Influence of Religion in the Novel Wuthering Heights: Analytical Essay

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Religion in Emily Bronte’s society was a way of life; it was practised and implemented in daily routine. However, some sought to more unnatural ways of life, such as witchcraft and devilry. As Phillip notes, ‘Victorian England was best described as still a fundamentally religious age or as a period of growing secularisation.’ The influence of religion in the nineteenth century was intense; it was essential. However, Phillip stated that there were members of the same society who were turning away from orthodoxy, for example, people like Emily Bronte, the daughter of a priest. She wrote the controversial gothic novel Wuthering Heights. The novel exhibits the influences of religion in Victorian England and its negativity through the lens of Bronte’s writing and her characters. Furthermore, Reader-Response Criticism establishes that the interpretation of a text will be different for many readers due to different experiences and their viewpoints. Victorian readers would respond contrarily to those from a contemporary era. Questions would arise in the reader’s mind about the integrity of the text, to what extent would the narratives be reliable, especially with two narrators telling the story. Furthermore, this essay seeks to explore the influence of religion in nineteenth-century writing; the effect religion had on Bronte’s writing, and the reasons as to why Wuthering Heights became such a controversial and taboo novel of Victorian England.

The influence of religion in the novel Wuthering Heights is presented through the character Joseph. Joseph’s strict preaching portrays the darker side of religion for Bronte. Joseph uses the Bible to preach hate and judgement on others rather than love and forgiveness. For example, when Hindley’s careless guardianship makes Heathcliff and Catherine miss Sunday church, it is Joseph’s influences on Hindley that makes him agree on punishing the two children. By the punishments instructed by Hindley, Joseph was more than happy to oblige on carrying out the punishments himself. Furthermore, this quote, ‘curate might set as many chapters as he pleased for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ached.’ Suggests that Bronte rejected an orthodox religion; she created a religious character who was cruel and abusive. The word ‘thrash’ is a verb for beating, and Joseph would physically beat Heathcliff’ till his arm ached.’ It also shows that Joseph uses the Bible to convey his feelings towards the other characters. Through Joseph, Bronte shows the Victorian reader that she is rejecting fundamental religious beliefs due to her personal experiences. For Bronte to create a religious character so abusive and evil was not taken well in the Victorian era.

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According to Alarabi, ‘the nineteenth century was an era of profound religiosity. Religion became a central topic of discussion in both the public and the private spheres.’ Therefore, for Bronte to create a book that went against the core religious values of Victorian society makes the reader think what possessed Bronte to create the most controversial characters such as Heathcliff, Catherine, Hindley, and Joseph at the time when society held religion at the pinnacle. According to Pearce, Emily Bronte, ‘was a home-loving Victorian woman who was completely content living in the parsonage with her father, a faithful Christian minister.’ Therefore, if Bronte’s father was a man of God, what made Bronte go against in what her father believed and fashion a prose fiction that was considered formidable and a taboo. Well, the character Joseph was created by Bronte to mirror her personal life, specifically her aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. According to Connor, ‘after his wife Maria died in 1821, Patrick Bronte’s Methodist Evangelicalism was supplanted in their home by the even more strict and stem version of Christianity of his deceased wife’s sister, “Aunt Branwell” to the children.’

Therefore, as Connor suggests, Bronte was not against her father but rather her aunt who like Joseph in Wuthering Heights cruelly preached a religion, thus instilling fear into Bronte’s fragile mind which overtime made her go away from God. Because of this, Bronte discards the traditional beliefs of Christianity, such as heaven and hell, and creates a different world for herself. Connor states that ‘Bronte was aware of the creeds she was rejecting.’ Furthermore, the influences religion had on Bronte in the nineteenth century were far from definite, which is shown through her characters in Wuthering Heights.

Emily Bronte went entirely against the positive influences of religion when she created the most controversial character in nineteenth-century writing. Heathcliff is a character who goes against all religious values; she often portrays Heathcliff in Satanic imagery which makes the reader believe, Bronte was fond of Satan and paganism. For example, when Heathcliff’s eyes are described, it gives the image of dark, angry pools of hellfire. Bronte employs the imagery ‘your eyes … that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil’s spies?’ The quote suggests that Bronte resembles Heathcliff to the devil and that he is something sinister. The adjective ‘black’ gives the reader a vivid image of demonic, obsidian like eyes. Generic eye colours are blue, green, brown, or dark brown, but black is unholy and devilish. Bronte uses a simile when describing Heathcliff’s eyes, ‘like devil’s spies,’ she has done this to associate Heathcliff with the supernatural. Other imagery of his eyes such as, ‘the clouded windows of Hell,’ also associate him with Satan. The quote suggests that Heathcliff is a character of immorality and malevolence. Therefore, the Victorian reader would need to take this book with a grain of salt because of Bronte mentioning Satan’s name, so nonchalantly, it would startle the reader due to their religious beliefs and the connotations of the devil. The ‘clouded windows’ suggest that Heathcliff is trapped between worlds, the living and the dead. He is in purgatory where he cannot escape, and it is like ‘hell’ for him not being able to be indeed free.

