Reasons for the Tragic Fate of Catherine in Wuthering Heights.doc

Reasons for the Tragic Fate of Catherine in Wuthering Heights呼啸山庄中凯瑟琳悲惨命运形成的原因引言 1.IntroductionEmily Brontë,whose only novel-Wuthering Heights,the Flower of English literature, had an unusual character, extremely unsocial and reserved, with few friends outside her family. She preferred the company of animals to people and rarely traveled, forever yearning for the freedom of Haworth and the moors. She had a will of iron a well known story about her is that she was bitten by a (possibly) rabid dog which resulted in her walking calmly into the kitchen and cauterizing the wound herself with a hot iron.She had unconventional religious beliefs, rarely attending church services and, unlike the other children, never teaching in the Sunday School.Between the years 1824 and 1825 Emily attended the school at Cowan Bridge with Charlotte, and then was largely educated at home. In childhood, after the death of their mother, the three sisters and their brother Patrick Branwell Brontë created imaginary lands, which were featured in stories they wrote.The originality and intensity of her imagination, which leads her to producing novel unique in English literature, provide a fascinating subject for critical inquiry and psychological peculation. “Wuthering is a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.” (Brontë，2009:2) And this indicates a tragic story. Wuthering Heights describes a thrilling love story starting from the wildness and ended as a tragedy, in which we see the long lasting revenge and hatred between the two families.The novel began with Heathcliffs intrusion into Wuthering Heights. He was brought to Wuthering Heights by its owner, Mr. Earnshaw, who treated Heathcliff like his father. So Heathcliff became the envy of Mr. Earnshaws own children, Hindley and Catherine. And they thought it was Heathcliff who took their fathers love which should belong to them. So Hindley never gave up a chance to bully Heathcliff in secret while Catherine accepted him as a friend generally. After Mr. Earnshaws death, Hindley revenged Heathcliff to make him a servant of Wuthering Heights. But Heathcliff did not care about that ill treatment from Hindley because his Catherine was still on his side.But later, Catherine was affected by the realistic circumstances. She fell in love with the young, rich gentleman-Linton, the owner of Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff left Wuthering Heights out of anger. Three years later, he became a rich man and returned to Wuthering Heights. While at that time, Catherine has married to Linton. Heathcliff made up his mind to revenge for what he had received from Hindley and what he had lost. He took away Hindleys possessions by gambling and made Hindleys son, Hareton, become his servant. He married Lintons sister on purpose and treated her badly. He tortured Catherine by reproaching her coldness and Catherine couldnt bear her agony and died after giving birth to her daughter, little Catherine. More than ten years later, Heathcliff forced little Catherine to marry his dying son to capture Lintons possessions. At last, his dream came true, and all possessions belonged to him. However, Heathcliff was not happy after owning everything. He couldnt get rid of his love and miss for Catherine and died for over missing his lover. The only thing about the novel delights us is that little Catherine fell love with Hareton and lived with each other forever. A great art work always reveals more than one truth,and always,people through various ways, from different angles get their own understandings and interpretations .Wuthering Heights,is just this kind of great art work. The power of the novel comes first and foremost from the psychic complexities of the major character, Catherine and her love with two men,Heathcliff and Edgar Linton.This essay is aimed to explore the reasons for the tragic fate of the heroine ,Catherine,from the angles of environment and personality.2.The external cause-Environment Everyone in the world has his own unique character,some are kind-hearted,while others are callous;some are positive,while others are melancholy;some are selfless,while others are self-concerned.So what contributes to all these completely different personalities?One significant factor is the impact of environment.Different social environment and living environment will give people their characters.In the novel Wuthering Heights ,the three main characters are completely different from each other,which is mainly because of the environment they lived in,including natural environment ,social environment and family background.To begin with, tremendous changes took place in British society in Victorian Age,economically,politically and socially,etc.Following that is the influence of living environment.The novel involves two big families-the Earnshaws and the Lintons ,which were as like as an apple to an oyster.The Lintons paid close attention to the formal education of children,intending to make them to enter upper class.While the Earnshaws paid little attention to educate children,which resulted in the degradation of the manor after the death of Mr,Earnshaw. The third one is the natural environment which is desolate and bleak.The story takes place in two big manors-Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross ,which are almost cut off from outside world locating on the moor of northern England where people there always suffer from bad weather .Under such circumstance,the process of growing up will somewhat be filled with gloom. 2.1 Social environmentThe story in Wuthering Heights happened around the late years of the18th century to the early years of the 19th century-the age of Victoria(1771-1802),which was right the time that British was suffering social turbulence.The Industrial Revolution,while bringing British society a great deal of wealth,stimulating the economy to boost much more rapidly than ever,contributed to a series of critical social problems: blood and sweat factories sprung up all around the country especially in such big cities as London;the contradictions and conflicts between work class and bourgeoise intensified and reached fever pitch;the aggravation of the polarization of social wealth;the rising of crime rate was hard to be controlled;to name just a few.The Industrial Revolution caused overall changes of British society, social class demarcation became more and more distinct ,and wealth and status became the main criterion of judging a person.Following that, the class conditions became increasingly acute and mass campaigns rolled on with full force.The capitalism in England achieved a full-way development.All the struggles centered on west Yorkshire in the north England. Emily Brontë, the authoress of Wuthering Heights, was practically living in isolation, in a distant village of Haevorth, a lonely village set in wild moors of Yorkshire. However, it was impossible for the sensitive poet that she couldn't be affected by the turbulent and confused social struggles. Under such circumstance, Emily Brontë produced Wuthering Heights. Although Wuthering Heights doesn't describe the conflicts between the working class and the capitalist class, the readers with the sharp eyes can get a hint of social contradictions from an indirect source. The cause of the tragic fate of Catherine is profoundly related to the society.From the prospect