Thesis on Wuthering Heights; 18th and early 19th Centuary British Societal
18th and early 19th Century British Societal
Throughout Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the issue of class is raised repeatedly, especially in relation to Heathcliff. He is often shunned because of his lower class roots and his lack of knowledge regarding his ancestry. Throughout the course of the novel, he runs the social extreme by first being an orphan castaway, becoming a gentleman, becoming a day laborer, and finally becoming a gentleman again.
As members of the gentry, the Earnshaws and the Lintons occupy a somewhat unwarranted place in the classification of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British society. At the top of British society is the royalty, followed by the aristocracy, the gentry, and then the lower classes which made up the vast majority of the population. Although the gentry, or upper middle class, possessed servants and often large estates, they held a nonetheless fragile social position. The social status of aristocracy was a formal and settled matter, because aristocracy had official titles. Members of the gentry, however, held no titles, and their status was subject to change. A man might see himself as a gentleman but find, to his embarrassment, that others did not share his view. In the dissection of whether or not a man was really a gentleman, one would consider how much land he owned, how many tenants and servants he had, how he spoke, whether he kept horses and a carriage, and whether his money came from land or “trade”—gentlemen scorned banking and commercial activities.
Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar so that she will be “the greatest woman of the neighborhood” is the most obvious example of the characters’ motivations in Wuthering Heights. The Lintons are relatively firm in their gentry status but go through great lengths to prove this status through their behavior. The Earnshaws rest on much shakier ground socially; they don’t have a carriage, they have less land, and their house resembles that of a “homely
Throughout Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, the issue of class is raised repeatedly, especially in relation to Heathcliff. He is often shunned because of his lower class roots and his lack of knowledge regarding his ancestry. Throughout the course of the novel, he runs the social extreme by first being an orphan castaway, becoming a gentleman, becoming a day laborer, and finally becoming a gentleman again.
As members of the gentry, the Earnshaws and the Lintons occupy a somewhat unwarranted place in the classification of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century British society. At the top of British society is the royalty, followed by the aristocracy, the gentry, and then the lower classes which made up the vast majority of the population. Although the gentry, or upper middle class, possessed servants and often large estates, they held a nonetheless fragile social position. The social status of aristocracy was a formal and settled matter, because aristocracy had official titles. Members of the gentry, however, held no titles, and their status was subject to change. A man might see himself as a gentleman but find, to his embarrassment, that others did not share his view. In the dissection of whether or not a man was really a gentleman, one would consider how much land he owned, how many tenants and servants he had, how he spoke, whether he kept horses and a carriage, and whether his money came from land or “trade”—gentlemen scorned banking and commercial activities.
Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar so that she will be “the greatest woman of the neighborhood” is the most obvious example of the characters’ motivations in Wuthering Heights. The Lintons are relatively firm in their gentry status but go through great lengths to prove this status through their behavior. The Earnshaws rest on much shakier ground socially; they don’t have a carriage, they have less land, and their house resembles that of a “homely