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Wuthering Heights: Emily Bront(?)'s Perplexity

Posted on:2005-11-16Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:J P WeiFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360122495654Subject:English Language and Literature
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Wuthering Heights, * a masterpiece in English literature, enters the list of classics for its enduring interest and wide popularity, and its author, Emily Bronte, is called a "sphinx of literature" for her mysticism. The thesis presented here attempts to probe into a phenomenon evident in the novel ?peiplexity, and tries to focus on some association between Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights, the natural product of her mind. It is in the book that Emily communicates allusively her hidden, unapproachable peiplexity of life through the vivid delineation of the seemingly wild passion, violent revenge, gloomy dispositions of the major and minor characters in the novel.Introduction initiates the significant position of the novel and its author in English literature and offers a brief narration of the story gist, the dramatic changes of literary criticism on the book. This part also emphasizes some close links of Emily's unusual personality and her creative consciousness.Chapter One elaborates the complexity of Emily Bronte's short life: aloof, miserable footsteps of an imaginative, strong and natural soul. It provides the background information about the influential factors in the cultivation of Emily's affection for the nature, Emily's strong will in confrontation with adversity, and Emily's ascetic peace of mind in her creative experience. It points out it is the irreconcilable conflict between Emily's unyielding character and the confining society that leads to Emily's perplexity of life and suspicion of her beliefs till the last moment of her life.Chapter Two is devoted to the graphic presentation and analysis of the overwhelming perplexity shown in Wuthering Heights from three aspects: Catherine's dilemma between love and marriage, a perplexed termination of Heathcliff's revenge as well as the perplexity displayed bythe minor characters. In light of Freud's theory of personality, Heathcliff stands for Catherine's "id", Edgar, her "superego", and she, herself is the "ego" tortured by the friction between the two in a disharmonious mental situation. After Catherine's death, Heathcliff's violent revenge against everyone in the two families is also a reflection of the contradiction among the three parts: a collaboration of the strong id and ego against the weak superego. And the imbalance eventually results into the abrupt consumption of the revenge fire. In addition, this chapter also touches on the darkness in the personality of the minor characters of the story.In Chapter Three, further analysis is conducted of the relationship between the novel's one theme of perplexity, the writer's philosophy of life, and the essence of human nature. The chapter starts with a study of Emily's unrealistic concepts of love as a result of Emily's lack of any personal experience in romantic emotion and more important of her philosophical concepts of love traced back to the primitive love of affinity in Greek mythology. Then the writer of this paper uncovers a concealing theme of the novel: a parable of innocence and loss. The plight in man's maturing years accumulated from the increasing lures of the mortal world and the human desires in disagreement with harsh reality is bound to collapse the paradise of our carefree innocent childhood. Meanwhile, this chapter as well expresses that Wuthering Heights is formally a writer's meditation on the truthfulness of human life and the disillusionment of individual's heroic fantasies: no man is not shackled in the perplexed destiny.To summarize, the author of this paper argues the true essence of human life: a perpetual irreconcilable conflict between body and soul, head and heart, matter and spirit or a persistent pursuit of the beautiful dream in life of-childhood, love, ideal, and happiness or an endless cycle from storms into calms, imbalance into harmony of the whole universe?...
Keywords/Search Tags:Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte, perplexity, Freud's theory of personality, human nature
PDF Full Text Request
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