The Idea Of The Self In Wuthering Heights

As Emily Bronte's only novel, Wuthering Heights has been controversial since its publication.Different schools of critics have interpreted it in different ways. Psychoanalysts'interpretations rank the most persuasive. Some critics of this school analyze the psyche of thecharacters by exploring into their dreams, according to Freud's theory of dreams. And someapply his and Carl Jung's ideas of the self to construe the three main characters' (Catherine,Heathcliff and Edgar) personality and relationship.The topic of the self is new and old at once. It is old because it appeared as early as thebeginning of human civilization, and has always been discussed on the list of thinkers' majorconcerns. It is new because the ideas of the self and how to realize it change with time. But inJerrold Seigel's opinion, no matter how different are they, these ideas of the self areapproached mainly from the three angles: the bodily, the relational and the reflective."Self-awareness" of individuals comes from the notion of sameness and their main concern ishow to realize the self.Based on Jerrold Seigel's conclusion, I make a tentative study of the idea of the self inWuthering Heights. After looking back into the history of the idea of the self in general andthe idea of the self in Romanticism literature in particular, I analyze the self in WutheringHeights by looking at the two protagonists: Catherine and Heathcliff. My conclusion is: theself in Wuthering Height is similar to that of the Romanticism: close to nature, reminiscent ofchildhood, aspiring freedom from the fetters of the human society and the body. A chainlesssoul is the beautiful yet unattainable goal ever beckoning the unhappy into its pursuits. Tobalance the bodily, relational and reflective components of the self is what three dimensionsJerrold Seigel proposes as the path to the goal.