CHAPTER –II
WUTHERING HEIGHTS: PAGE TO SCREEN
The Literature of great value has attracted directors since the beginning of
cinematography. The verbal, audible and visual capabilities of film express the written
ward with a great challenge and perfection. By the end of the 20th century as the number
of film adaptations increased, the interest in the theory of film adaptation extended as
well. A lot of novels have been adapted into films many of them even several times, and
Emily Bronte's Wuthering heights is one of them.
Emily Bronte (1848), one of the most famous English writers, was born in
Yorkshire. She was the fifth child and the fourth daughter of her parents. Her sister’s
charlotte and Anne were also writers. The children were largely educated at home and
being all imaginative. They have created an imaginary kingdom. They all wrote poems
and prose sketches about the kingdom for the rest of their lives (Bloom 10 - 11). After
she has finished her school, she worked as a teacher but after a while, she returned home
and devoted herself to her family and writing. By that time, she has probably started to
write her novel, Wuthering Heights. The novel was published in December 1847 under
the pseudonym of Ellis Bell. A little is known of the final two years of her life but it is
conjectured that she was working on an expanded version of the novel. This version, if
there was any, has not been found. Emily Bronte died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty
(Bloom, 10-11).
Wuthering Heights is often used to construct a biography of Emily's life,
personality, and beliefs. The novel is set in northern England where the writer used to
live. Here is a character sketch based on the similarity of Emily's role in the household
and the similarity of their names. Furthermore, the kitchen is the main setting in the novel
as well as in the film adaptation of Wuthering Height. As in Wuthering Height, Kitchen
of Nelly Dean, or kitchen of Catherine is important into the setting of the novel and film.
Most of the passionate or violent scenes happen there. After publishing Wuthering
Heights in 1847, it was not received well and the novel puzzled most of its readers, many
of them regarded it as excessively morbid, violent and indelicate. The Bronte sisters
published their novels together and under the male pseudonyms which made a little
confusion. The reviewers were not sure whether the novels were work of one or more
writers or even if the writers were men or women.
The first reviews were full of contradictions; many of them were disgusted by the
harshness of the novel. For example, Atlas published a review (1848) which said
Wuthering Heights is a storage and inartistic story. The general effect is inexpressibly
painful. We know nothing in the whole range of our fictitious literature which presents
such shocking pictures of the worst forms of humanity. Jane Eyre is a book, which
affects the readers to tears, it touches the most hidden sources of emotion. Wuthering
Heights casts a gloom over the mind not easily to be dispelled. It does not soften, it
harasses, it exenterates. A few reviewers could not decide if the writer was a genius or
just a beginner who has a potential to aim higher. The example from spectator (1847)
says that the success is not equal to the abilities of the writer chiefly because the incidents
are too coarse and disagreeable to be attractive, the very best being improbable, with a
moral taint about them. The execution of a transformed word into image grants the writer
all that is requisite regarding matters, and the delineation is forcible and truthful. In
comparison, in review specially, the examiner states that the visual presentation of a text
enhances the beauty of presentation. Many reviews praised Emily Bronte's work
immensely. This one, from unknown source, was found in her desk after her death.
Now a days Wuthering Heights is considered as one of the masterpiece of 19th
century fiction and one of the most original novels in English literature. The British
newspaper The Guardian ranked Borntes Wuthering Heights as the 17th book among the
100 greatest novels of all time. Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is a love story set in
the desolate moorlands of northern England at the end of the nineteenth century. It spans
a period of some forty years, following the repercussions of the fiery, doomed love of the
novel's protagonists, Cathy and Heatheliff. Many people generally those who have never
read the book consider Wuthering Heights to be a straight forward if intense love story.
They were called as 'Romeo and Juliet' on the Yorkshire of Moors. Actually the textual
interpretation and emotional upheavals proves' Wuthering Heights as a full story of
revenge.
It follows the life of Heathcliff, a mysterious gypsy like person, from his
childhood when he is about seven years old, to his death in his late thirties. Heathcliff's
life is full of misunderstanding, misery and grudge. His adopted family raises him and
after death of his guardian, his jealous stepbrother Hindley reduces him to the status of a
servant. Heathcliff in his childhood falls in love with his stepsister Catharine but he ran
away when the young woman decides to marry their wealthy neighbour Edgar Linton
from Thruscross Grange. Heathcliff returns later on, rich and educated and sets about
taking his revenge on the two families that he believes ruined his life. He falls into a
desperate human being consumed by his own hatred, which cost his own life as well as
many others. Before his death, he forces daughter of Catherine and Edgar. Cathy to marry
his dying son in order to deprive her all of her property. After his son's death, cathy falls
in love with Hareton, the true heir of Hindley. Heathcliff's desperate efforts cannot ruin
the happiness of the new generation, which is embodied in two young people Hareton
and Cathy who find their love inspite of his hatred. The story is being told by using a
second hand narrator, Lockwood who settles himself in the neighbourhood of Wuthering
Heights, records the story in his dairy after hearing it from his housekeeper Nelly dean,
who was present at the most of the affairs.
Because of many interruptions, the story is being told little by little over nine
months. By doing this Bronte creates a troubling, distorted sense of time. The present
world is haunted not only by the past event but also by the unsettled present issues, which
leaves the reader doubting until the very end. The novel Wuthering Heights is
traditionally classified as Gothic and romantic prose. Bronte has incorporated the gothic
trappings of imprisonment and escapee, flight the persecuted heroine, ghosts, necrophilia
and revenge. The setting of the novel is on windy, dark moors and Wuthering Heights
which is presented as traditional castle. The gothic hero villain Healthcliff is a mysterious
figure possessed by diabolic love who is blamed to be necrophilia and of incest. The
cruelty itself connects this novel with Gothic tradition. The moors shape the characters of
the novel by its rough environment making them stronger and self-dependant.
The Athenaeum reviewer labelled the gothic elements in Wuthering Heights as the
eccentricities of woman's fantasy. It may have a particular importance for intellectual
middle class women who known as maturated sexually from the brother sister
relationship. In their childhood, the sisters were equal to their brothers. They played just
as hard and felt the same pleasures and pains girls clung to this early freedom and
equality, which their brothers outgrew, and displaced them into their writing.
Romanticism in English literature is often associated with gothic novels because a pure
romantic novel is about impossible to find.
Wuthering Heights is used as a model of romantic fiction despite the gothic
elements in the novel. The dynamic antagonism of antithesis, occurring so often in
romantic novels which are presented in Brontes masterpiece. In Wuthering Heights
realism which presents Yorkshire landscape and life with the historical precision of
season, dates, and hours, coexists with the dreamlike and the unhistorical. Bronte refuses
to be confined by conventional classifications. The protagonists are driven by irresistible
passion lust, curiosity, ambition, intellectual pride and envy. The emphasis is put on their
desire for a transcendence to overcome the limitations of the body, of society, of time
rather than their moral transgressions. Their death is not only a concern. For the
protagonists, death originates in the imagination, becomes a tendency of mind, and may
develop into an obsession. Both these styles gothic and romantic are creating the book
full of opposites and emotionally charged situations. The novel is a fluent drama, which
draws the reader to the story and will not let go. However, the book has a few motives,
which are more significant than the others and they are worth mentioning mainly because
they are visible on the screen as well. The most important motive is the passionate love of
Catherine and Healthcliff.
The love triangle between Catharine, her husband Edgar and Heatheliff is the most
significant storyline and continues, in a shifted way even after Catherine's death.