Furthermore, the Victorian reader would convulse with a shiver because Wuthering Heights went against everything they religiously and morally believed. According to Davies, ‘Emily was a heretic who denied the possibility of a benevolent God and benign natural order.’ However, Thormahlen argues that conversations of devilry, sorcery, and witchcraft were already being vocalised in the eighteenth century and, ‘brought forth a plethora of books on sorcery, witchcraft, black magic and various representations of the powers of darkness … these phenomena played prominent roles in the imaginative writing of these periods.’ The influence of apostasy for Bronte was already out there, and she believed in heterodox beliefs such as Satanism, Paganism, and Pantheism. Bronte was fascinated and possessed by these heretical orders. Thormahlen also adds that ‘the early nineteenth century retained a lively interest in devilry and sorcery.’ As Thormahlen conveys, devilry and witchcraft were already shown in literature in the eighteenth hundred, and in the early nineteenth century it became a ‘lively interest.’ Bronte was going away from orthodox religion and divulging into the realm of spirits and the supernatural. The image of God in Bronte’s mind was unforgiving. Bronte preferred the darker side and wanted to follow a more unnatural religion with spirts, Satanic rituals, black magic, and the undead; hence, why Wuthering Heights is a gothic novel with morbid and haunting language.

In the gothic novel Wuthering Heights, the influence of religion in the nineteenth century was represented through the contrasts between characters. Bronte was portraying religion and heresy through the characters, Edgar and Heathcliff. For example, the physical appearance of both characters shows that Edgar has more innocent and angelic features, whereas Heathcliff has devilish and ominous features. This quote, ‘light hair and a fair skin,’ describe Edgars beatific like and graceful features whereas Heathcliff is described as a man with, ‘black hair and eyes’ and ‘eyes full of black fire.’ Bronte presents the theme of good and evil as character foils through Edgar and Heathcliff. According to Abrams, ‘a character in a work who, by sharp contrast, serves to stress and highlight the distinctive temperament of the protagonist is termed a foil.’ Bronte uses a character foil to show that Edgar is a man with religious morals who does not belong in the domain of Wuthering Heights. As stated by Fegan, ‘Heathcliff … a Satanic figure from whom the reader should rightly shrink.’ The Wuthering Heights estate is a formidable place which resembles a purgatory or hell and Heathcliff as the devil.

Furthermore, Bronte presents the influence of religion in the nineteenth century as a dichotomy. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a dichotomy is a ‘division into two sharply defined or contrasting parts … division into two mutually exclusive categories or genera.’ Dichotomy represents ‘contrasting parts’ such as good and evil, angel and demon, heaven and hell. Furthermore, Bronte has used Edgar to represent the orthodox religion. He does not belong in the world of Wuthering Heights, or more likely he does not belong in Bronte’s world because Edgar’s orthodox beliefs are the same as her fathers and aunts, which was something Bronte did not value. According to Alarabi, Bronte’s ‘poetry has also been associated with paganism and pantheism.’ Therefore, it portrays that a loving, clergyman’s daughter was slowly going away from what her father fundamentally believed in and Bronte immersing into a new order. As reported by Connor, ‘Bronte again rejects the religious aesthetic and ethic Joseph represents because she does not send Heathcliff to Hell, where most of the characters in the novel assume, he had been destined from birth but reunites him with his beloved Cathy.’ Bronte goes against the natural order of the world, not only does she reject heaven but also hell, which is in religious orthodoxy. It suggests that the author of the gothic novel Wuthering Heights is either interested in an order where one looks within for faith or follows the supernatural order of life where one submits to the supernatural as a divine source. Therefore, Catherine and Heathcliff’s connection to the moors resonates deeply with Bronte and her life in the nineteenth century. Moreover, the same way in Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff and Catherine avoided Joseph and Sunday church, to play in the moors likewise so did Bronte when she avoided her Aunt Branwell.

To summarise, in the nineteenth century, religion was paramount. However, for Bronte religion held negative connotations which is why the formidable tale of Wuthering Heights was created. It explored the influences religion had on the characters which heavily reflected the author’s perspective towards orthodoxy. Wuthering Heights received criticisms from Victorian readers about the controversial debate on religion and the gothic motifs which added a more ominous ambience. Bronte’s sister, Charlotte Bronte, shared disparaging remarks on Emily Bronte and her creation of the characters in Wuthering Heights. ‘Her imagination … was a spirit more sombre than sunny, more powerful than sportive, found in such traits … wrought creations like Heathcliff … Catherine. Having formed these beings, she did not know what she had done,’ and Heathcliff ‘was child neither of Lascar nor gipsy, but a man’s shape animated by demon life … a Ghoul … an Afreet.’ As stated by Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte became obsessed with the supernatural; her mind was an abyss of darkness; she had no belief of God. Therefore, fabricating characters like Heathcliff and Catherine. According to Miller, ‘in Wuthering Heights Emily had … incorporated supernatural into her own brand of gothic.’ Bronte was living in a delusion to create such profane characters; they are not model characters, even in a contemporary era, they would lack admirability.

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