An Interpretation of the Symbolic Meanings in Wuthering Heights.doc

呼啸山庄中象征意义的解读An Interpretation of the Symbolic Meanings in Wuthering HeightsContentsI. An Introduction to Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights.1A. A brief account of Emilys life.1B. A brief introduction to Wuthering Heights.2II. An Introduction to Symbolism and Its Influence on Literature.3A. Origin and the features of symbolism.3B. Application of symbolism in other literary works.3III. The Application of Symbolism in Wuthering Heights.5A. Critics on the use of symbolism in Wuthering Heights.5B. The interpretation of the symbolic meanings in Wuthering Heights.51. Symbolic meanings in the domestic things.5 2. Symbolic meanings in nature.8IV. Significance of the Application of Symbolism in Wuthering Heights.10A. Displaying the characters personalities and revealing the deep psychological activities.10B. Deepening the theme and promoting the development of the story.11V. Conclusion.12Works Cited.14Abstract: Emily Bronte (1818-1848) is considered as one of the most important women writers in the English literature history. The closeness to nature and her extensively reading made the uniqueness of her works Wuthering Heights. The application of symbolism endows the novel with special charming. Emily uses the complex narration, Gothic elements combining with lots of images with symbolic meanings to displaying the inner world of the characters and highlights the theme. The writer uses symbols extensively in the process of creating the novel, endowing the characters, places and scenes with special symbolic meaning. At the same time, Symbolism helps the author portray the characters personalities and convey the characters complicated psychological activities, furthermore enriches the ideological content of the works, leaving the reader the infinite imagination and contemplation of meaning of life. The application of symbolism in Wuthering Heights fully reflects peoples uncontrollable desire to pursue freedom and happiness as well as the authors view on beauty, humanity and love. This article works around the analysis of the symbolic meaning of the domestic images and the nature images to interpret the significance of this classic works.Key words: Wuthering Heights；symbolism；domestic images；nature images摘要： 艾米莉·勃朗特被认为是英国文坛最重要的女性作家之一。艾米莉从小的生活环境和广泛的阅读赋予她对生活与众不同的观察视角和独到的见解。象征手法是使呼啸山庄具有独特魅力的艺术手法之一。艾米莉采用浪漫主义的想象、象征寓意和独特的叙事技巧、哥特式元素和大量的具有象征含义的意象来烘托人物的内心世界从而深化主题。在其代表作呼啸山庄中，艾米莉赋予了各种意象丰富的内涵。作家在其创作过程中广泛运用了象征的创作手法，从而使得小说中的人物、场所及大自然中的其它景物都带上了特殊的象征意义，使故事情节充满神秘色彩。同时，象征手法的运用反过来帮助作者塑造人物性格、展现人物内心活动，丰富作品的思想内涵，增加了小说的艺术魅力，给读者留下了无限的想象和对人生的思索。作品通过象征手法，充分反应了人们对幸福生活和自由的向往和追求以及作者对美、人性和爱情的看法。本文主要通过对作品中生活中的事物和自然中的事物的象征意义的分析来赏析呼啸山庄这部经典著作。关键词：呼啸山庄；象征手法；日常事物；自然事物I. An Introduction to Emily Bronte and Wuthering HeightsA. A brief account of Emilys lifeEmily Jane Bronte was born at Thorton, Yorkshire on July 30, 1818. She was the fifth of the six children. Her father was appointed as a clergyman to live in Haworth when she was less than two years old. A year later, Mrs. Bronte died, and a maternal aunt came to look after the infants. At her five, she and her sister were sent to the boarding school at Cowan Bridge. But because of the bad condition in the school, their father took them home. The six little Brontes played in a tiny room overlooking the graveyard. They were exceptionally quiet, but Emily had a quick temper like a boy. The most favorite thing for her is roaming around the moors. The children spent most of their time in reading and composition. In 1846, the three sisters published their collection of poems but unsuccessfully. A year later, her masterpiece, Wuthering Heights was published, although at that time it is not as noticeable and popular as today. In 1848, she died of tuberculosis at the age thirty.1. The aspects influencing Emilys uniquenessa. Her self-consciousnessIn Emilys short life story we might notice she was distinctly different from other women of her time. Like some famous women writers, such as Elizabeth Browning, Emily Dickson and Virginia Woolf, Emily lost the maternal love early, so she learnt to get strong in mind and thus made her realized herself as an independent being early. The free life style and simple custom in the small town strengthened her ability to look inside the core of life. Frequent closeness to nature made her could freely express her strong inner emotion. b. Reading influenceReading greatly contributed to her writing. “Bronte sisters read many eighteenth-century novels, including the works of H. Fielding, S. Richardson, Goldsmith, W. Shakespeare and Walter Scott”(Barnard 48). But the greatest literary influence on Emily was that of the poet George Gordon Byron. The Byronic spirit, the notion of fatal, is much in evidence in Emilys poetry and her novel. Heathcliffs mysterious origin, revenge, rebellion, and