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“IMPACT OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION” IN
EMILY BRONTE’S” WUTHERING HEIGHTS AND
ITS PARALISED HUMAN RELATIONS
Mishra Suman*
Swami Vivekanand Subharti University,
Meerut
Emily Bronte was born on July 30, 1818 in Thomton.She was the fifth children
born to Patrick Bronte and his wife Marie Branwell.In 1848, she died at the age of thirty from a
severe infection caused by cold.
At the time Emily was seven, she had experienced three deaths –her mother and two
sisters .After the novel was published in 1847, Emily seemed to withdraw from the world and
no longer continued to write. After Emily’s death, Charlotte edited the manuscript of
Wuthering Heights and arranged for the edited version to be published as a pos thomos second
edition in 1850.
Wuthering Heights is the name of the farmhouse on the Yorkshine moors where the story
unfolds. It was considered controversial because of its depiction of mental and physical cruelty
and it challenged strict Victorian ideals of the day including religious hypocrisy, morality, social
classes and gender inequality. The English poet and painter, Dante Rossetti referred to it as a
friend of a book – an incredible monster.
Wuthering Heights is the history of two families and how an outsider tries to reconstruct that
history. It is about the love between Catherine and Heathcliff. Wuthering Heights deals with the
life of the people in nineteenth century England i.e. Victorian life and manners, the impact of
the Industrial Revolution on English
*Lecturer, Department of Applied Science and Humanities, Subharti Institute of Engineering
and Technology, Swami Vivekanand Subharti University, Meerut.
town life and the class system ,medical practices, lifeexpectancy, familylife, and the role of
women .Wuthering Heights is a novel of revenge and romantic love. Structurally the novel is
rich and complex .This essay has a Marxist and psychoanalytic approach. Wuthering Heights
was Emily Bronte’s only novel, when it took its shape ,the period of Romantic age had passed
.Emily Bronte lived a very isolated life .It expressed the criticism of social conventions ,mainly
issues of gender i.e. feminine and masculine characteristics without sex.Bronte had difficulties
living iv society while remaining true various things in her life.
This novel cannot be expected to be written by any gently bred Victorian lady .She send
this novel to be published by using the masculine name of ‘’Ellis Bell’’ but it took long to be
expected .Its reviews were not positive but negative. It was said that the author of such a novel
must be insane and barbaric.
Wuthering Heights does not belong to an important life-rary Li neage, but it has still been
an important influence on English literature. Wuthering Heights appeared after England’s craze
for crothic novels had ended .It also shows occurrence of violence hidden in mid-century
English society.
Though known as a great love story ,the novel focuses less on the relationship between
Catherine and Heathcliff than on the ways that relationship and others are destroyed by the
power structure of the characters ,world-class differences certainly are a major issues
here.Along with this all the violence and abuse of the fictional world has been described .No
doubt, concept of male power imposes on both men and women .We find patches of beauty
scattered here and there ,with extremes of love and hate .Yet ,towards the close of the story
occurs a pretty ,soft picture, which comes like the rainbow after a storm.
The storm is well pivoted with a place called Wuthering Heights, whose owner was a
gentleman farmer named Earnshaw.Once he visited Liverpool on a business trip and there he
found a little boy who looked like a gypsy and abandoned on the streets .He brought the child
home to join his own family. He was named Heathcliff but unfortunately he was not loved by
any member of the family except Catherine, who was a little younger than Heathcliff and
became fast friends .Heathcliff was a strange, silent boy .After some years, Earnshaw health
declined and he grew increasingly delineated from his family. He worried that everyone disliked
Headcliff. Finally he died.Hindley, Earnshaw‘sson, used his new power to a level of a servant,
although Heathcliff and Catherine continued their intimacy and would join him in the fields.
Linton fell in love with Catherine, who was attracted by his wealth and gentle manners,
although she loved Heathcliff much more seriously. Linton and Catherine became engaged and
Heathcliff ran away. Catherine fell ill after looking for Heathcliff all night in a storm and went to
the Wuthering Heights.
Six months passed, Heathcliffreturned, now a wealthy person.Egdan Linton’s sister,
Isabelle, soon fell in love with Heathcliff, who despises her but encourages the infatuation as a
means of revenge .Catherine looks pale and locks herself in her room and begins to make
herself ill again through spite and jealousy. Heathcliff stays Wuthering Heights gambling and
spoiling Hareton.
Isabelle leaves Heathcliff, she too was pregnant and gave birth to a son, Linton. Very soon
Hindley also dies after Catherine, thus, Heathcliff becomes the master of Wuthering Heights.
Twelve years passed and Catherine grew into a beautiful high-spirited girl. She walked to
the moors where she meets Hareton and then she comes to know about Wuthering Heights.
Nelly and Cathy encounter Heathcliff after three years, who insist them to meet Linton
and Hareton
After arranging the scattered lumps of” Wuthering Heights ‘’, we come to the conclusion
that it is a psychoanalytical approach and a tale of self-betrayal that brings economic well-being
that destroyed the psychic integrity of the people. Nodoubt, this period is also affected by the
impact of “Industrial Revolution “which has been well observed as the story proceeds.
WORK CITED
1- “Wuthering Heights “.Publication and Contemporary Critical Reception .Academic, brooklyr,
Cuny edu.4 march 2009.Retrieved 19 may 2010.
2- Eagleton, Terry ,Myth of Power :A Marxist study of the Bronte’s London :Palgrave Macmillan
2005
3- Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar – The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth Century Imagination, NewHaven: YaleUp, 2000.
4- Harley, James (1958).The Villain in Wuthering Heights (PDF).p.17.Retrieved 3 June 2010.
5- Robert Barnard (2000) Emily Bronte.
6- Vincent Canby (27 December 1983)”Abismos de Pasion (1953) Bunuel’s Bronte” New York Times,
retrieved 22 june2011.