CÁC YẾU TỐ GÔ-TÍCH CHỦ ĐẠO TRONG TIỂU THUYẾT ĐỒI GIÓ HÚ CỦA EMILY BRONTE

So far, Emily Bronte has been recognized as one of the best English authors with her masterpiece Wuthering Heights. With the aim of drawing a detailed and vivid “picture of analysis” of dominant Gothic elements appearing in the only novel by Emily Bronte, the study takes three main aspects of Wuthering Heights into consideration. Firstly, the setting of the work obviously should be the one representing the Gothicism distinctly. The author emphasizes the extreme landscapes and harsh weather through the eyes of an outsider – Lockwood. Gothic atmosphere is reflected in the isolation of the two houses from other societies and also the feelings of creep bringing about by the haunted castle. Secondly, the Gothic villain in Emily’s novel devotes his whole life to take revenge on people both in the Heights and the Grange as he believes they have wronged him. However, at last, everything he gains does not entertain him at all. The miserable mental life he has to suffer in the later part of the novel is definitely the revenge he takes on himself. The final significant element I consider in my thesis is how the author characterizes her heroines relying on traditional stereotypes of Gothic literature. What is noticeable is that despite depicting her heroines with several features that is similar with traditional ones, Emily Bronte finds a way to make hers distinctive, breaking the norm, beyond the cage of patriarchy. Emily gradually makes her female characters shift into more lively figures.

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER Dominant Gothic Elements in Wuthering Heights - the Only Novel by Emily Bronte Supervisor: Lê Thành Trung, M.A. Student: Nguyễn Mai Ngân Course: QH2010 HÀ NỘI - 2014 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP CÁC YẾU TỐ GÔ-TÍCH CHỦ ĐẠO TRONG TIỂU THUYẾT ĐỒI GIÓ HÚ CỦA EMILY BRONTE Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Lê Thành Trung Sinh viên:Nguyễn Mai Ngân Khóa: QH2010 HÀ NỘI - 2014 ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Nguyen Mai Ngan, QHF2010.E4, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the 2 College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In term of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of the study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper. Signature: Nguyen Mai Ngan Date: 05/06/2014 3 table of contents page Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Chapter 1: introduction 1.1. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 1 1.2. Aims and objectives of the study 2 1.3. Significance of the study 2 1.4. Scope of the study 2 1.5. Research methodology 3 chapter 2: literature review 2.1. What is Gothic fiction? 4 2.1.1. History of the Goths 4 2.1.2. Connection to the Gothic Novel 4 2.2. Female Gothic 6 2.3. Review of previous researches on Wuthering Heights and the Gothic. 7 2.4. Emily Bronte and the novel Wuthering Heights 10 2.4.1. Emily Bronte 10 2.4.2. Wuthering Heights 11 2.4.2.1. Setting 11 2.4.2.2. Summary 12 Chapter 3: ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION 3.1. Gothic elements in the setting of the novel 13 4 3.1.1. Extreme landscapes and weather 13 3.1.2. Isolated and haunted house 14 3.2. Gothic elements in the theme of revenge 18 majorly seen in the actions of the Gothic villain - Heathcliff. 3.2.1. Heathcliff’s revenge on other characters 19 3.2.1.1. Heathcliff 's revenge on the Earnshaws: 20 Hindley and his son Hareton 3.2.1.2. Heathcliff 's revenge on the Lintons 22 3.2.2. Heathcliff’s revenge on himself 25 3.3. Gothic elements in the Female Characters 27 3.3.1. Catherine Earnshaw 28 3.3.2. Isabella Linton 35 3.3.3. Catherine Linton 39 CHAPTER 4: Conclusion 4.1. Summary of key points 43 4.2. Limitations of the study 45 References ACKNOWLEDGMENT I am particularly thankful to many people for their invaluable help during the conduct of my study. My teachers at college of Languages and International Studies, 5 VNU, friends and family have given me support and have in one way or another contributed to the work presented here. First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude to Mr. Le Thanh Trung, MA - my supervisor and advisor who has been encouraging me since the start. He follows the research from the initial stage giving support and constructive criticism. He is also the one thanks to whom I was introduced to English literature and held the intention to study on the field. Furthermore, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks my friends who have always been helpful to me during the time of conducting this study, without their help it would not have come to fruition. Last but not least, my sincere thanks will come to my family, without the love and support from them this thesis would not have been as successful. ABSTRACT So far, Emily Bronte has been recognized as one of the best English authors with her masterpiece Wuthering Heights. With the aim of drawing a detailed and vivid “picture of analysis” of dominant Gothic elements appearing in the only novel by Emily Bronte, the study takes three main aspects of Wuthering Heights into consideration. Firstly, the setting of the work obviously should be the one representing the Gothicism distinctly. The author emphasizes the extreme landscapes and harsh 6 weather through the eyes of an outsider – Lockwood. Gothic