However, the passionate, selfish love is not the only love that appears in the story. There
appears a tender love of the second generation, the maternal love of Nelly Dean or
Edgar's towards his daughter and the material love. All these examples of love have the
common sacrifices, which ought to be taken to preserve it. e.g. Catherine prefers wealth
to love and her life, and the life of her beloved ends in a disaster. On the other hand,
Cathy, her daughter, learns to love with patience and modesty and she is rewarded for it
at the end of the book. Love shows itself also in the gothic fashion, (i.e. boundaries are
trespassed) specially the love in Wuthering Heights crossing the boundaries between life
& death. Catharine makes clear that what she seeks is something higher, spiritual
existence when she speaks about her love. Catherine said, my love for Linton is like the
foliage in the woods. Time will change it; I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My
love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath. A source of little visible delight,
but necessary nelly, I am Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights 39).
As we see in the novel and in the film with a comparative angle it is image who
always rides on words. The actual dramatization of a Thruscross Grange scene which was
nothing but it was reality. The dying Catherine looks forward to achieve this state
through death. Besides the main theme, there are many motives, which create the
atmosphere of the story so unique. Margaret Homans in her essay divides Bronte’s novel
into two parts. The novel is organized by the two opposing principles embodied in the
two houses, Wuthering Heights and Thruscross Grange; they said the systematization of
reading. A brief survey will show that these passages almost involve a polarity between
these two extremes. The two opposite forces are storm and calm. Wuthering Heights and
Heathcliff expresses the storm, Thruscross Grange, the house where Catherine moved
after she got married to Edgar, represents the calm atmosphere. These two fractions stand
against each other and create in the reader’s mind intensive feeling of the war between
order and chaos.
These divinations are also applies to the characters. Nelly Dean, the foremost
women narrator of the novel mentions that Edgar and Healthcliff are not alike. The
contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for beautiful
fertile valley and again Catherine's comparison of Edgar to foliage in the woods and of
Heathcliff to eternal rocks or she compares them to frost and fire. Another contrast could
be seen in a clash between economic interests and the social classes. The novel is set at a
time when capitalism and industrialization are changing not only the economy but also
the traditional social structure and the relationship of the classes.
Emily's frustration from the patriarchal society is clearly reflected in Wuthering
Heights. The male heads of household abuse females and weaker or powerless males.
This kind of social and emotional imprisonment takes even the physical form. Ultimately
made by men restrict women's identity by forcing them to choose or by imprisoning
them, daughter Cathy is bound to Thru cross Grange until she comes of age, or by forcing
them to submit.
The passion driven characters such as Catherine, Heathcliff and Hindley are led by
the pain to turn on the others and torment them. It is not important if the source of their
suffering is inflected by the others. Heathcliffs holds Catherine responsible for his
suffering after her death or by the outside forces. Hindley's wife dies of natural cause.
Inflicting pain provides then some relief, this behavior raises questions whether they are
cruel by nature or are formed by childhood abuse and to some an extent they should be
held responsible or blamed for their cruelties. The details used in the novel change
Wuthering Heights into a masterpiece. The contrast becomes a spine of the book. The
opposites are brought very close together Sometimes. It is a problem to recognize love
from hatred or fear from joy. Full of gothic, romantic and symbolism, her novel has
opened a new view for the understanding of love. She reveals a natural hidden pain and
despair connected with unfulfilled love, which changes the heart of man. Her work brings
closer the social, profound and elaborate characters which do not fear death or god. They
ignore social conventions and deep rooted notions of common feelings of love. All this
creates a multi-layered masterpiece, which has become a jewel of English literature.
Kosminsky's Film Adaptation of Wuthering Heights was great novel and a
challenge for film directors all over the world. The problem with the classic works, such
as Wuthering Heights is its extensive contents, complexity of characters and their
relationships, and a great number of storylines.
Filmmakers have to operate with an enormous surplus of material, which has to be
reduced only in a few hours long footage. Many adaptations tried to tame this extensive
novel. According to Iamb, the novel has been adapted with the exception of TV series
and TV movies eight times, four times in the UK and once in the USA, Japan, France and
Mexico.
In 1939, the film adaptation of Wuthering Heights was done by William Wyler in
United States with Laurence Oliver in the leading role of Heatheliff. Although the film
adaptation did not correspond with the original work. It was nominated for eights Oscar's
Academy Awards in 1954, the famous Louis Bunuel created a Mexican adaptation of
Wuthering Heights in his own fashion. Another one more contemporary film to
Wuthering Heights was adapted in 1970 with Timothy Dalton but the second part of the
novel was completely missing. Kosminsky's Wuthering Heights from 1992 has become
the most elaborate adaptation of the novel so far, trying to capture the whole story, as
well as the themes and motives which are described in a novel. Andrea Arnold's film
from 2011 is the latest adaptation. It makes a flashback plunging more or less straight
into the action, but like the 1939 William Wyler's version with Laurence Oliver or
Dalton's version. It restricts itself to the first generation from the first half of the novel. In
order to make a comparison as elaborate as possible, this part of the thesis will focus only
on one film adaptation. Kosminsky's Wuthering Heights from 1992 is in this issue the
most accurate and his work becomes a basis for further comparison.
The film is the first romance Kosminsky has ever shot. In order to be as close to
the novel as possible, the screenplay writer, Anne Devlin uses the whole passage from the
novel. The problem may appear in the casting of the actors. Ralph Fiennes who plays
Heathcliff is very accurate for his character, he is wild, passionate, desperate, remodels
and to a certain degree, very effective as a troubled gypsy, but on the screen, he appears
to fell in lack chemistry with Juliette Binoche who plays the role of Catherine too cold
and distant as the film heroine. Without almost any emotional manifestation, this causes
the flat effect of the film even though the novel is referenced as the best known Gothic
romance. The film has more gothic than romantic elements and the protagonists often
commit violent and morally questionable acts, which are not balanced enough by strong
chemistry that should be expressed their passionate love.
Juliet Binoche plays a dual role. She has casted as Catherine Earnshaw, Hindley's
sister and Heathcliffs stepsister. The second role is Catherine's daughters Catherine, who
is called Cathy for greater clarity. These two characters are diametrically different.
Catherine is described in the novel as well as in film as passionate, strong willed, wild
and mischievous child. Even though she changes as she grows up she still remains to be
head strong and independent woman. She loves Heathcliff all her life. On the other hand,
her daughter is gentle, attentive and innocent creature who inherited her mothers' strength
and even though she should fear Heatheliff. She only despises him Binoche plays the role
of young Cathy well. She is light hearted and careless, yet when she is held captive by
Heathcliff and she worries about her sick father Edgar, she turs strong's and brave.
In this role, Binoche is natural. The nature of character is obvious and it fits the
actress well. However, the role of Catherine does not appear to be such a successful. It is
very difficult to compare comprehend the nature of the character and even the readers of
the novel are not often sure whether they like Catherine or not. She is wilful and
independent and she struggles with her one nature as well as with her cursed love. As she
grows mature, she wants to be kind and ladylike but has a problem to control her and
after Heathcliffs return it is almost impossible for her. The actress ought to express these
all things. Nevertheless she seems to be too grateful and introvert to create such a
passionate character.
The moorland which is described in the book is a combination of areas that Emily
Bronte knew. It is an area around Haworth, the city situated on the south of today's
Yorkshire Dales National park. The film was shot in the National park as well. The most
of the scenes took place at Aysgarth Falls in North Yorkshire or at Malham cove.
