摘 要

《呼啸山庄》讲述了希斯克里夫和凯瑟琳之间的悲剧故事。小说揭示了爱与恨的纠缠， 报复与折磨的并存，并且生动地讲生死不渝的真挚的爱与残酷的令人窒息的恨相结合。通过主人公们的爱恨情仇，艾米丽·勃朗特揭示了野蛮与文明的不可容性。本文通过对凯瑟琳人生三段时期的爱的分析，揭示了爱与恨的冲突，文明与自然之间的冲突。

关键词：艾米莉·勃朗特；《呼啸山庄》；凯瑟琳；爱；自然；文明

Contents

1. Introduction 1
2. Demonstration 2
   1. Pure Love in Catherine's Childhood 2
      1. Pure Love for Wild Life 2
      2. Pure Love for Heathcliff 2
   2. Bonded Love in Catherine's adulthood 3
      1. Bonded Love in Adult Life 3
      2. Bonded Love in Marriage 5
   3. Haunting Love in Catherine's Afterlife 6
      1. Haunting Love to Heathcliff 6
      2. Haunting Love to Linton 7
3. Conclusion 7

Works Cited 9

Bibliography 10

An Analysis of Catherine’s Love in Wuthering Heights

Introduction

Emily Bronte is a dazzling pearl of the literary world during the nineteenth century. As one of the famous “Bronte sisters” during the British literary history, she is also a successful novelist like her sisters. Her only novel Wuthering Heights establishes her status in the history of English literature or even the history of the world literature. In addition, as a poet, she wrote 193 poems. She is considered to be a talented woman writer.

As the only novel in Emily Bronte’s life, Wuthering Heights is quite different from the popular literature in the early 19th century. The novel doesn’t contain romantic taste and noble life. It is not in conformity with the romantic literature at all. Due to the description of the ugliness of humanity, the novel was not well accepted at its first publication. By the 20th century, with the rise of modern literature, Wuthering Heights became popular. The novel is full of wild imagination and violent emotion. It mainly talks about the triangle love story among three characters. Through describing the love and hate between Heathcliff and Catherine and between Linton and Catherine. Emily Bronte annotates the loss and return of human nature.

The novel has been a hot topic since the nineteenth century. The foreign critics made a lot of researches on it. They mainly focused on two aspects. One is on symbolism and irony; the other is on the relationship between nature and civilization. Domestic critics also made a lot of researches. As for Catherine’s love, the domestic scholars have done a lot researches. As Zeng argued, Catherine’s love is very contradictory and complex and her love has dualism. One starts from her human nature; the other starts from her selfishness and vanity. Catherine’s contradictions and struggle show the conflicts between nature and civilization.

This thesis will focus on three periods of Catherine’s love to explore the conflicts between nature and civilization. Therefore, this thesis will be divided into three chapters. The first chapter discusses Catherine’s free love in her childhood, including her love for wild life and for Heathcliff. The second chapter focuses on the

bonded love in Catherine’s adulthood, including her bonded love in her adult life and in marriage. The third chapter turns to the haunted love in afterlife. Catherine’s death causes huge effects on Heathcliff and Linton.

Demonstration

• 1. Pure love in Catherine’s childhood
     1. Pure love for wild life

Wuthering Heights is located in the remote countryside of England. The natural and social outlook influenced Catherine’s childhood. Her character is distinctive. On the one hand, she loves freedom and passion. She loves playing in the wilderness. She is just like a wild horse with a bold and unrestrained soul. Other little girls all like playing dolls at home while Catherine loves riding. When Catherine is six years old, her father asks her what present she wants. She just says: “A horsewhipped!”（Bronte

149 ） On the other hand, she is rebellious and stubborn. Although she is a child of

feudal manor, she throws the feudal etiquette away. She doesn’t want to be a “good boy” under her father’s will. All of her characteristics show her wild beauty and free style. What apparently flows in her blood is instability and wildness. Under the environment of life, Catherine has no fear, restraint, bashfulness or timidity, which are the external performance of all girls. All of her characters are the embodiment of the wild nature.

Catherine and Heathcliff are the masters of the wilderness. They grow up together. During their childhood, they enjoy the time in the wilderness which is just like their kingdom. The wilderness becomes a secluded paradise for them to escape the reality, far from the madding crowd, so both of them love freedom and nature. It is this love for nature that causes the resonance between Catherine and Heathcliff.

• • 1. Pure love with Heathcliff

The love between Catherine and Heathcliff is the best model of wild life. For one thing, the love between Catherine and Heathcliff is free. Catherine enjoys the life of nature, and Heathcliff represents nature. Both of them are infatuated with the rugged

beauty of the rural scenery. The biggest amusement to the innocent lover is to run away to the wilderness in the morning and remain there all day, and the following punishment grows a mere thing to be laughed at. In the wind howling wilderness, they play together and laugh together. With these experiences, Catherine sees the same wild nature from Heathcliff, so she is attracted by Heathcliff. They share the same personality and hobbies and both of them don’t want to be restricted by the society. The same personality makes their souls close to each other. For another, the love between them is pure. Although Heathcliff is just a foundling without social status or money, Catherine still loves him. To Heathcliff, Catherine is just like the sun shining over his gloomy life. Catherine is his whole world and her existence is the meaning of Heathcliff’s life. Catherine enjoys the time with Heathcliff because they don’t take social status into account and they just do what they really like. When Catherine talks about Heathcliff, she just says: “... My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.”(Bronte 288) This kind of love is the spiritual love of untamed nature. It is not for the pursuit of love, but for the pursuit of self. So their love is the product of looking for original selves and the product of human original nature.