By Emily Brontë

 Born on July 30, 1818, the fifth of six children of Maria and Patrick Brontë  Within a year and a half of moving to Haworth where Patrick was the rector, Maria died. Maria and Elizabeth, the two eldest daughters, died in 1825 of tuberculosis contracted at the Clergy Daughters’ School; Emily and Charlotte returned home from school.  Since their father was an eccentric recluse and their aunt disliked the harsh weather, the Brontë children entertained themselves on the moors, isolated from the world. The children created the imaginary worlds of Angria and Gondal; they wrote their tales in miniscule script.  Although Emily left Haworth twice, she returned quickly to her beloved countryside and took care of her father. Later, when her brother Branwell returned home in disgrace after being dismissed from a tutoring job, Emily cared for him as well. He became addicted to opium and alcohol (Hindley?) EMILY BRONTE

CURRER, ELLIS AND ACTON BELL

 High Sunderland Hall – this is the home Brontë  Modeled Wuthering Heights after this home SETTING Shibden Hall Ponden Hall Both Shibden and Ponden Halls are believed to be the models of Thrushcross Grange

THE ROMANTIC PERIOD The term Romantic is like Janus, the Roman god of doorways, who had two faces, one looking backward and one looking forward. Romantic is a word signifying both beginnings and endings.

 The love of nature is presented in its tranquil and smiling aspects as well as its wild, storminess  Nature is a living, vitalizing force and offers a refuge from the constraints of civilization  The concern with identity and the creation of the self are a primary concern  Focus is placed on the individual that society matters little  Heathcliff is the Byronic hero in that both are rebellious, passionate, misanthropic, isolated, and wilful; both have mysterious origins, lack family ties, reject external restrictions and control, and seek to resolve their isolation by fusing with a love object.  The passion driving Catherine and Heathcliff and their obsessive love for each other are the center of their being and transcend death SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTICISM FOUND IN WUTHERING HEIGHTS:

 A castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not  Extreme landscapes  Magic, supernatural manifestations, or the suggestion of the supernatural  A passion-driven, wilful vaillain-hero or villain  A curious heroine with a tendency to faint and a need to be rescued  Horrifying or terrifying events of the threat of such happenings  Boundaries are trespassed (life and death + Heathcliff’s transgressing social class and family ties  Imprisonment and escape, flight, the persecuted heroine, the heroine wooed by a dangerous and a good suitor, ghosts, necrophilia, a mysterious foundling, and revenge GOTHIC CHARACTERISTICS

 Clash of storm and calm, discord and harmony, past and present, nature and nurture, reason and passion, the civilized and the primitive  Clash of economic interests and social classes  Striving for transcendence  Abusive patriarch and patriarchal family  Abuse of children and the family  Self-imposed or self-generated confinement and escape  Displacement, dispossession, and exile  Communication and understanding  The fall  Revenge  Defying conventional standards  Marriage RECURRING MOTIFS, SUBJECTS FOR DISCUSSION, AND THEMES