atmosphere is reflected in the isolation of the two houses from other societies and also the feelings of creep bringing about by the haunted castle. Secondly, the Gothic villain in Emily’s novel devotes his whole life to take revenge on people both in the Heights and the Grange as he believes they have wronged him. However, at last, everything he gains does not entertain him at all. The miserable mental life he has to suffer in the later part of the novel is definitely the revenge he takes on himself. The final significant element I consider in my thesis is how the author characterizes her heroines relying on traditional stereotypes of Gothic literature. What is noticeable is that despite depicting her heroines with several features that is similar with traditional ones, Emily Bronte finds a way to make hers distinctive, breaking the norm, beyond the cage of patriarchy. Emily gradually makes her female characters shift into more lively figures. 7 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1. Statement of the problem and rationale for the study When mentioning the literature in 19 th century, nobody can bypass Wuthering Heights - the only novel which laid the foundation of Emily Bronte’s significant role in literature. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights has been described as “the one perfect work of art amid all the vast varied canvasses of Victorian fiction” (Cecil, 1965). When first issued in 1847, it was not warmly accepted, Victorian readers found the book shocking and inappropriate in its depiction of passionate, ungoverned love and cruelty. Although it took a long period for Wuthering Heights and its author to win world recognition, today, the novel was regarded as a masterpiece of English literature, and Emily Bronte as one of the greatest authors. Wuthering Heights is based partly on the Gothic tradition of the late 18 th century, a style of literature that featured supernatural encounters, crumbling ruins, moonless nights, and grotesque imagery, seeking to create effects of mystery and fear. According to Oxford dictionaries, Gothic novel is an English genre of fiction popular in the 18th to early 19th centuries, characterized by an atmosphere of mystery and horror and having a “pseudo-medieval” setting. But Wuthering Heights exceeds its genre in its “sophisticated” observation and artistic subtlety. The novel has been studied, and discussed from every imaginable critical perspective. Although there are many experts studying of this work in the world, very few critiques or analysis regarding Wuthering Heights have been written by Vietnamese critics. If any, the preferable issues are character analyses or themes of love or relationships, for example, rather than genre. In this thesis, therefore, I want to take the Gothic genre as well as its elements in the novel into consideration. To be more specific, what I would like to see in this paper is how Emily Bronte received the Gothic and how her work is influenced by the 8 genre. The analyses of the work focus on the expression of Gothic fiction in the settings, the theme of revenge and the characterization of female gothic in the story. 1.2. Aims and objectives The ultimate objective of this study is to draw a detailed and vivid “picture of analysis” of dominant Gothic elements appearing in the only novel of Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights because Emily realizes characterization through Gothic elements and in the novel; they function as a means to reveal the suppressed feelings of the major characters. Consequently, readers would be able to have a thorough and profound understanding of the influence of these elements on the development of the work. 1.3. Significance of the study As stated above that there are few data related to this literary work as well as this issue in Vietnam, the study could be a useful reference source for further studies. Also, it will help people who are interested in this novel understand more about the genre of the novel as well as Gothic features. Hopefully, the paper will provide students with an overview on the historical and social background of the novel, thus, to a certain extent, can contribute to the studying of English literature in Victorian time in general and in Bronte’s works in particular. Especially, university students may have more materials which will support them during the first semester of the third year when they study “ English Literature”. 1.4. Scope of the study It can be seen that Wuthering Heights is not merely a Gothic novel but it obviously contains elements of the genre. Also, Emily applies the type of literature to several aspects of the novel. However, this study will concentrate on depicting those Gothic features in the Emily’s work, focusing on its setting, theme of revenge majorly seen in actions of the villain Heathcliff and the three female characters. 