LITB3 - The Gothic - Wuthering Heights

In response to requests here are some useful links for you to follow concerned as they are with the Gothic elements in Wuthering Heights:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/14359/gothic_literature_an_indepth_look_at_pg6.html?cat=38 

 A further, more academic article on the Gothic in Wuthering Heights, can be found here:

http://elizabeth-gregory.suite101.com/gothic-in-brontes-wuthering-heights-a87897


Every character in the novel, male and female, indulges in various acts of violence - both overt and casual, gratuitous brutality and verbal aggression.  These emanate from quite a range of motivations and moods:  love, revenge, isolation, jealousy, frustration and despair.  

Heathcliff and Cathy's relationship, although romantic and spiritual, is full of violent passions and emotive and aggressive arguments.  Their meetings are considered to be more like animals than humans. Heathcliff's relationships with Isabella and Catherine are also permeated with viciousness and malignity.  Heathcliff's elopement with Isabella starts with the hanging of her dog and ends with her attempted murder. Catherine, angry and frustrated at her imprisonment in Wuthering Heights, finds a voice full of anger, hatred and vituperation with shocking physical violence against Hareton and Heathcliff.

Every chapter is suffused with violence and  in order to maintain the power to shock the reader, it escalates steadily and appallingly.  Violence begets violence.