English 2 Honors Summer Reading Assig
Wuthering Heights Summer Reading Criticism & Assignment ~ 50 points
Directions: After reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, read and annotate - annotating is not simply highlighting (5 points) - Federico’s criticism of the novel. Staple this handout with all your annotations to the back of your typed assignment. Type your responses to the following questions in MLA format:
1. What is thesis statement of the essay (10 points);
2. Do you agree or disagree with the analysis/thesis presented in the essay. Explain why. (10 points); 3. What are three quotes that you feel are most significant (other than the thesis) in the criticism that led you to your agreement/disagreement with Federico’s analysis? Explain why? (15 points).
4. Create a Works Cited page for the criticism and staple it to the back of your typed responses
(10 points).
The Waif at the Window: Emily Bronte's Feminine "Bildungsroman"
In the following essay, Annette R. Federico maintains that Wuthering Heights is a bildungsroman—a novel which outlines the initiation of a young character into adulthood—focusing on the development of young Cathy Linton rather than that of her mother.
In their study of nineteenth-century women writers, The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and
Susan Gubar argue persuasively that because the story of Wuthering Heights is built around a central fall—generally understood to be Catherine and Heathcliff's anti-Miltonic fall from hell to heaven—"a description of the novel as in part a Bildungsroman about a girl's passage from 'innocence' to
'experience' (leaving aside the precise meaning of these terms) would probably be widely accepted."
This is an interesting interpretation, and brilliantly demonstrated. But like other views of Wuthering
Heights as a feminine Bildungsroman, the focus of development is Catherine, and by association her male doppelganger Heathcliff. The emphasis upon the first generation of the Heights is, of course, important, and certainly Catherine and
Directions: After reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, read and annotate - annotating is not simply highlighting (5 points) - Federico’s criticism of the novel. Staple this handout with all your annotations to the back of your typed assignment. Type your responses to the following questions in MLA format:
1. What is thesis statement of the essay (10 points);
2. Do you agree or disagree with the analysis/thesis presented in the essay. Explain why. (10 points); 3. What are three quotes that you feel are most significant (other than the thesis) in the criticism that led you to your agreement/disagreement with Federico’s analysis? Explain why? (15 points).
4. Create a Works Cited page for the criticism and staple it to the back of your typed responses
(10 points).
The Waif at the Window: Emily Bronte's Feminine "Bildungsroman"
In the following essay, Annette R. Federico maintains that Wuthering Heights is a bildungsroman—a novel which outlines the initiation of a young character into adulthood—focusing on the development of young Cathy Linton rather than that of her mother.
In their study of nineteenth-century women writers, The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and
Susan Gubar argue persuasively that because the story of Wuthering Heights is built around a central fall—generally understood to be Catherine and Heathcliff's anti-Miltonic fall from hell to heaven—"a description of the novel as in part a Bildungsroman about a girl's passage from 'innocence' to
'experience' (leaving aside the precise meaning of these terms) would probably be widely accepted."
This is an interesting interpretation, and brilliantly demonstrated. But like other views of Wuthering
Heights as a feminine Bildungsroman, the focus of development is Catherine, and by association her male doppelganger Heathcliff. The emphasis upon the first generation of the Heights is, of course, important, and certainly Catherine and