Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights - A Complex Victorian Novel of Dysfunctional Relationships & Abuse

Emily Bronte published Wuthering Heights in 1847 and died in December of 1848 at the age of 30. Her singular novel was published under the pen name of Ellis Bell.Female Victorian writers were expected to present highly moral themes in their work. The issues presented by women writers of that time were expected t be resolved in a manner that offered readers a moral lesson and positive outcome. Good behavior was rewarded and the bad guys would be punished. Socially inappropriate behavior was depicted in a judgmental fashion and the protagonists of Victorian novels, in general, were supposed to learn a valuable lesson.In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte offers her readers a protagonist who behaves terribly. Heathcliff, the orphaned waif taken in by Mr. Earnshaw begins his life at Wuthering Heights under the kind care of his adoptive father and becomes close with his foster sister, Cathy. But, Hindley, Mr. Earnshaw's son, receives the new addition badly. He torments Heathcliff without mercy and makes the orphaned boy's life a living hell.But the mutual affection between Cathy and Heathcliff goes beyond the bonds of a childhood spent running wild in the moors and turns romantic.When Mr. Earnshaw dies, the abuse escalates and eventually, Heathcliff is driven off. Meanwhile, Cathy marries the wealthy neighbor, Edgar Linton. When Heathcliff returns from his adventures a wealthy man, he eventually gains control of Wuthering Heights and rules over the alcoholic Hindley. When Hindley dies, Heathcliff takes revenge on Hindley's son, Hareton.The reader must ask several questions. Was Heathcliff a bad seed, a sociopath born to make trouble; a self-centered brute in search of victims? Or, was he the product of abuse, his sensibilities warped by the constantly cruelty of his foster brother? Perhaps, Mr. Earnshaw brought home his own illegitimate child. Why else did he suddenly, out of the blue, introduce this little stranger into his household? If that is true, the romantic bond between Catherine and Heathcliff is incest.Emily Bronte touched on a variety of complex issues, unusual for a female Victorian writer. The theme of abusive relationships would be seen, in those days, as inappropriate for a woman's gentle sensibilities.Indeed, despite the fact that Wuthering Heights was offered up to the public as a novel written by a man, critics met it with stern objection. Reviewers decried Wuthering Heights as unnatural. One reviewer could not imagine how anyone could have contemplated such a take without eventually committing suicide. Imagine what they would have thought if they had known that Ellis Bell was really a young woman.In fact, the publishers who accepted Wuthering Heights set it aside. It was not until Emily Bronte's sister, Charlotte Bronte published Jane Eyre with success, that Wuthering Heights was offered up to the reading public.Wuthering Heights was no best seller. It was not until many years passed that it was recognized as a classic. The book is a complex study of dysfunctional relationships with a multi-layered plot. The reader must question the intentions and behaviors of even the most innocent seeming characters, resulting in a story that has become a mainstay of English literature classes.Emily Bronte was a quiet, reclusive young woman of the Victorian era who spent her days cooking, sewing and taking long walks on the moors. But the impact of her only novel, Wuthering Heights, resounds 160 years later as a classic, a deeply meaningful and psychologically profound novel. dr seuss cat in hat history