19th century; an idea had been addressed to some extent in nearly every piece of Victorian literature we had read thus far. The relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff is perhaps one of the strongest ways that Bronte addresses the plights of minority classes, by injecting it into a bleak love story that cross-examines both women and Africans. Heathcliff’s love for Catherine is unattainable because of his social status. William Blakes’s The Chimney Sweeper and The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point are both representative of some of the struggles of African’s during this time. Heathcliff’s specific situation is more complex, being that he went from poor orphan to being raised as an upper-class individual. Following the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff is redelegated so a subservient role due to Hindley’s resentment of him. It is Heathcliff’s role that is the reason Catherine’s love for him is equally unattainable. Catherine must shroud her desires for Heathcliff because to be with him would mean subjecting herself to being viewed as lowly, in comparison to being with Edgar who is a much more suitable partner from a societal standpoint. This can be connected to “Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft”, where the conditions of women and the way in which they are subjected to a position where they have to sort of mold to the sensibilities of their husband.

One of the most prevalent parts of the beginning of Wuthering Heights is in its usage of children. One of the most critical and strange scenes in the opening chapters is when Catherine’s ghost talks with Lockwood and laments over here past “twenty years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!”. The concept of abandonment is a powerful aspect of this scene. Further, descriptions of the abuses within the complex familial history of Wuthering Heights are common. In particular, I found connections back to poems discussed in class such as The Chimney Sweeper. One of the strongest connections is obvious, Heathcliff’s origins as an orphan. The treatment of Catherine and a young Heathcliff by Hindley show a cruel and often unjust upbringing, reminding me of lines from the poem, ‘Who make up a heaven of our misery’. Another strong connection is in Chapter 3, where Catherine is forced to attend sermons. The influence of these sermons on youth brought my mind to the conversations held around religion in The Chimney Sweeper.

What I found to be important was the portrayal of children, especially orphans, from the perspective of Victorian writers. In the elevated social background of the family, the children are required to be educated and shaped. They attend sermons, are made to dress in suitable clothes, and Catherine, in particular, is educated to act “ladylike” in Chapter 7. The strict social conventions of the Victorian era are contrasted especially against young children. This is even more apparent with Heathcliff at his first arrival, an orphan. Early on, he is often described as dirty and is shaped by his environment as he ages.

One thing I noticed while reading Wuthering Heights was the ways women and men were portrayed in some abnormal representations of gender roles, not sticking too closely to gender stereotypes. As Martineau wrote in her piece on government and women’s’ rights, women were often considered the property of their fathers and then their husbands, and were expected to act in a certain way. A “proper” lady did not mix with men in public except formally and with a man at her side. Although Martineau is mostly discussing the political rights (or lack thereof) of women, the social and interpersonal go hand in hand with that. Women of this time were restricted from acting on their own accord, and were expected to be proper and sophisticated all the time. They are expected to stamp out any other impulses while they are still young, and conform to society’s definition of a lady.

Bronte exposes this ugly and repressive side of society through her description of young Catherine Earnshaw’s evolution. At first, Catherine is portrayed as very tom-boyish, running across the moors with Heathcliff all day, refusing to do housework until forced, being reckless and rowdy and spending her time with her brother doing physical activities. When she is sent to the Lintons, however, she loses that personality and instead begins to wear fancy dresses and speak with polite manners as she is under the influence of a family instructed with the task of turning Catherine into a lady. This transformation is portrayed in a negative light, as her relationship with Heathcliff, her closest friend, is damaged. Bronte criticizes the way that society breaks down women and forces to change into someone they’re not, by providing a realistic example of Catherine Earnshaw, and taking her readers on the painful journey of her conversion from a wild, excitable tom-boy to a proper lady.

One area of connection (through disconnection) that interests me is the setting in William Blake’s “London” and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Insomuch as how these two interact, I find it necessary to note a major difference between the London citizenry and the rural genteel. As it goes then, the London citizenry (of the distinctly lower classes) were unable to own land nor were they able to access natural relief, while the rural English genteel were afforded large swaths of land (of which they derived much of their income). In the face of this then, the way each piece of literature explores poverty become distinctly different. With Blake, his exploration concerns the unnamed mass of desperation, and in generalizing the sufferings of starvation and suffering, it loses its emotional weight. In contrast, Bronte is able to distill the observations of Blake into Heathcliff; however, Heathcliff gains an element not achieved by Blake in that he is often described in terms offensive to Romani people. Thus, and to me, the settings definitively impact the way in which poverty is illustrated by both authors, with Blake’s claustrophobic depiction of London rendering the impoverished to be a mass (which is distinctly hard to empathize with), and Bronte’s expanse of land (but sparsely populated land) allowing for a more personal description of the impoverished child. Moreover, the house servant, Nelly, is given the role of narration in Wuthering Heights, which allows for more perspective into the minds of working class people during Victorian England, and more specifically, how they themselves view the landed gentry. As a conclusion, the role of setting, with special attention to how setting influences depiction of character and archetype, appears an interesting angle to take when trying to understand why Blake and Bronte take such different approaches to characterizing the lower classes.

With all the pieces we have read so far, I consistently see a theme of mistreatment of the lower class. In Wuthering Heights, it is demonstrated by the poor child who is referred to as “it” and banished to the stairs by the family he is staying with, and eventually they deem him unworthy of their house and he is forced back out to the streets. My heart breaks for the poor child lost and alone in the world and seen as nothing because he comes from poverty. This is also seen in The Chimney Sweeper, yet again another child is neglected and forced to fend for themselves. Without parents the chimney sweeping child is forced to live in the streets due to his social class. There is also mistreatment in Wuthering Heights when Hindley uses the rules of class (male inheritance) on Heatcliff to deny him social status as well as an education. In turn, this forced Heathcliff into another, lower, class. Throughout the readings we can see the power higher classes hold always leads to mistreatment and neglect of lower classes forcing them to stay in poverty with no remorse. The less fortunate lower classes are never treated with respect or taken seriously, and left to live life struggling.

Upon reading the first two chapters of “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte, I think it can be argued that there is a connection between the societal views of Lockwood and how much they may contradict with that of William Blake’s views, especially in the poem “The Chimney Sweeper”. It is clear by the way Lockwood addresses Heathcliff as “a capital flow” and a “dark skinned gypsie” that he feels as though he is above Heathcliff as far as social status goes. Blake in “The Chimney Sweeper” addresses the damages of judging people by class by showing how poor families force even their children to contribute in awful jobs. Lockwood has a very arrogant personality, and he has no concept of others. When Lockwood first enters Wuthering Heights, he notes how the place is probably so dirty because they only have one servant. Lockwood has no concept of the kind of conditions servants are put through in order to make a living, and Blake addresses the dangers of these kind of people in the poem. As long as a guy like Lockwood feels as though servants are eating and breathing, then they should be fine, in Blake’s eyes, even though Blake uses this comparison as irony to show that the working class is struggling.