EN374 essay What presentation of femininity and gendered subjectivity do you find in Wuthering Heights? Student: Yolanda Bartman

Transcription

1 EN374 essay 2 5. What presentation of femininity and gendered subjectivity do you find in Wuthering Heights? Student: Yolanda Bartman LECTURER: Dr Steven Vine

2 In this essay, I will answer the question What presentation of femininity and gendered subjectivity do you find in Wuthering Heights? I will answer this question by looking at different aspects of the presentation and femininity and gendered subjectivity. For example, I will explore the different ways femininity is presented in the novel, such as in motherhood, rage, different characters and their relationship to other characters. As for gendered subjectivity, I will first explore what the term means in relation to Wuthering Heights. Then I will give my view on the gendered subjectivity that is presented in the novel. Subjectivity in Wuthering Heights is something else than identity. According to Hall, identity can be seen as a particular set of traits, beliefs and allegiances that gives a person a consistent personality and mode of social being. However, subjectivity implies a degree of thought and self- consciousness about identity, but at the same time allowing a number of unavailable limitations so that we can never fully understand our identity. (Hall 2004:3) However gendered subjectivity is again something else. The terms genders and subjectivity together makes one think about how differences and similarities originate and have effects in the becoming subjects of women and men, according to Malson and Hollway on Springer Reference. They say: Gendered subjectivity signals a critical formulation by moving away from the idea of innate sexual identity characteristics that divide human beings into male and female. (Malson and Hollway, Springer Reference) One of the ways femininity is presented is through rage. Catherine Earnshaw s rage is obvious in scenes where she fights, cries and shouts. But at a young age, this already showed. In chapter 4 of Wuthering Heights old Mr. Earnshaw tells his children that he will going to Liverpool and that they can ask for something Mr. Earnshaw to bring them. Young Cathy asks for a whip. Instead, he brings home young Heathcliff. (Brontë 1847:51) Heathcliff is in a way Catherine s metaphorical whip. Her whole life, she has power over Heathcliff. Everything she does, Heathcliff reacts to. Her actions determine his life, like how the owner instructs the whip where to go and who to hit. After Catherine s death, Heathcliff becomes a whip without an owner. He become out of control, hitting un- channelled.

3 After Catherines death, Heathcliff is like a storm, going over the Moors with a wuthering power. But at the same time, Catherine s haunting is represented by weather as well. Every time her ghost appears, she is outside. In chapter 3, Catherine s ghost is outside, asking to let her in. And in chapter 34, the final chapter of the novel, it is stated that villagers have seen Heathcliff s ghost wandering about on the moors with a second ghost. (Brontë, 1847:42) So both Catherine and Heathcliff return to nature after their death. Catherine and Heathcliff find each other again outside, in nature. This main theme is always identified with femininity. (Homans: 342) So nature, and thereby femininity, is a very important aspect of Wuthering Heights, as the two most important characters spend there lives and deaths mostly in nature. But we can also see femininity in other characters. The second Catherine, Cathy Linton, presents femininity in a very different way than her mother, Catherine Earnshaw. It is fair to say that both Catherines are strong women. They don t let anyone else put them in the corner, and they fight for their freedom. But they are also very different from each other. In a way, we could say that Catherine Linton is more successful in her life than her mother. Catherine Linton could succeed in self- realization, Catherine Earnshaw couldn t. Cathy Linton actually finds happiness in the end and is able to help her loved ones. Furthermore, Catherine Linton fights Heathcliff and wins these fights, on varies occasions. Yes, she marries Linton Heathcliff because she is forced to do so, but she never stops fighting Heathcliff. In the end she succeeds in her mission to fight Heathcliff, as she grows closer to Hareton, and finally gets her way. Catherine Linton teaches Hareton to read. He is uncultured in much the same way as Heathcliff was. Catherine Linton draws Hareton into culture and civility. The thereby also teaches him to read his own name above Wuthering Heights; giving him property rights, and giving him a place in Victorian society. Catherine Earnshaw could never do this for Heathcliff, although this was her intent when she married Edgar. Unlike female characters in Victorian books, Cathy is not all sweet virtue, according to Pykett (Pykett: 476) Although she indeed is the reason for Hareton s cultural ambition, she is not doing it in the traditional way, like in other Victorian novels. Cathy is also mean to Hareton, mocking him for his efforts to teach himself to read. Afterwards, she regrets this and uses her femininity to interest Hareton in reading again. I think this