The scenery is very similar to the one described in the novel and it helps to set the
right mood in the film as well. It is impossible to condense the whole novel into a one
hundred and five minutes long film but the soul of the original work can be found in the
Kosminsky's adaptation.
In comparison to the novel, there are a few differences after all. The framework of
the second hand narrator is eliminated and the narrator of the story is an actress who
plays the role of Emily Bronte. Therefore Nelly loses her important role and becomes
only a maid of a house and not a storyteller for an audience. One of the most noticeable
differences between the novel and its adaptation is the similar appearance of Cathy,
Catherine's daughter, as her mother.
Cathering Earnshaw has been portrayed more passionate, sensitive and confused
kind of girl whereas in a novel Juliet Binoche is lacking in her spirit. The part of women
characters i.e. Catherine Earnshaw and Cathy Linton has been played by Juliet Binoche.
But she has fitted herself well in the role of Cathy Linton comparatively to Catherine.
Despite all the changes and divergences or shortening of some storylines, the
adaptation from 1992 brings a large dose of romanticism. The beautiful music composed
by Rywhci skamoto, the popular Japanese artist who intensifies the emotional experience.
Together with very carefully the chosen setting and camera work, the film soundtrack
expresses exactly the power and tragic nature of unfulfilled love worth of mentioning is
James Acheson's costume design. In the second part of the film, when Juliette Binoche
plays the role of Catherine's daughter, she shows a high wasted empire style of the 1800s.
This tends to look more childlike and has the effect of making the character look
younger. After she moves to Wuthering Heights, she begins to wear more fitted bodices
from late 1700s and out of style at that time). This helps to focus now the older and wiser
Cathy seems less innocent and more womanly. This precise work is an example of how
good costuming can be used to tell the story, especially when you have one actress
playing two roles. The film didn’t achieve any awards. It was nominated only once in
1992, On Tokyo grand prix. Even though peter Kosminsky's film version of Wuthering
Heights is underrated; he succeeded in creating a very faithful film adaptation, which
tracks the storyline almost precisely. His concentration on the details helps to create a
credible story, which captures the period at the turn of the 19th century. He uses for that
not only the consumes or the settings but also focuses on a camera work and the
screenplay as well.
Women delineation of female protagonists in a film wheels around the motives,
themes and symbolism which is mostly focused and processed in the film adaptation. The
greatest motive of Wuthering Heights is love which is the most important elements in the
Kisminsky's film adaptation. The love triangle between Heathcliff, Catherine and Edgar
expressed by the passionate love between Healthcliff and Catherine, Edgar’s tender
affection for Catherine and Heathcliffs hatred toward Edgar dominates the film. To bring
out the love closer to the literary work of Emily Bornte, The film adaptation of Wyler
didn’t add the sensitive dialogues of Catherine and Heathcliff directly but the screenplay
uses the dialogues taken directly from the novel. The film narrator defines the
relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff at the very beginning of the film. She says
that Cathy was drawn to the silent, self-possessed indication the creation of immediate
affection between them in their childhood. To define the rough but free environment
shaping the main characters she adds.
Like all wild things, she shared with him a love of open moor. Kosminsky
attempts to treat Heathecliff's character as precisely as possible. In a novel, Heathcliff is
described as uncomplaining as a lamb, though hardness, not gentleness that kept him
silent. Kosminsky highlights the character of both Heatheliff and Catherine. In order to
soften the harsh verdict about young Healthcliff, Kosminsky puts in the next scene the
children laughing during the preaching has suggested their innocence and carelessness of
the childhood. The real turning point in the film is when Catherine spends three months at
Linton's Thruscross Grange and Heathcliff is kept away because of his status of servant.
When she returns, he does not know how to approach her. He blames her and tries to
make her feel guilty.
I waited every day for a sight of you but you didn’t come. So I put a wire mesh over the
nest all the little ones died when they hatched. If you'd have come back, I'd have spared them
(Kosminsky 25).
Heatcliffs love is selfish and possessive and it is twisted. He counts the days when
she is with him and the days when she is with Edgar Linton. Catherine doesn’t care about
it very much. She knows he is bound to her by his heart and by his status. Her love is first
fully expressed in the Film, Im Healthcliffs speech, Kosminsky was very stuborn and the
screenplay is written almost identical to Brontes.
Unfortunately, Heathcliff, does not hear the whole conversation. He leaves after
Catherine words; it would degrade me to marry Healthcliff now which she says before I am
healthcliff. In this part of film, Kosminsky uses the voice narration and comments on the
happening without specifying whether the love of Heathcliff was overcome by his pride.
The narrator states only the change of events and comments on the change of Catherine's
heart. And eventually, Cathy turned away from old life at Wuthering Heights by marrying
Edgar, she found a measure of happiness. Two souls as different as the moonbeam from
lightening, or frost from fire (Kosminsky 36).
Heathcliff comes back after two years and it is obvious that he struggled only to
impress Catherine after his return. His divesting elements in and damages all the
happiness Edgar and Catherine laboriously created. Catherine is torn between her loves
for those two men and feels trapped in her comfortable life and grows tired and disgusted
of it. Heathcliff's return makes her reconsider her decision. Catherine hides the key and
makes Edgar, her husband, comfortable. Through this action, she ruins Edgar's trust and
also her fragile faith in the marriage. Immediately, after she realizes what she has done,
she deliberately gets sick.
Again the film director concentrates on Catherine's feelings, leaving Edgar's
emotion to be unrecognized. This makes him a scapegoat of the story love between
Catherine and Heathcliff and his silent sacrifice is therefore even more noticeable. In the
film, Catherine's relationship is expressed by her responsibility towards Edgar.
Nonetheless, it is again overshadowed by a predication, an enormously destructive bond
between her and Heathcliff. If we are looking at the film from feminist point of view, it
seems that Wuthering Heights has to be considered first feminist novel in English
literature. Because Catherine being a female chose her own ways, which are based on
social taboos and lead conventional life. She quotes.
You must never kiss me again. I love Edgar and he is dependent on me. If you kiss me
again I would have to leave him, and I would not survive. The surest way to kill me is for you to
kiss me again (Kosminsky 44).
The novel seems not that much romantic but the film uses romantic elements to
express Emily Bront's idea of love. The love is not presented just in its tranquil and
smiling aspect but also appears its wild, stormy mood. It has a clash of strong feelings. It
opposes the destiny, the power of god or Satan. Heathcliff was saying by her deathbed
why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? you loved me nothing that god or Satan could inflict
would have parted us. You of your own will did it. I have not broken your heart, Cathy. You
have broken it, and in breaking it, you have broken mine. She answers 'If I have done wrong, I'm
dying for it, you left me too, but I forgive you forgive me. Heathcliff replies it's hard. It's so hard
to forgive. Yes I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer, but yours how can I?
How Can I? (Kosminsky 59).
Kosminsky focuses on the passionate love of the two main characters completing
it by the gentle love of Edgar in the background. After Catherine's death, even their grief
is shown so diametrically different. Both of them visit Catherine in a mortuary. Edgar,
full of grief, silently watches her face and gives her an amulet. After he leaves, Heathcliff
Shatters the door glass with his bare hand and breaks in. He throws away the amulet with
his blood stained hand and clamps himself passionately to Catherine as he cries. This
scene expresses the contradictoriness of their love towards Catherine and the core of the
antagonism between the two men; Heathcliff's hatred results from his contempt of
Edgar's tender love. After her death, Edgar closes himself up but Heathcliff is searching
for her.
