Wuthering Heights, a novel written by Emily Brontë in the Victorian Era, is viewed as a classic in English literature. It is a novel about a complex love triangle. Society discourages the unity of Catherine the protagonist, and Heathcliff who becomes the antagonist, through marriage, although the love connection is present. This unfulfilled relationship weasels its way into the next generation where it comes full circle and the new characters find themselves in the same predicament as the parental generation. Although, this time, society comes second to true love, which forever and always will prevail in the end. In Victorian England, the time period where Queen Victoria came into power, men were expected to be strong, tough, courageous, and powerful. They were thought to be unfeeling or lacking emotion. Men supported women and children and were totally dominant over them. Women on the other hand were expected to be submissive and weak. A woman’s “sphere” was the home, which was portrayed as “an extension of the woman herself” (Berg 17). The ideal woman and thus wife, was passive, kind of heart, filled with goodness, attentive to the children, and totally dependent on and faithful to her husband. Wuthering Heights both accurately portrays the gender roles of the Victorian era, and inaccurately portrays them through actions, feelings, and emotions of both male and female characters in the novel.
In Wuthering Heights, certain female characters exhibit what was truly expected of them in Victorian England. One aspect of the Victorian social complex was female dependence on their husbands. Emily Brontë captures this struggle through telling readers that although Catherine loves Heathcliff, marrying him would be setting herself up for disaster and throwing away a good life for a bad one (socially and economically). Catherine and Heathcliff are two peas in a pod, and Linton and the young lass could not be any different (Brontë 59). Catherine wants to spend her life with Heathcliff who she feels was designed to be her better half, but she knows she cannot trade a fruitful life, which is in her grasp with Edgar, for a life of suffering, that will come with marrying the peasant boy whom she loves. Catherine is at a cross roads, but she chooses the safe life, which represents what many girls at the time would have done, and what society told young women to do, in the Victorian era; to marry Edgar. On the flip side, many women wouldn’t weigh the pros and cons like Catherine did, but they would all still reach the same conclusion. It was the most intelligent option for women. As Florence Nightingale, a social reformer of the time period, depicts the struggles of being a woman in Victorian England, she states, “Marriage is the only chance (and it is but a chance) offered for women to escape this death; and how eagerly and how ignorantly it is embraced! (Nightingale 65). Through getting married, women had the capability to avoid a life filled with hardships, and it became about this rather than the true purpose: love, for most people. This idea surfaces in Wuthering Heights, when Hindley, Catherine’s brother, and the heir to the Earnshaw name, returns to the Heights for the late Mr. Earnshaw’s funeral, with a bride. There was no hint of relationship with a woman before this, and no formal wedding in which the family was invited to attend. This insinuates that it was a rushed union of two people who did not deeply care about each other, rather they were seeking the benefits of being married. Unfortunately, this was not an unusual practice in Victorian England. Women would often go through life without experiencing true love.
In addition to the female characters, the male characters, in the only published novel by Emily Brontë, too, provide an example of behavior allowed and promoted by society at the time. The Victorian era deciphered a man as someone who consisted of toughness, no emotion, and non-sensitivity (Nelson 141). When analyzing Wuthering Heights, this definition clearly applies to Heathcliff. Heathcliff displays a lack of emotion when he keeps Nelly Dean, the house maid who formerly lived at the Heights, and the Catherine Linton II at his home. His goal is to keep the ladies trapped until Cathy marries his son, Linton. He wanted this because the marriage would give all of Cathy’s possessions to his son, who was close to death, thus her possessions become Heathcliff’s. Holding the young lass captive kept her from seeing her dying father which destroyed her. Heathcliff remained steady on his goal and did not care about Catherine’s feelings. Heathcliff also exemplifies non-sensitivity when he subjects Hareton, Hindley’s son, to a life of struggles, much like the own life of Heathcliff, through taking legal guardianship over him. Heathcliff personally experienced the pain being a lower class citizen of England in this time period, and he still passes on that life to his step-nephew. Men in Victorian England also beat women, particularly their wives, when they saw fit. As a song of Victorian times states, “I must acknowledge that she ‘as a black eye now and then/But she don’t care a little bit, not she; […]” (“Me and ‘Er” 66). The song tells of a man, who seems to be just a regular man who lives in Victorian England, saying he hits and beats his wife every once in a while, a practice heavily discouraged in present times. As far as Wuthering Heights goes, Heathcliff beats female characters a few times throughout the novel, linking the book to common behaviors of the time period. In the beginning of the novel, Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, and the narrator of the book, states that Heathcliff raises his hand and his daughter-in-law runs away. This hints that he beats her because she was expecting to be hit so she responded through scampering away before he laid a hand on her. Later on in the book, Heathcliff does hit Cathy II when she tries to escape his home when he kidnaps her and her servant, Nelle. He bends her over his knee and hits her repeatedly. Sadly, male dominance was not an unusual idea in Victorian Times.