4 certain feminine manipulation and power can also be found in other relationships in the novel, like the effect that Catherine Earnshaw has on Edgar and Heathcliff. As mentioned before, another recurring theme in Wuthering Heights is feminine power. Like Pykett says: Whether in her roles as a child of nature, or in her uneasy guise of proper lady, Catherine Earnshaw is presented as a powerful woman. (Pykett: 471) But in fact, Catherine does not have a lot of rights or legal power. Her power lies in her femininity. But her female power doesn t bring her to her happiness. According to Pykett, that is because her power cannot find a channel in the social world of the novel, and therefor turns on itself. (Pykett: 472) The novel repeatedly shows the limits to female power and influence. It often causes problems between others instead of empowering her to resolve conflicts. Catherine sees her marriage to Edgar as something that will give her power to help Heathcliff, but instead it causes conflicts between the two men, which result in Catherine s madness. According to Pykett, Catherine s power even turns against itself, when she says in chapter 11: if I cannot keep Heathcliff for my friend, if Edgar will be mean and jealous, I ll try to break their hearts by breaking my own. I think in a way, she succeeds in this. Heathcliff goes mad and is self- destructing, and Edgar goes mad with jealousy and fury. But as a result, Catherine cannot take the pressure and goes mad. So Catherine has no legal power, as she is always under the control of first her father, then her brother and ultimately her husband. But it is like Brontë is fighting this male power and domination by giving Catherine so much female power of the emotions of the men in her life. As mentioned before, femininity is also presented through nature in Wuthering Heights in a metaphorical way. According to Margaret Homans women are identified with nature. (Homans: 342) On the other hand, culture can be seen as male. Culture is driven by the mind and thought. Culture, and with that men, dominated the Victorian society. In Wuthering Heights nature is a recurring theme. Because nature is associated with femininity we can say that Wuthering Heights is challenging the Victorian culture of that time. This is true even in the last chapters of the book, where Cathy Linton teaches Hareton to read and thereby putting him back in culture. It is quite unusual for a women

5 to put a man back into culture, as men are associated with culture and are believed to be the ones to teach women about it. Catherine never articulates nature in her diary. She writes about everything that happens inside the house, but when she goes outside on the Moors, nothing is described. One can wonder why Catherine does not describe her beloved Moors, where she spends the best moments with Heathcliff. Maybe it is because she loves that nature so much, and she could not bear to loose it. For using words to describe something can have the power to take away the importance of the object. In a way, words and language represent loss. (Homans: 342) I can conclude that Catherine sees nature in a way as the mother she never had, as her actual mother died early and Nelly was never sufficient as a surrogate mother. This might also be the explanation why Catherine returns to nature after death. It is not just because that is where her and Heathcliff shared a lot of moments, but also because hereby she is returning to her mother. But the effect of nature is also important to mention about one of the other characters: Lockwood. On one of the rare occasions where Brontë does mention the forces of nature, it is when Lockwood gets snowed in when he is at Wuthering Heights. This could be seen as very metaphorical. The snow is covering up the nature, so one of the few times nature is described; it has a certain cover over it. Again, to protect the nature in some way from the literal. Nature is a threat for Lockwood, both literal and figuratively. Obviously, it is literally a threat because Lockwood would get lost in the show when he was to walk back to Thrushcross Change by himself. But on the other hand, nature is also his opponent in a metaphorical sense. Lockwood is male. Lockwood is culture. He is from a big city and is very civilized. Nature is opposite culture, and thereby femininity if opposite of Lockwood s masculinity. Femininity is not only presented in female characters. This is where gendered subjectivity comes in: femininity can also be in male characters, like in Heathcliff. Heathcliff can beat Edgar by using his body. But Edgar can beat Heathcliff through law, property rights, and inheritance rights. Heathcliff didn t have any of that what Edgar had. Heathcliff was almost like women in a marriage in the Victorian time. Without money, property right, etc. The only way he got these was by stealing and robbing.

