Representation Of Women In Wuthering Heights

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development of its core themes, entrapment and powerlessness.

Throughout the novel, readers are continuously confronted with numerous accounts of confinement and imprisonment. Almost the entire novel takes place indoors in the confining rooms of Wuthering Heights or Thrushcross Grange (Crouse 2008). In particular, it is the three female protagonists within Wuthering Heights that bear the brunt of this confinement. Not only is their imprisonment literal, these characters become confined mentally, psychologically and financially (Crouse 2008).

Within the novel, Catherine is represented as wild and un-conforming, she is the epitome of Bronte's ideal perception of individualism (Sugar). She stands by her own personal desires and emotions, a trait which is fundamental to her development into a character against social conformity (Sugar). It is for these reasons that emphasis is placed on her character. She is represented as an untamed, emotional and highly passionate ...

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literally forced upon her, it was symbolically forced on her as she was pushed into adolescence and the confining position of a lady in society. Even the new clothes she is given are confining, symbolising that she must learn to rule herself and must learn to repress her own impulses. She returns to Wuthering Heights as a lady, and significantly, confines and imprisons herself while accepting her new role as a woman.

Lyn Pykett argues that an important aspect of Catherine's change is that it shows how female gentility is socially produced and reinforced and not formed from the woman herself. This is important when looking at independence and the wish for freedom in Catherine's case as ...

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