vitality, provides a prototype of the fated Byronic hero. Not only from the people around her, but from the widely reading of literature, did Emily eventually makes her works such a unique novel, Wuthering Heights.B. A brief introduction to Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights is considered as one of the most powerful and extraordinary books in the English literature history. It begins with Mr. Lockwood, a tenant of Heathcliffs, visiting the home of his landlord. The scene in Wuthering Heights piques his curiosity, so back to Thrushcross Grange, he begged Nelly, a servant who grew up there and now cares for the Grange, to tell him of the story about Heathcliff, Nelly narrated the main line of Wuthering Heights.Mr. Earnshaw, a Yorkshire farmer and owner of Wuthering Heights, brings home an orphan from Liverpool. The boy is named Heathcliff and raised with Earnshaws children, Hindley and Catherine. Catherine loves Heathcliff but Hindley hates him because his father likes Heathcliff more than himself. After Mr. Earnshaws death, Hindley does what he can to destroy Heathcliff, but Catherine and Heathcliff do not fear him at all and oblivious of anything and anyone elseuntil they encounter the Lintons.Edgar Linton and Isabella live at Thrushcross Grange and are completely opposites of Heathcliff and Catherine. The hospitality of Lintons and the totally different life attract Catherine deeply. She spends more time with the Edgar and gradually forgets her old friend Heathcliff, which makes Heathcliff jealous. When Heathcliff overhears Catherine told Nelly that she could not marry him, he leaves Heights and is gone for three years. While he is gone, Catherine marries Linton. But the marriage is not happy in fact because they are from two different worlds. When Heathcliff came back to Heights again, he has already turns into a man with property and gentility. But this time he is determined to take revenge on the two families. First, he married Edgar Haretons sister but treat her cruelly. Second, he got the property from Hindley by tricking him into gambling. Finally, the revenge even extended to the second generations. After Catherines death, Heathcliff induced Cathy, the daughter of Catherine and Edgar, to marry his own weakling son Linton. Until that time, Heathcliff had already handled the properties of the two families. However, because of suffering from Catherines death and the psychic wound for a long time, Heathcliff died in misery and desperately. In the end of the novel, Heathcliff and Catherine are reunited in death, and Cathy and Hareton, the son of Hindley, are going to be united in marriage. II. An Introduction to Symbolism and Its Influence on LiteratureA. Origin and features of symbolismAs naturalism originated in France in the field of novel, symbolism gradually appeared also in France among a number of rebellious poets. It began from the 1810s and ended in 1914(the beginning of the WWI). Charles Baudelaire, Paul Mallarme, Jean More and Paul Valery were the eminent symbolists at that time. Valery thought that: “Symbolism is a kind of brand-new and grotesque spirit. It means the power of form and beauty and the authority of art the inner activity can be stated as mysticism in some extent. Because of its self-sufficient, symbolism contents and supports human soul” (张 402). Mallarme held that: “Symbolism defied the outdated approaches of Naturalism. Different from sermon, unreal feeling, and objective depiction, symbolism stresses on the expression of thought through the transformation of it” (张 403). In a word, different critics and poets have different explanation to symbols. To a certain extent, symbol making use of the specific things in the real world, such as color images or voice, plants and animals, is a means of literary creation showing the author's thoughts and emotions indirectly. “Author used symbolism, a form of imagery, to portray something unusual to the reader. It makes sentences or ideas subtle and not so obtrusive” (林 186).Because symbol is not a direct and simple description of the objectives but by means of metaphor and hints to arouse the readers' imagination, thus the symbol is often associated with uncertainty and multi-meanings. Because symbol can trigger readers with abundant imagination and has multiple meanings, thus it can give originally common things with great power, and this is the artistic charm of symbolic art. B. Application of symbolism in other literary worksHawthorne and Melville are masters of symbolism in American in the nineteenth century. The Scarlet Letter is Hawthornes undisputed masterpiece, which makes large use of revealing the powerful psychological insight into the anxiety of human soul. Author endowed lots of images with deep symbolic meanings. For example, the letter “A” stands for “Adultery” literally, but it also