GothicisminCharactersofWutheringHeights

【Abstract】Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights is fulfilled all gothic elements and style of gothic fiction. This paper analyses the characters in Wuthering Heights to show Gothicism.

【Key words】Wuthering Heights； Gothicism

【作者简介】钮智慧（1995- ），女，汉族，河南淮滨人，云南师范大学外国语学院外国语言学及应用语言学专业，在读硕士，研究方向：认知语言学。

1. Introduction

Gothicism is showed in gothic elements of twist character， wired story plot， colorful environment， supernatural and spirit horror. In Wuthering Heights， the characters can stand the features of Gothicism.

2. Gothic Heritage in Characters

In Wuthering Heights， the description of characters is a little complex because these characters are not has only one performance but also self-contradictory. The paper analyses the characters from Villain-hero and Heroine to show Gothic Heritage.

2.1 Villain-hero

In gothic fiction， villain-hero is a normal character when writers described a person， whose features a dual and contradictory personality. Baron set the appearance of “villain-heroes” described like this： “they have robust figures， dark skins， robust figures， their eyes are farsighted and spelling…” We can see the archetype of the Byronic characters in Lara， Manfred and etc. Therefore， he can be regarded as a “rogue hero” model of both charming and evil， both the beset and persecuted nature.

2.2 Heroine

In gothic fiction， there also has a heroine. In Wuthering Heights， Cathy is the heroine. Cathys mother Catherine acted two characters in this novel – mother and daughter. In other words， she must make a choice between Heathcliff and Edgar. While this situation is reacted in Cathy， who had to choose between Hareton and Linton，which is hard to make a choice. Their fate is the same but also have some little differences. Catherine is a very contradiction person， which makes her life go towards with tragedy. But Cathy has more true love in her heart even though she sustained many sufferings， in her deep heart， she has hopeful to this world and future. Thats why Catherine has a tragedy ending but Cathy has a happy ending.

References：

[1]Emily Bronte.Wuthering Heights.Beijing＼Oxford：Foreign Language Teaching&Research; Press＼Oxford University Press，1996.

[2]Miriam Allot，The Bronte：The Critical Heritage.London：London Rutledge，1974.

[3]張同乐.《呼啸山庄》——部具有现代主义意义的小说[J].武汉：外国文学研究，1999（83）.