He seeks her everywhere and is getting insane. In film also the gothic supernatural
elements haunts the atmosphere which was dominant in the novel also. Heathcliff does
not accept the possibility that Catherine should leave him. He demands that Catherine's
love should trespass the boundaries of life. He throws away the fear of god and he curses
her in order to have her near in his mortal life.
I pray one prayer; Catherine Earnshaw may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I
killed you. Haunt me then. I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always, take
any form, and drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you. I
cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul (Kosminsky 61).
Gothic elements of this scene are completed by romantic ones, Fienne's beats his
head against a tree to express his torn up emotions. The end of the film shows Heathcliff
as empty, broken man who does not have any pleasure in living his life. He even opens
her coffin after many years she has been lying there to see a glimpse of what remains
from her face. Lockwood nightmare sets him into oblivion of the possibility of seeing her
and he dies lying on her bed in a tranquil state of mind. His death is his deliverance. It is
very surprising that after his diabolical life he leaves the world with a smile on his face. Is
his love above all the horrible deeds he made in his life?
Actually Kosminsky softened the death of Heathcliff. But in film adaptation he
has a vision of Catherine awaiting him on the moors. Heathcliffs love purifies his deeds.
Love is considered as an element stronger than earthly actions. Kosminsky wants us to
sympathize with Heathcliff and wishes him his deliverance. Simone Marsden one of the
film critic states that sufferings of Heathcliff on earth and Cathy as a ghost purge them of
their guilt and earn them their final paradise. Heathcliff claims on his own existence after
losing her would be hell, it could serve as a reference to his suffering and the salvation
through this, for Heathcliff's loss of Catherine is literally hell. The last shot of adaptation
is on three graves lying in one row, Edgar's, Catherine's and Heathcliff's. However the
last hint of the director is that she does not leave Heathcliff completely in peace as the
narrator says.
In the novel Emily Bronte picturises a motive of love which is ambiguous, multilayered and elaborate. Through the copying of important passages from the book in its
film version the love gains the features very similar to the ones which are used in the
novel. The film is a great advantage the possibility of intonation and stressed the action
by actor's performance.
Feminist Criticism of Wuthering Heights:
Emily Bronte (1818 - 1848), one of the most influential and successful novelist of
the period born in Yorkshire. Being the fifth child of her parents and a younger sister of
charlotte and Anne Bronte, she has tried and privileged the limitless concepts of love and
passion in Wuthering Heights. The Bornte children's were largely educated at home and
being all imaginative they created an imaginary kingdom of their, they all wrote poems
and prose sketches about the kingdom for the rest of their lives.
Wuthering Heights is supposed to build a biography of Emily's life, personality
and beliefs. The setting of the novel is northern England where the novelist used to live.
The story of Wuthering Heights has narrated by Nelly Dean, a caretaker of the family and
a second version of mother friend to Catherine Earnshaw. The narrator of the story,
Nelley, the well-read housekeeper of the family home, is a character based on the
similarity of Emily's role in the household and the similarity of their names (Emily's
pseudonym was Ellis bell). Emily Bronte was supposed to suffer from anorexia for she
has a tendency not to eat when she got upset. So she portrays the central character of her
novel in Wuthering Heights Catherine Earnshew with same habit of not to eat anything
after her getting excited and Heathcliff starves himself at the end of his life.
After finished schooling, Emily worked as a teacher then left her profession and
she returned home and devoted herself to her family and writing. By the time Emily has
started to write her novel Wuthering Heights. The novel was published in the month of
December in 1847 under the pseudonym of Eliss Bell. Emily Bronte died of tuberculosis
at the age of thirty.
Wuthering Heights was not received well and puzzled most of its readers after its
publication. All Bronte sisters published their novels together but their pseudonym made
a little confusion. The review writers and critics were not sure whether the novels were
work of one or more writer or even if the writers were men or women.
The first few reviews were full of contradictions; many of them were disgusted by
the harshness of the novel. The general effect of Wuthering Heights is painful. Jane Eyre
is a book, which affects the readers to tears. The example from the spectator (1847) says:
The success is not equal to the abilities of the writer chiefly because the incidents are too
coarse and disagreeable to be attractive and improbable.
Finally, many more reviews praised Emilys work immensely. Nowadays the
Wuthering Heights is considered as one of the masterpieces of 19th century fiction and
one of the most original novels in English literature. The British newspaper The
Guardian ranked Bronte's Wuthering Heights as the seventeenth book among the 100
greatest novels of all time. One more important thing related to Wuthering Heights is that
the main setting of the novel is in Kitchen because the most passionate, violent scenes
and important decisions happened to be there.
Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights is a love story settled into the desolate
moorlands of northern England at the end of eighteenth century. It covers the years of
forty years, follows the doomed love of the protagonists of the novel, Cathy and
Heathcliff (Bloom 21). Many people generally who have never read the novel consider,
Wuthering Heights to be a straightforward, intense love story like Romeo and Juliet on
the Yorkshire of moors.
The Present thesis would like to study the portrayals of women character in film
and fiction from comparative angle. It means the researcher attempts to focus the
similarities and desired abilities of women's portrayals through feminism and
comparative angle of study.
Traditionally Wuthering Heights is classified as gothic and romantic prose. Let's
concentrates on the English gothic novel began with Horace Walpole's the castle of
otranto (1765), which was enormously popular and imitated by many more novelists and
became soon a recognizable genre. But to the most of the critics and readers the reading
of the castle of otranto is dull and monotonous. Mostly, the characterization of gothic
novel is always flat and insipid. The characteristics of gothic novel is its supernatural
characterization, medieval setting, dark corridors and winding stairs, ruined buildings
which are sinister or which arouse a pleasing melancholy, big mansions like Wuthering
Heights at moors, extreme landscapes, like rugged mountains, thick forests, omens and
ancestral cures, passion driven wilful villain hero or villain, then a curious heroine with a
tendency to faint and a need to be rescued frequently. The hero's true identity is revealed
by the end of the novel.
The gothic short stories and novel creates feelings of gloom, mystery and suspense
and tends to be dramatic, sensational like incest, necrophilia, diabolism and nameless
terrors. Actually it crosses the boundaries, daylight and the dark, life and death, conscious
and unconsciousness. Sometimes explicitly, it presents transgression, taboos, and fears of
violation, of imprisonment, of social chaos, and of emotional collapse. Gothic novels
during 19th century made their way into the mainstream writing. They are all found in Sir
Walter Scott’s novels, charlotte Brontes Jane Eyre and Emily Bronte's, Wuthering
Heights and in romantic poetry like Colridges charitabel, Lord Byron's The Giaour and
John Keats, The Eve of st. Agnes. A tendency to the macabre and bizarre which appears
in writers like William Faulkner, Truman capote, and Flannery O’Connor has been called
southern gothic.
Ellen Moers has propounded a feminist theory that relates women writers in
general and Emily Bronte in particular to the gothic. Actually the middle class women
who wanted to write were hampered by the conventional image of ladies as submissive,
gentle, pious, loving, serene, domestic dolls. They have had to overcome the
conventional patronizing, smug, empowering contemptuous sentimentalizing of women
by reviewers like George Henry Lewes, who looked down on women writers.
As Wuthering Heights is a gothic novel it has certain rhyme with the heroines also.