means “Angel” at the same time; “Little Pearl” means purity, integrity and eternal love, etc. In this novel, the use of symbolism builds up the framework and launches a close link between the human relationships.One of the striking traits of Moby Dick is Melvilles use of symbolism to express his understanding of the whole world. Ahab, the captain, is the emblem and embodiment of the pioneers engaging in the exploration of the great nature. He represents those challenging the mysterious nature fearlessly despite all the obstacles and hardship. Though confronted with many unforeseeable difficulties, Ahab never draws back or ceased his expedition. Moby Dick, however, is a complicated symbol. It is depicted as an unexplainable and powerful force of nature. It is the combination of strength and cruelty. It is the awful mystery of the universe. Melville tries to convey such a faith: in the battle between man and nature, people are inevitably confronted with such obstacles as Moby Dick, but, in the long run, man will be the final winner, but at the same time, man must follow certain principles.Hardy tries to reveal the conflicts and harmony between man and nature as well as the conflicts among human beings themselves by the use of symbolism. The description of nature scenes in Tess of the D Urberviles explicitly demonstrates Hardys superb ability to integrate his story into its natural background. Red, the color of blood, is associated with Tesss whole life in the novel. The first time Tess appears in the novel is when she danced with a red ribbon. Here the red ribbon and her pouted-up mouth suggest her innate qualityyouthful, enthusiastic and vigorous. Whats more, Hardy often connects Tess with plants in nature to show her pure quality and tragic fortune. The color white usually symbolized purity and naivety. Tess is just like the white flowers in her hand, innocent and beautiful, but the life is fragile and short like the flowers.In Jane Eyre, the use of fire imagery is very much related to the character and mood of the protagonists and it also serves to show Jane in a sort of intermediate position between the two men. As the novel progresses, the fire imagery becomes a representation of the emotional and moral dialectic of the characters. Rochester is very much associated with fire, with the strange fire in his look, and particularly with his flaming and flashing eyes. The fire image appears many times in the novel. It stands for a kind of strong the Romantic fire of passion that seizes Rochester and Jane.III. The Application of Symbolism in Wuthering HeightsA. Critics on the use of symbolism in Wuthering HeightsLots of studies have focused on the exploration of the theme, characters, writing techniques, artistic styles or the analysis of the structure of Wuthering Heights. But the successful applying of symbol is the most important feature of the work. Emily used symbol successfully to express deep philosophy with concrete things. She explains her ideas and feelings of the society, life, and happiness. Some critics lay their points of view on the use of symbolism techniques in Wuthering Heights. Virginia Woolf said: “The symbolic image reminds us of how Emily Bronte stop short of the final mystery, but also how to explore human situations and emotions right up to it” (杨 159). Symbolism in Wuthering Heights grows out of natural surroundings, actual objects and events of the story. They are intimately related to the emotions and experiences of the characters. Davies commenced like this:Though the symbolic elements in the story almost thrust themselves on the readers perception, symbolism is never a single, straight-forward meaning and not as simply organized as might first be supposed. Emily creates symbols with complex coexisting meaning, and with meaning that varies on different levels. (Davies 90)Symbolism plays an important part to help explore the characters inner deep activities. When a literary work is restudied, its deep exploration of psychological consciousness should be connected with wider connotation through symbolism. Hence the re-evaluation of Wuthering Heights will be worthwhile.B. The interpretation of the symbolic meanings in Wuthering Heights1. The symbolic meanings in the domestic thingsa. The window The window appears many times in Wuthering Heights. Window is a transparent thin piece of glass. But in this novel, it functions a medium that connects the inside world with outside world. At the same time, it is also a barrier between the two worlds. The first time window appears in Wuthering Heights is when Catherine and Heathcliff wander into the Thrushcross Grange. They look through the window and find little Lintons were playing in the gracious room. “We did despise them” (Bronte 59). Heathcliff doesnt think they are happy because he thinks they could not get “out”. They are not fre