9 1.5. Research methodology To conduct this research, first and foremost I read the novel in both English and Vietnamese to get the critical ideas of the entire of this work. The next stage is searching from a number of sources to find the related data. The types of sources are various and useful materials such as books, literature critiques, online journals, and previous studies relating to the topic. Although data in both languages are encouraged, in fact, very little of Vietnamese sources can be found. As a result, the documents used in this thesis are mostly in English. Thereafter, the data are read thoroughly so that the information can be evaluated and the most suitable and reliable ones are picked up being analyzed. After having edequate knowledge and information, it would be much easier for me to reflect and evaluate the work of fiction. Besides, the material of literary history and literary theory also consults as reference to the theoretical background for the subject. Finally, the entire outcomes are filtered and recapped into refined manuscripts before reaching the conclusion. 10 [...]... persuaded her to attempt to publish the work Emily s life, like her mother’s and sisters’, does not last long In fall a year later, Emily Bronte left home to attend her brother Branwell's funeral at which Emily catches a severe cold that spread to her lungs On 19 December, 1848 she died of tuberculosis Emily Bronte was the most reserved and least social among Bronte children She pined for home and for... Gothic genre Thus, I decide to conduct my paper studying the genre and its elements in the novel 2.4 Emily Bronte and the novel Wuthering Heights 2.4.1 Emily Bronte Emily was born in July, 30th, 1818 in Thornton, Yorkshire, England She was the fifth child among six siblings in a literary family of Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell The family moved to Haworth in April 1821 Only a few months after the birth... words, ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same’ It is this last and deepest mystery of character, finally inexpressible though it is, that Emily Bronte intimates through the sublime” (Kelly, 5 As I have read in Women Writers: Emily Bronte (1989) by Lyn Pykett 6 The same idea can be seen in Verhoff, S (2005)’s Wild versus Domestic: Narrative Structure, Doubling, and Romance in Wuthering... children At the age of 6, Emily joined her three older sisters Charlotte, Elizabeth and Maria at the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge Elizabeth and Maria became seriously ill at school and returned home In 1825, they died of tuberculosis Bronte' s father removed both Emily and Charlotte from the school as well However, they were encouraged to develop creativity and artistic goal Emily read extensively... another to provide a whole view (Oda, 2009) Investigating the elements of the Gothic in the Emily Bronte s novel, Guðbjorg Skjaldardóttir (2012) concentrates on the sublime Landscape, the Elements, the Supernatural Effect, the Antiquated Castle and the Villain-Protagonist He claims “the true sublimity of Emily Bronte s Gothic story lies, not in the classic elements of the Gothic, but in her vision of... been discussed in some ways It has been demonstrated in most research that Emily “used the Gothic to explore her own creativity, but that her novel reached new levels of originality; the book is filled with Gothic themes but is not merely a Gothic novel” (Oda, 2009, p.1) Edith M Fenton, for instance, has discussed how Emily Bronte produced the realistic features and individuals in her theatre of the... later by Mary Shelley, the Brontes and Christina Rosetti Also mentioned in their book, Fred Botting, Dale Townshend Taylor & Francis (2004) add “the central figure [of the genre] is a young woman who is simultaneously persecuted victim and courageous heroine.” (p.124) 2.3 Review of previous researches on Wuthering Heights and the Gothic Among the literary works of Emily Bronte, the genre that is most... human beings in the convention of the Gothic Also concerning about the issue, Robyn Williams’s Gothic Elements in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights take into consideration two novels: Emily Bronte s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre In the very first words of this work he says that exploring the Gothic elements in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights is “rather a daunting task” yet “fun” …I set... novels, nevertheless, from my point of view, the analysis is not deep enough for those who want to go further in the issue Another critic studying on Emily Bronte and the Gothic - Yukari Oda, in her analysis of female characters in Wuthering Heights, suggests that Emily gradually makes her female characters shift into more lively figures, and Gothic heroines are “transformed into several versions of more... countryside” (Hennessy, p.38) Emily s sister Charlotte remarks that “[The novel] is rustic all through It is Moorish, and wild, and knotty as a root of heath” There is no doubt that Emily was perfectly familiar with the landscape she was writing about Her painting of it is realistic and skilfully incorporated into the thread of narration In the preface to Wuthering Heights Charlotte Bronte also praises her . BRONTE Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Th.s Lê Thành Trung Sinh viên:Nguyễn Mai Ngân Khóa: QH2010 HÀ NỘI - 2014 ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Nguyen Mai Ngan, QHF2010.E4, being a candidate for the degree. Heights - the Only Novel by Emily Bronte Supervisor: Lê Thành Trung, M.A. Student: Nguyễn Mai Ngân Course: QH2010 HÀ NỘI - 2014 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG. established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper. Signature: Nguyen Mai Ngan Date: 05/06/2014 3 table of contents page Acknowledgements iii Abstract iv Chapter 1: introduction