Literary feminism and feminism may overlap but they are not the same, and a women
writer who adopts, heroinism is not necessarily a feminist. Heroinism takes many forms,
such as the intellectual or thinking heroine, the passionate women in love. Bronte sisters
utilize, the passionate heroine, whether, knowing or not to express their experiences
covertly.
Feminist criticism is the most outstanding discovery in the world of theory as well
as in the world of women. Feminist critics come in literary world with many forms and
with set goals. Feminist critics and theorists have been deeply interested to rediscover the
works of previous women writers who were overlooked by male dominated society and
others have started to review the books by male authors from a woman's point of view.
During these days a number of contemporary feminists have turned to topics as various as
women in post-colonial societies, women's autobiographical writings lesbians and
literature in the construction of feminine gender. Feminist literary criticism was actually a
political movement for women's freedom; it has spread its effect from Europe to America
in 1960s and 1970s in order to revive political and social issues which are associated with
women. The feminist practice has reflected the essence of feminism during 1970s and
early 1980s, and with innovation these French, American and British feminists wrote,
from somewhat different perspective. Actually the discrimination against women started
in the second half of 20th century for the first time. If we observe the history, the
opposition were propagated in the fifth century B.C. in the examples of Lysistrata,
Aeschylus, Agamemnon and also Feminism sounds in the works of Seneca, Euripdies etc.
In the seventeenth century, Marry Astell wrote a book on proposal to the ladies for
the advancement of their true and greatest interest, which creates feminine consciousness
in the society. In 1792 appeared an influential essay, A Vindication of the Rights of
Women by Mary Wollstonecrats which is considered the first major document of
feminism which gives women a space to stand and think of their own situation in society.
John Stuart Mill In his work, The Subjugation of Women which was published in 1869
raised his voice against the injustice to women. Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's own
(1928) which was not a theoretical work in a conventional sense but it serves as a point of
departure for the study of women literature and the beginning of feminist criticism.
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's own has started the discourse On language
because the view of languages towards the women is also a topic of discussion from
French feminist, American feminist and the film theorists and critics point of view.
French feminists wished to focus the attention on language and analyses the ways in
which meaning is produced. Because it was a privileged and propagated fact that
Language was a male dominated world. Jacques Lacan, a prapogator of psychoanalytic
theory opinies that, language is a realm of public discourse. He has explained that how a
child enters in linguistic world, how it comes to grasp its separateness from its mother
and identifies with their father who is the head of the family. Therefore French feminists
claims the structure of language is phallocentric However, Anne Rosalind in her book,
Inscribing feminist French theories of the feminine, making a difference that feminist
literary criticism says, masculine desire dominated speech and posits women as an
idealized fantasy fulfilment for the incurable emotional lack caused by separation from
the mother?
Wuthering Heights is considered as a best novel for practical feminist criticism. It
is a fiction written by a woman on women's lives, their sacrifice, suffering and social
atmosphere. Wuthering Heights went through the readers assessment many times through
feminist literary criticism to rediscover the novelists obsession on the repetition of names
Catherine and sexual suppression. Male revenge is also emphatically presented in
effective manner that women characters do not get enough scopes to be an individual
figure. But Emily Bronte's ' Wuthering Heights has really started the feminist kind of
novel in English literature. Although, the character of Catherine shown in confusion to
whom she will choose for her husband Edgar or Heathcliff. As we know all, Catherine
develops a double standard to accommodate her feedings for both Edgar and Heathcliff
as Hindley degrades Heathcliff more and more, Ellen says she was full of ambition and
was anxious to ingratiate herself with the Lintons.
As far the delineation of Catherine Earnshws character is concerned, she seems to
stand in duality, reaches to its climax entrapped her in confusion and confessed to Ellen
that she has accepted Edgar instead of Heathcliff. Because Heathcliff is uneducated,
savage and asocial fellow whereas Edgar Linton could provide her higher status and
aristocratic approach to life. Dreams are used to convey meaning to the reader in
Wuthering Heights as has been suggested about Lockwoods dream; here Catherine
describes her dream of being in heaven.
I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home, and I broke my heart
with weeping to come back to earth and the angles were so angry that they flung me out, into the
middle of the Heath on top of Wuthering Heights where I looked sobbing for joy. That will do to
explain my secret, as well as the other. I have no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I
how to be in heaven (Wuthering Heights).
Being a women novelist Emily Bronte is not able to show so much courage to
break the contemporary social rules and regulations. Emily Bronte's depiction of the
central heroine of a novel Catherine Earnshaw, who from her early days is far from being
a lady of eminent virtue by nature. Her father's early death deprives her of protection
from any anticipated danger to which a girl might be exposed, and moral understanding is
cultivated instead by her experience of affinity with Heathcliff. Hindley's indifferent
approach to Catherine threatens her secure world. The lack of proper cultivation and
protection against the outer world makes her wild, and because of this she becomes
approachable to Heathcliff: She said
But it was one of their (Catherine and Heathcliff's) chief amusements to run away to the
moors in the morning and remain there all day, and after the punishment grew a mere thing to
laugh at. The curate might set as many chapters as he pleased for Catherine to get by Heart, and
Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ahead, they forgot everything the minute they were
together again, at least the minute they had contrived some naughty plan of revenge (Wuthering
Heights 40).
Heathcliff is usually considered the type most unacceptable and dangerous for a
gothic heroine to encounter. Catherine understands how cruel Healthcliff can be as she
advises Isabella not to approach him but she knows how to get along with him. To
Catherine, Heathcliff is never a tyrant; she loves him including those qualities in him that
place her virtue in jeopardy.
Syndy Conger points out that such assumptions (Catherine's affirmation) I am
Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights, 73) viewed from the perspective of gothic tradition. Here
Catherine's words echo sentimental love declarations on the pages of Radcliffe and
Maturin. It was not only a matter of love but also a cry for identity. Catherine has
confronted to the conflicts of duty and emotion experienced by more stereotypical gothic
heroines. Catherine, on the other hand, has Heathcliff who is almost the personification of
evil and negativity besides her she chooses Edgar Linton as a life partner. Catherine
knows something is wrong with her decision. She says in whichever place the soul lives in
my soul, and in my heart, I am convicted I'm wrong' (Wuthering Height 70).
It shows Catherine suffers from the self-contradiction. She knows that she ought to
marry Heathcliff, but cannot give up the wealthy and respectable life that awaits her on
becoming Mrs. Linton. Catherine does not follow the stereotypical moral injunctions
instead she is divided into her lovers and struggles to have them both. Catherine was
really a challenge to psychoanalysis and feminist literature. The athenaeum reviewer
labelled Wuthering Heights as the eccentricities of woman's fantasy. It may have a
particular importance for intellectual middle class women who never matured sexually
from brother sister relationship. In their childhood, the sisters were equal to their
brothers. The protagonists of Wuthering Heights are driven by irresistible passion, lust,
curiosity, ambition, intellectual pride and envy. The emphasis is put on their desire for a
transcendence to overcome the limitations of the body, of society, of time rather than
their moral transgression.
Catherine's love affair (in Victorian period) with Heathcliff, which lies outside her
marriage and burdens on the adulteress relationship which is one aspect of the novel that
provides critics with a basis of their assertion that Wuthering Heights belongs to the
female gothic genre. It seems that Emily denies the very foundation of marriage and
sexuality. According to Pukett and Conger, Daine Hoeveler a feminist writers also argues
that Emily Bronte is attempting to describe the ideal for women. She would like to
destroy the foundations as well as the generational power of the family, and her scathing
depictions of all the marriages in the novel stand as her clearest attempt to do so.