of the time,patriarchy is the leading factor of family life and the marriage and the destiny of children,who can't choose their own life ways while following their hearts.And even if they have the right and freedom to choose,they will be overwhelmed by the social value and their parents' wills sooner or later.In the same way,such social circumstance imposes a great impact on the formation of Catherine's ways of thinking,so surely,Catherine can't escape the tide of judging by wealth and status.The influence of the time becomes the ultimate killer of Catherine and her true love.Catherine could not break away from the view of social class very easily. When Catherine was a child, her fathers carrying back a waif angered everyone especially Hindley. Why? All of them despised him because Heathcliff was a deserted boy without parents and home. So the whole family naturally had a negative attitude to Heathcliff who was regarded as a servant, sometimes worse than a servant. Even Catherine who bore love to Heathcliff could look down upon him, especially after she met the elegant and rich Edgar. Hearing the conversation between Catherine and Nelly, Heathcliff knew what stood between him and Catherine. Catherine loved him but he was ignoble and vulgar. To marry Heathcliff, Catherine felt “degraded”. Heathcliff was so “low”. This could not satisfy Catherines vanity to be the “greatest woman of the neighborhood” . So she finally had the wrong choice. But ironically the comfortable and luxurious life could not meet the hollowness of her inner mind. Although she is a girl with a fairly good family background, she is also a girl who likes to make adventures, to meet challenges. Her annoyance of Edgar is an irony to the life of upper class, to the apparent decency of those gentlemen.2.2 Family background Family is the first place when people come to this world. Different family willdetermine or influence ones character and ones fate to some extent. If a child was born in a good family: rich,decent and harmonious, she would be filled with wonderful dreams toward life. But at the same time she would seldom experience hardships of life,which will be inevitable and important in her later life. So she would not be brave enough and capable enough to deal with all kinds of difficulties. But if a child were born in a poor family, she would be always in a poor physical condition. At the same time, she would become bearable to those difficulties that come to his later life.Since her childhood, Catherine was a flower in the green house.She was born in a rich family and tenderly loved and looked after by all the family members,especially her father,Mr.Earnshaw. She was very energetic and mischievous. Different from most other girls, she is very naughty and full of fantastic ideas. When her father had a journey she asked for a whip for riding horse. She was wild, wanting to control others.Certainly, she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; came down stairs till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minutes security that she wouldn't be in mischief. Her spirits were always at high-water mark, her tongue always going-singing, laughing,and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wick slip she was. Here we can see that it seems that Catherine is indigenous to her environment.She needn't hide her feeling. She didn't know there would be something improper in her because she was the only girl in the family and nobody dares to say that she made mistakes and even someone pointed out that she erred,she would not accept others' advices modestly. To some extent, Catherines happiness was built on others misery.But Catherine didn't realize it until her death.She was disobedient to her father.Her father loved this girl and even indulges her so that she was very confident of herself. She knew very clearly that she was treasure to her father. No matter what she wanted, she could be granted. Catherines indifference and caprice breed in indulgence and spoiling. Catherine was always ready to make others angry, even though sometimes not on purpose.This increased her wicked idea and confidence to herself. At the same time, she didn't know how to be considerate of others feelings. She could not bear others indifference and disobedience. She wanted to be a dominator.After the death of her father,her brother Hindley became the tyranny of the whole family.On one hand,in the mind of Hindley, his sister was the only daughter of Wuthering Heights,Catherine would surely marry someone who ,belonged to the upper class,rich and decent,which was a large part of Hindley's plan of gaining more wealth and led a luxurious life.The thought of patriarchy put a great pressure on Catherine who was gradually conquered by his brother's demand ,especially after she was sent to Thrushcross which was then the symbol of wealth,she found that life there seemed so comfortable,the kind of decent life that she had never lived,and people there seemed so gentle and tender,which deeply seduced her.On the other hand,the day when Mr.Earnshaw died was Heathcliff's doomsday,he was from then on maltreated as a slave.It was definite enough that the love between Catherine and Heathcliff met tremendous rejection that came from Hindley to the maidservant,Nelly who insisted that their love was a mistake from the very beginning,that a servant should never fell in love with the daughter of his master,it was certainly unacceptable in the society that was dominated by class.Catherine got bogged down in the contradiction in which one side was her true love and the other was the upper class life that was held worldly.Conventions of the time and British society and practices of patriarchy of the family come together to make her whirlpool of love which cost all her life.Under such double pressure,she had to,we could say,choose gentleman Edgar instead of the poor Gypsy orphan Heathcliff.We can safe say that Catherine's tragic destiny is the epitome of the tragedy of the time.3.The internal cause-personality Personality refers to someone's character,especially the way one behave towards others;it also refers to the combination of qualities that makes someone a particular kind of person. Personality is so complicated that someone is modest,while others are arrogant,someone is brave,while others are coward."A person's destiny is decided by his or her personality"has become the commonsense of scholars from all around the world,what's more numerous examples have already demonstrated that this commonsense is correct and of great significance in the analysis of people's fate.For instance,the greatest president in the American history was the embodiment of toughness;it was tempering toughness with gentleness that made Merkel "the Iron Lady"of Germany; headstrongness was the killer of Xiangyu,a historical character in the time of Three Kingdoms(220-280);weakness of King Liyu led to Nan Tang Dynasty's extinction.Heraclitus,a famous philosopher of ancient Greece once said,"A person's personality or disposition is just his destiny." Just as there aren't two pieces of leaf that are completely same,there won't be two persons that are completely same,even though they're twins.Different disposition make people's life road far apart.Everyone will experience favourable circumstances,and nobody could run away from adversity,good personality can help people to be positive no matter what they meet,to be persistent