6 Heathcliff is hereby as a kind of interloper: as a Victorian woman who would steal and rob for these rights. It is almost like Emily Brontë is angry about the position of the Victorian woman, and shows this female rage through Heathcliff. I feel like Brontë fights the male- female situation of the Victorian time in another way as well. When Cathy is still the young savage girl, running around on the Moors with Heathcliff, she is free from the Victorian society. After her change at the Grange, multiple characters describe her as a lady. But she was always a girl. Like Pykett states: female gentility is socially produced and reinforced, rather than derived from women s nature. Before Cathy s change she can be described as being the pre- gendered version of herself. (Pykett: 471) She was a woman, but in a way that was really in her nature, not what society told her what she should be as a woman. One may say that motherhood is the ultimate goal of femininity. In Wuthering Heights, the mother- child relationship is a recurring theme. To explain why, we have to go back to the relationship with Emily Brontë and her own mother. Her mother died shortly after Emily s third birthday, and a lot the struggle, fears and fantasies in Wuthering Heights can be linked to the separation- individuation process. (Wion: 365) When looking at the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, it can be compared to the relationship of a mother and child because of multiple reasons. Heathcliff is like a mother to Catherine: he is the world to her and she cannot bear to think about their separation, as she says to Nelly in the famous I am Heathcliff - scene (Brontë 1847:88). (Wion: 366) And when Heathcliff returns after his three- year absence, his reunion with Catherine is described in an interesting way. According to Wion, it is almost like their reunion is described in terms that derive psychologically from the symbiotic phase of the mother- child relationship. (Wion: 368) Finally, Catherine s breakdowns, which indirectly cause her death, can also be linked to her bond with Heathcliff as a child to mother. Her first breakdown is caused by Heathcliff s disappearance, and can be seen as a reaction to the process of separation/individuation. (Wion: 369) Catherine s second breakdown after Edgar insists that she chooses between one or the other. According to Wion, this breakdown reveals the sort of confusion of inside and outside characteristic of an identity insecure at the deepest level. (Wion: 369)

7 I think the ultimate mother of Wuthering Heights is Nelly, even though the does not have children of her own. She lives with almost every character at one point or the other, and is older that most of the characters. Therefor, she serves as a kind of foster mother. Catherines mother, Mrs Earnshaw dies in less than two months after Heathcliff is welcomed in Wuthering Heights. (Brontë 1847: 53) Nelly steps in as a housekeeper and carer for the children. She stays with Catherine for most of her life, even moving to Thrushcross Grange after her wedding with Edgar. But Catherine does not see Nelly as a good mother, or as Wion says: she sees her as an anti- mother. (Wion: 370) And at the end of her life, Catherine even says Nelly betrayed her. (Brontë 1847: edition) Nelly is a more successful surrogate to the second generation. I think this might be because she is in fact old enough to be their mother, and knew their parents and the world before they were born. This starts with Hareton. Nelly cares for him while she is still living at the Heights, after his mother Frances died and his father Hindley neglects him. And she is also successful in this role towards Cathy Linton, like Wion says: For the younger Catherine, Nelly is a good enough mother, and her emotional development is presented as quite normal and well- balanced. (Wion: 378) Femininity and gendered subjectivity are presented in various ways in Wuthering Heights, or example through female rage. But this female rage can be found in not just female characters. Obviously, Catherine expresses female rage, but Heathcliff also does this by his rebellion. Another thing Heathcliff and Catherine share is their preference for nature, which is seen as female, in both their lives and in their deaths. Their ghosts both wander the Moors: like characters returning to their mother. When comparing the first Catherine to the second Catherine, multiple presentation of femininity can be found. What the Catherines absolutely share is their female power and their effect on men. There is also a certain gender war going on in Wuthering Heights. The gender war can be seen as the one between nature and culture. In the novel these two constantly clash through various characters, for example between Edgar(culture) and Catherine(nature) and Heathcliff(nature).

8 The position of the woman in the Victorian time is also important in Wuthering Heights. Brontë shows her objection to the position of the woman not only through Catherine, but also very much through Heathcliff. Finally, motherhood is presented all through the novel as a very important aspect of femininity. Most of the women in the novel become mother, but none of them actually have the change to act like a mother to their children. Interesting is that Nelly, not a mother herself, acts like a surrogate mother for a lot of the characters. So femininity and gendered subjectivity is presented through various female and male characters, but also through nature and culture. What is important about this is that men can also show femininity even though they are not female. But at the same time, it doesn t necessarily mean that females express femininity in the same way as the men do. And as stated before, gentility of the female is often made by culture, not by the nature of the woman.

9 Bibliography Brontë, E(1847). Wuthering Heights. (Edited Linda H. Peterson: St Martin s Press, 2003) Brontë, C(1847). Jane Eyre. Smith, Elder and company Gilbert, S. (1995). Looking Oppositely: Emily Brontë s Bible of Hell, in Wuthering Heights, ed, Patsy Stoneman (Macmillen, 1995) Hall, D. (2004). Subjectivity. London: Routledge. Homans, M. The Name of the Mother in Wuthering Heights Malson, H. and Hollway, W. Gendered Subjectivity, Springer Reference [online] Available at: [Accessed 3 January 2014] Pykett, L. Changing the Names: The Two Catherines in Linda H. Peterson edition Wion, P. The Absent Mother in Wuthering Heights - in Linda H. Peterson edition