Wuthering Heights is Emily Bronte's dreams of a world in which there is neither
marrying nor restrictions, she dreams of a world populated by passionate but nonsexual
force of energy. She dreams of world not dependant on the use and abuse of female
bodies (Hoevelar 198).
Emily does describe an unconventional bond between Catherine and Heathcliff,
outside the social standard. Emily Bronte is not captured by the concept of marriage.
Emily Bronte is aware of women's situation and attempts to portray the close relationship
between two people, beyond marital status and their suffering from self-contradiction.
Catherine says, the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison after all. I' m tried, tired of
being enclosed here. I'm yearning to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there, not
seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart, but really
with it and in it (Austen 90).
The shattered prison could be partly Catherin's marriage to Edgar, which she
recognizes as mistake, but it should be seen as the general world, which does not
understand her reason for suffering. Catherine wants to escape into the glorious world
where she can be herself, without being caught up by worldly views which do not allow
her to satisfy her two different desires at the same time. Catherine, wants to be
understood. She wants her love Heathecliff by her side, but she also has a deep desire for
a wealthy and peaceful life which she has never experienced before. While recognizing
that Emily focuses on women, it seems that her intention is not limited to engagement
with feminism or the place of women in Victorian society. Her reference is more
universal and touches to the questions of women identity as a whole.
Emily Bronte gradually makes shift her female characters into more lively figures
through their horrible experiences. Then, Isabella Linton, also shows her violent nature.
Cathy Linton learns to adjust to others as well as to confront them, and Catherine
approaches the question of identity facing through self-contradiction and the relentless
front of her will. However, different types of women mirror each other, and collaborate
with one another to compose a complete picture. The heroines in Wuthering Heights have
a fundamental positivity, which enables them to confront the patriarchal power which is
Heathcliff (who is negative force) in the novel. All women overcome the negative mode
in the novel, and go on their own ways. Isabella leaves Heathcliff, Cathy marries
Hareton, and Catherine draws Heathcliff into her spirit world and perhaps fined peace
there.
We should go a step further, to see the female characters from a different angle.
They certainly share positive sides but in some ways they are different and almost
opposite to one another, and what we need to remark here is the differences in
themselves. Isabella, Cathy, and Catherine as well as Frances represents different natures,
perhaps they unconsciously observe one another and identify themselves by recognizing
their differences. Each of them shows that what others do not have where they do not
belong, what they cannot be and what they should or should not do. They explore others
to find themselves, and see others as distorted mirrors showing that they are not what
they are.
Being a woman novelist Emily Bronte is not able to show so much courage to
break the contemporary social rules and regulations. Then, the torture of Isabella in her
own house by her husband. Catherine lives her life as Catherine Earnshaw and Catherine
Linton. Catherine's daughter, on the other hand, occupies each of the names in turn and
traces back the route to her mother's first name. Thus, the novel begins and ends with
Catherine Earnshaw. However, although the names circulate through the text, they create
a pattern of asymmetrical repetition rather than of circularity. The story of Catherine its
hinges as do most novels of the period on her choice between two men. Choosing the
correct husband is the central moral task set for the heroine of most eighteenth and
nineteenth century novels, particularly those written by women.
In Catherine's case, marriage is not the answer to the problem of her life, the
resolver of all contradictions, as it usually in domestic and romantic fiction. On the
contrary marriage compounds the problems of Catherine's case; marriage is not
compounds the problem of Catherine's life and exposes its contradictions. As a
motherless and fatherless girl growing up in a geographically isolated and loosely
organized working household, Catherine reaches puberty relatively untrammelled by
parental notions of suitable feminine conduct. On the whole, her childhood is spent with
Heathcliff in a private, un socialized an ungendered moorland world. Her encounters with
adult authority in the form of her brother's petty domestic tyramy and Joseph's rigid
methodism.
Emily Bronte's portrayal of Catherine's sudden and dramatic transformation into a
gentle young lady during her stay at Thruscross Grange focuses on the way in which the
particular version of feminity involved in the ideal of female gentility which is socially
produced and reinforced, rather than derived from women's nature. Catherine's
transformation, described by Nelly Dean as a reform is shown as in fact a process of
formation or construction.
Catherine's story not only shows us the limitation of female power but also
explores its problematic nature. Catherine's story also dramatizes the boundaries of
female influence. She has become the object of a competitive struggle between two men,
each of whom wants her to conform to her own version of her. Catherine's final sickness
was a withdrawal from both the world and the self (Wuthering Heights 118). Like so many
women in Victorian fiction, Catherine die in child birth and is thus not required to
negotiate that other profoundly ideological version of womanhood. If Cathy is a
repetition of her mother, she does possess some variations. Whereas the older Catherine's
childhood prepares her for the role of Gondals queen half savage and free. Her daughter
is the spoiled, wilful, and fairy tale princess, the empress of her walled domain and
mistress of her father and his servants. Cathy is not made to pay the usual price for her
feminine influence. Catherine resuming control of her own life and defining herself a
new. Cathy reconstructs both herself by her inability to reconcile conflicting images of
herself and the contradictory definitions of the famine which confront her. Cathy
negotiates them and ultimately constructs a new role for herself.
The present turn towards the film adaptation of a novel Wuthering Heights, by a
famous film director Peter Kosminsky. Film makers have to operate with an enormous,
surplus of material which has to be reduced only in a few hours long footage.
The film has more addition of gothic and supernatural elements than a novel. The
delineation of Catherine's character is less violent and stormy which are not balanced
enough by the strong chemistry that should be expressed through their passionate love.
Juliet Binoche plays a role of Catherine Earnshaw and Cathy Linton.
Then the second role is of Catherine's daughter Cathy. Emily Bronte's depiction of
these two characters is different. She picturises Catherine Earnshaw a violent, stormy,
obstinate, passionate and strong willed wild woman. Diametrically, these two characters
are totally different from each other. Because comparatively to Catherine I, Cathy II is
light hearted, soft and less confused. Kosmisky even picturise her gentle, attentive,
innocent creature who has inherited her mother's strength and even though she fears
Heathcliff, she only despises him. Catherine Earnshaw has depicted in field more
headstrong and independent woman. She loves Heathcliff all her life.
According to film theorists and critic that Juliet Binoche could not attain the
seriousness of Catherines Earnshaw. But Binoches plays the role of young Cathy well,
e.g. when she is held captive by Heathcliff and she worries about her sick father Edgar at
Wuthering Heights. She turns strong and brave in the role of Cathy Linton II. The nature
of Cathy's character suits to actress well. But the role of Earnshaw Catherine doesn’t
appear too much successful on screen. It is not easy to comprehend the nature of the
character and even the readers of the novel are not sure that they like Catherine or not.
Catherine's character described by Emily with a wilful and independent approach.
How she struggles with her own nature as well as with cursed love. As Catherine grows
mature, she wants to be kind and ladylike but she was facing a problem to control herself
and after Heathcliff's return it is almost impossible to her. The actress, Binoche, ought to
explore things or wild presentation of her nature. Nonetheless, she seems to be too
graceful and introvert to create such a passionate character.
It is really impossible to compress or condense, a novel into few hours long film
but we could say the original work can be found in Kosminsky's film adaptation.