Although there are elements of truth in Wuthering Heights about the time period it was written in, there are also pieces that defy the norms of the gender roles at the time, too, within the novel. For example, Linton is the only thing left for Catherine to live for and the only being she cares about. She acknowledges that she understands that Heathcliff is trying to drive them apart but he cannot. She tells him she forbids him to hurt Linton whilst she is present, and she also forbids him to attempt and scare her or intimidate her (Brontë 210). This is an important part of the novel because it is the first time where a female character stands up to a man directly. Females, would not counter or talk back to males because they could get hurt physically, and because their lives depended on men. They would not want to, in any way, lose “privileges” that men gave them, like a place to live (this especially applies if it was a married couple, but since Linton is so weak and almost dead, Heathcliff basically does, and will take responsibility of Catherine II). Standing up to a man like Catherine II does at this point in the novel, is a direct violation of “societal code” for women at the time. Another premise of the English society was that women had no ownership over themselves, land, or their own kids. Rather, their husbands owned all of that (Gray 40). Knowing these “rules,” Emily Brontë still thwarts them in her novel with Isabella Linton. Isabella, whom is Edgar’s sister, runs off with Heathcliff and gets married when she is young. Heathcliff does not love her, but he still marries her, to hurt his arch-rival, Edgar. Heathcliff regularly beats her and does not care for her. She eventually runs off with Heathcliff’s and her own child, and resides somewhere in London. In Victorian England, this action would not be legal, or smart. Laws stated men got the child in a separation and even so, Isabella, as a woman, relied on Heathcliff for everything. She could not support herself and a child on her own. This was also, strongly disapproved by society, so it just would not happen, yet, it does in Wuthering Heights. Not only are female gender roles challenged in Wuthering Heights, but the male roles too. Emily Brontë writes, “‘[…] I [Linton] said they were mine, too; and tried to get them from her. The spiteful thing wouldn’t let me; she pushed me off and hurt me. I shrieked out […]’” (Brontë 206). In this quote, Linton is explaining how he tried to tell Catherine II, his wife, that everything she owns is his. In this process he attempts to take a locket, which is deeply personal to her, away from her. She shoves him off and he gets hurt and cries out. This section challenges the fact that men were supposed to be tough and hard. Getting pushed around by his wife, Linton displays his weakness, but also crying out highlights his femininity. Catherine II again defies the norms as she pushes her husband, which like previously stated, was an action that would not occur in Victorian England. Finally, women in the Victorian era were supposed to be sinless and live for and dedicated to their families, and do that through their duties at home. Ultimately they were supposed to be fulfilled by this. Elizabeth F. Gray, author of “Angel of the House” states, “The idealized Victorian woman was a complicated social construction: angelically pure and devoted to her husband and family, she dwelt contently in her true sphere, the home” (Gray 40). Catherine II lives the first portion of her life like most women, at home learning to be a lady. She was also living at home to be sheltered from the world, because her father wanted to protect her. Unlike most women at the time, however, Catherine II was not happy with this life inside the walls at the Grange. She would ride her horse away from the Grange where she got a feel for the real world, something she loved to do. Catherine II does not mirror many women of Emily Brontë’s time because she is not happy with the life society has manufactured for her and other females in this era. Uniquely, Wuthering Heights disregards society’s view of gender in certain aspects of the novel.
The gender roles of Victorian England were strict for both genders. Society wanted men to be strong, and women to be weak and depend on their husbands for survival. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights mirrors these gender roles in some parts of the book, but also disregards and challenges them in other areas of the novel. Wuthering Heights was not always accepted, especially when it was written, because, along with showing truths of gender, it also opposed the norms society built for both genders.
Works Cited
Berg, Maggie. Wuthering Heights a Reader's Companion. Twayne, 1996.
Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Dover, 1996.
Gray, F. Elizabeth. "Angel of the House." Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era, by James Eli Adams et al., vol. 1, Scholastic, 2004, pp. 40-41.
"Me and 'Er." Dickens's England Life In Victorian Times, edited by R. E. Pritchard, R.E. Pritchard, 2003, pp. 66-67.
Nelson, Claudia. "Gender." Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era, by James Eli Adams, vol. 2, Scholastic, 2004, pp. 141-46.
Nightingale, Florence. "Woman's Ideal and Actual Life." 1852. Dickens's England Life in Victorian Times, edited by R. E. Pritchard, R.E. Pritchard, 2003, pp. 64-65.