Comparison between a novel and film shows a few differences after all. One of the
noticeable differences between novel and its film adaptation is the similar appearance of
Cathy, Catherine's daughter, as her mother. In the novel, she does not look alike but in
the film she is played by the same actress Juliet Binochee.
Despite of all differences, similarities and dissimilarities, diversions and changes
in film adaptation of Kosminsky from 1992 fulfills the Hollywoods need of romanticism.
The popular Japneese artist, Ryuichi sakamoto intensifies the emotional experience.
Jame's Acheson's costume design for film actresses especially for Catherine's daughter
Cathay shows as high wasted empire style of the 1800. Though, it was looking childlike
but the effect on character looked younger. After her move from Thruscross Grange to
Wuthering Heights her beings to wear more fitted clothes which were high fashioned
during 1700. This helps to make her show older and wiser Cathy seems less innocent and
more womanly.
The film definitely did not achieve any awards though it was nominated only once
in 1992 on Tokyo grand prix film festival. Even Kosminsky has succeeded in creating a
very faithful film adaptation, which tracks the story line almost precisely. His
concentration on story line and character details create a credible story, which captures
the period at the turn of 19th century. He focuses on the camera work, screenplay and the
setting of the novel also. According to few critics, peter Kosminsky's film version of
Wuthering Heights is underrated.
Actually Kosminsky has applied the McFarlane's theory of narration. The story
has expressed by first person narration. Actually, the oral narration and the understanding
of audience of complicated relationships uncovers the crucial moments of story, which
cannot be all included in one film. The camera cannot expose everything to the audience.
It changes the points of view in order to emphasize the important objects. Before dead
Catherin’s ghost appears in Lockwood's dream the scene is cut there and an exterior
tracking shot is approaching the Height. So this tracking shot exemplifies non assigned
first person.
Wuthering Heights has become one of the most often adapted works of literature
in the English speaking world. There are three film adaptation versions of Wuthering
Heights respectively. Its earlier version appeared in 1920 when the silent cinema was still
silent the latest adaptation called MTV's Wuthering Heights came out in 2003. Daudley
Andrew, a film critic has openly proclaimed the necessity of a sociological turn' in his
article, the well-worn muse: Adaptation in film History and theories. He urged scholars to
use adaptation, as we use all cultural practices, to understand the world from which it
comes and the one towards which it points. Going through film adaptations in each and
every context, it implies discards the binary source which centred around one single
question. How does the film compare with the book? And identify the plurality of
influences under which they came into being, i.e. their intertextuality. As Christopher Orr
points out by placing the notion of adaptation within the theory of intertextuality, we can
describe the literary source as one of a series of pretexts which share some of the same narrative
conventions as the film adaptation. This description obviously does not exhaust the films
intertextual space, which also includes codes specific to the institution of cinema as well as the
codes that reflects the cultural condition under which the film was produced (Christopher Orr
72).
It is exactly from the feminist point of view the researcher attempts to investigate
the process of film adaptation to Bronte's classic. The present dissertation has chosen the
big screen English speaking dramatizations which are three in number.
In 1939 Wuthering Heights directed by William Wyler and produced by Samuel
Goldwyn Company; then in 1970 Robert Fuest directed the film and produced by the
American International pictures. The film adaptation by Peter Kosminsky produced by
the paramount pictures. The present thesis have already concentrates on the study of peter
Kosminsky's film adaptation. But the research project attempts to dissect present work of
art comparatively with Bronte's classic and with other film adaptations. The present
research design needs to outline the logic behind the women delineation in the light of
feminism with comparative angle of film and fiction to which the thesis description will
proceed. The Present research documents try to focus on the roots of different emotional
actions and reactions to women characters. In 1939s, 1970s and 1992s Wuthering Heights
took us frequently into the world of Catherine's childhood and adolescent heritage when
her relationship with Heathcliff was harmonious. Catherine is equally dominant in the
fiction as well as in film. She loves Heathcliff from her childhood but she has had a
desire of wealth and social position too. Therefore, she abandoned him and got married
with Edgar Linton. Each adaptation suggests its own reason for Catherine's betrayal. It
was not a betrayal according to radical feminist critics. According to radical feminist
Catherine had utilized fully the liberation of thoughts and considered herself not a woman
but a human being. The three descriptions below would follow the portrayal of central
women character in the fiction and film adaptation.
1939s Wuthering Heights I
A mainstream Hollywood film by William Wyler's Wuthering Heights was
released in 1939. It was adapted by the motion pictures producers and distributors
association in 1939 and soon became obligatory for all movies made within the
mainstream production system. The wildness of spirit of Wyler's women characters,
especially, Catherine Earnshaw finds a dramatic expression in 1939s adaptation better.
Wyler has tried to portray Catherine's character on the grounds of novel context.
Catherine takes refuge from troubles of life by climbing up to Penistone crag, where the
bold and outspoken Catherine leads all their games. Catherine, Heathcliff and Hindley
have had a childhood games and invents an imaginary kingdom. In her fantastic world,
Catherine treats Heathcliff not only as a partner, but a superior one at who she looks with
adoration and worship. She tries to cultivate the sense of nobleness in him by frequently
addressing him as milord and by letting him feel himself admired and appreciated.
As Bronte shows her extremely passionate and capable of the deepest emotional
attachments. She is egoistical and vain and would go to the considerable lengths to
whenever she has crossed by somebody. When she falls into a passion and becomes
completely unreasonable and concentrating solely on maintaining her will, pride which
leads her to betray Heathcliff for the sake of Edgar's social position. Her passionate
temper drags her to illness which kills her after the relisation of her error. Catherine's
love for Heathcliff is so strong that she contacts him from the next world and induces him
to follow her into death as he had always followed her in life. On a wide margin,
Catherine is always a dominant female character in a fiction and film adaptation too.
Catherine’s romanticism is counterbalanced by her pragmatism. As her arrows up,
the former quality is gradually subsiding and latter is coming to the front together with
ambition, upward mobility, way wardens, cariousness and lightness. Although she feels
that Penistone crag is a perfect place for her untamed and impulsive temperament. She
said (place the quotation here)
No matter what I ever do or say, this is me now. Standing on this hill with you. This is
me forever (Wuthering Heights 33).
She forgot her childhood games. In contrast to Heathcliff, she cannot ignore the
reality and wanted to become a queen in real life too. In Wyler's film adaptation, we
could see Catherine was not regulated and handled by Heathcliff; rather she pushes him
(Heathcliff) towards some serious action and tortures him like why aren’t you a man?
Heathcliff, why don’t you run away? You could come back rich and take me away. Why aren’t
you my prince like we said long ago? Why can't you rescue me? (Wuthering Heigts 22). When
Catherine sees that her urges do not have any effect on him, she starts contemplating
marriage with Edgar Linton which could save her from this comfortless world. Now she
is the wife of Edgar Linton and becomes the lady of the manor. Within a couple of a year
Heathcliff returns with his memories of a different childhood Catherine, her wild nature
awakens. Again her clashes with the comfort, security and domesticity of her married life
get threatened. Scared of her weakness in the face of the past, she does everything to keep
Heathcliff at bay.
If we observe Heathcliff from Catherine's point of view Hathcliff is driven by the
desire to win her back. He blackmails her on emotional grounds and got married with
Isabella. It was Catherine Earnshaw who induces him to what he is in the later part of the
novel and film. Tormenting others, he torments himself. By getting everything that
lacked in the past money, status and polish, he feels much more miserable than he did as
a stable boy.
Wyler's portrayal of Catherine is intending to show that the married Catherine is
still powerless to change the situation. Bronte shows her extremely confused and
oscillated self between her desires and attitude towards life. Realizing in the end, she
doesn’t need that handful of worldliness. After all she is unable to go against
conventional morality and break marital vows.
At last obsessed by the Penistone crag memories she falls ill and dies and refuses
to combat with the wildness of her spirit that seeks to tear away from heaven where she
does not belong. Through her death, Catherine acts out her dream of being flung out of
paradise. Many years later, Heathcliff manages to leave this hell on earth and join her on
the top of Wuthering Heights where the two can no longer be disturbed by the reality and
its temptations.
1970s Wuthering Heights II
The second pair of Heathcliff and Catherine has a secluded world of their own at
Penistone crag, which is a den for animals or a cave for savages and not a palace for a
king and queen. The wildness of spirit of Catherine and Heathcliff both finds a
kinaesthetic expression.
Harmony of Wyler's women characters gradually destroyed by Catherine's
growing fascination with the material world and by Heathcliffs total denial of it in the
adaptation by Fuest. Fuest's depiction of women's clashes on the dissimilar grounds.
Fuest's Catherine is disrupted when they (Catherine, Heathcliff) almost simultaneously
start undergoing two opposite processes due to sudden exposure to the concerns of
everyday life: Catherine is cultured while Heathcliff is further barbarized. In contrast to
Wyler's hero whose personal tragedy results from a sudden loss of the imaginary
universe, fuests hero enters into trial and tribulations.
Fuest's adaptation posits Catherine into the world of fine manners and dresses
quite by chance when she has to spend some months at Thruscross Grange. The time
spent with the gentle and refined Lintons makes her aware of the existence of a
completely different life. This picturazation of Catherine by Fuest is akin to the biblical
Eve's loss of innocence after tasting the forbidden fruit of knowledge. Catherine is no
longer indulged in her previous primitive utopian world with Heathcliff without any
embarrassment. She loses her blitheness and starts to think strategically. Catherine
wanted to free herself from drunkard Hindley and barbaric Heathiliff and that cannot be
achieved without money. Catherine doesn't give him a chance to learn marriage about her
real motivation in accepting Edgar's proposal. But Fuest has focused on the bonding of
Catherine and Heathcliff because he showed Catherine who waits in vain for his return
and marries Edgar out of gratitude and loneliness rather than for prestige and wealth
which in contrast to Wyler's heroine, she does care at all. Catherine shows little bit
confused when she finds out Heathcliff has returned, she is unable to resist his advances
and is ready to accept him as her secret friend and lover, but is not ready to discard her
married life altogether and hurt Edgar, who has helped her much.
Unlike Wyler's Heathcliff, Fuest's hero doesn't want to be Catherines slave. Here
we could hit the influence of patriarchal terms and conditions which runs through the
artistic creation. Wyler's heroine's played their role with artistic vision. Fuest's attitude to
power or patriarchal power is very different. According to him Heathcilff enjoys the
feeling of dominance over Catherine and her surroundings. But fuest's Heathcliff is less
confident than Wyler's Heathcliff though. Fuests hero is not so much sure about his place
in Catherine's heart and uses cruelty against Hindley and Isabella for self-assertion.
At last present dissertation attempts to conclude the chapter with understanding of
Fuests adaptation that he has successfully shown Heathcliff a victim of his own insecurity
and unable to neglect her sense of duty and devotion to Edgar. At last she falls ill and the
wildness of her spirit once again finds a physical outlet in the form of fits, thrashings,
leavings and howls. In Fuest's adaptation she was pregnant with Heathcliff's child and
dies in premature child birth. After her death, as we know all, Heathcliff becomes insane,
turns violent and is shooting down like a wild animal. Their spirits sets off wandering the
moors together. End of the film is same in all adaptations of Wyler Fuest and Kosminsky.
1992s Wuthering Heights III
The dissertation has earlier mentioned the portrayal of women characters in
Kosminisky's adaptation. Present chapter needs to focus Kosminsky's adaption with a
suitable comparison to Wyler and Fuest.
The wildness of spirit of Kosminsky's characters (especially Catherine's) finds a
metaphysical expression and it is realized in supernatural mysticism. Kosminsky's
Heathcliff is close to Wyler's in certain respects. In contract to Wyle's pensistone crage
Kingdom which is created by the power of Catherine's imagination, Kosminsky's moors
are suffused with animistic energy by Heathcliff himself. While in former version
Catherine feigns subordination and submissiveness, in the latter she is really looking up
to Heathcliff. Kosminsky's protagonists have different attitudes to their spiritual bond and
this is the main reason for their conflict. Catherine was interested in Linton and stay at
Thruscross grange thinking that he has lost control over her thoughts and interests; he
cannot help himself to harass her. Kosminsky's adaptation has focused on Catherine's
decision to accept Edgars proposal of marriage which was a mischievous act but at the
same time she is trying to overcome the unsettled realization that she is really in love
with Heathcliff, whom she convince not to marry.
If we investigate Catherine's character from feminist point of view she showed
enough courage and freedom regarding her marriage. She was confused but able to
overcome her infatuation to Heathcliff and a bond of marriage to Edgar. She says my
love for Linton is like foliage in the woods. Time will change it as winter changes tress.
My love for Heathcliff is like this. It's like the eternal rocks beneath. A source of little visible
delight but necessary" (Wuthering Heights 33).
Kosminsky's heroine married Edgar out of loneliness. She has decided to uproot
herself at the sheltered and crimson carpeted Grange and turning from a wild tree into a
decorative plant. In conclusion the researcher has observe the fact that Kosminsky's
Heathcliff wants to control Catherine and everything that has any connection to her such
as Wuthering Heights, the Grange, her brother, her nephew, her daughter. Catherine was
also obsessed by Heathcliff. The observation concentrates on her counterpart that is
Cathy Linton; calm, quiet and not at all confused and limited about her needs. Heathcliff
is particularly driven mad by young Cathy Linton, whose light heartedness reminds him
of the childishness of her mother Catherine. Heathcliff does everything to make her weep
after her father Edgar dies but she proves remarkably buoyant and help Heathcliff come
to terms with his diabolic, uncontrollable anger and desire for revenge. If the research
document compares Catherine Earnshaw with Cathy Linton or to each other we come to
notice that Cathy at the end tries to educate savaged Linton and interested in his
transformation from uneducated to a refined gentleman. Whereas, Catherine Earnshaw
years back could not resettled and managed Heathcliffs into a refined man or a man of
manners. Al last Heathcliff observed the fact, his heart aches and obsessed by the spirit of
Catherine.
As can be seen from the above discussion, each women character differs
considerably from other two, Catherine Earnshaw, Cathy Linton, Nelly Dean, and
Isabella Linton each one is different in their approach to film and fiction. As Nelly Dean
simply starts the story of moors to Lockwood, the characters stands before eyes one by
one. Isabella Linton has played a little part in film as well as in fiction. Because she has
been used, in order to torture Catherine permanently by Heathcliff. The adaptation retain
only the basic matrix of the relationships, Heathcliff's single minded fixation on
Catherine's painful oscillation between the hero and her other commitments. Above
interpretation of three films generates essential model with different personality traits and
drives. Thus by, creating new cinematic context in which the protagonist's relationship
requires unique nuances and shades of meaning.
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