Wuthering Heights Key Skills English Assignment Essay

, Research Paper In chapter nine, Isabella and Heathcliff went back to Wuthering Heights, and Isabella wrote a letter to Nelly describing what she had encountered upon moving into the Heights. ????? Isabella does not react positively to her new home; she is very unhappy and regrets wholeheartedly her marriage to Heathcliff. Although she attempts to stand up the characters of Hareton and Joseph, she eventually cannot cope because of her upbringing; all her life she was waited on. Isabella depends on the strength of men, which is illustrated by the fact that she becomes weak only weak Heathcliff treats her cruelly and she is rejected by Edgar. ????? The way she describes the house seems to reflect the people who inhabit it. Currently living in the house when Isabella arrived were Joseph, Hareton and Hindley. There was no housekeeper or maid to wait on the master. She described the kitchen as a "dingy, untidy hole". This indicates it must have changed since she had last seen it, when Nelly worked there. It suggests that when the women, Nelly and Catherine, moved out, the house lost its beauty. Also the kitchen has connotations of being a very female environment. She describes Hareton as "a ruffianly child" and "dirty in garb". This seems to represent what had happened to the Heights. "Ruffianly" conveys that the child has no discipline, and perhaps suggesting that the house has little order now. Also his dirty appearance was mirrored in how she described the Heights. Isabella comments on Joseph’s rudeness, "? thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his (Joseph’s) rudeness." This was after Isabella had enquired about if he would accompany her. This shows how Joseph was very cold and uninviting, much like the Heights. Isabella entered through the kitchen, rather than the front door, which seems to suggest that the Heights were not very inviting. The master of Wuthering Heights, Hindley, had since gone made since the death of his wife, Frances. His mental state and appearance all mirror that state of Wuthering Heights. His appearance is described as "a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and other wise extremely slovenly; his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders?". The fact he does not have a neckerchief shows that he does not conform to how the typical male should have appeared in the 18th Century. This also represents the way Wuthering Heights has its own conventions and is a hegemony. Both when she describes Hareton and Hindley, she mentions the way that have Catherine’s eyes. Particularly when she describes Hindley, she says: "? and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine’s, with all their beauty annihilated." It is interesting that she uses the word "ghostly" as later on in the story, Heathcliff talks about how Catherine is haunting him as a ghost. What it could also mean though, is that only a small part of Catherine remains in Wuthering Heights, and what was once her has faded away. Life within the Heights has changed in this manner as well. ????? Isabella’s feelings about Wuthering Heights heavily contrast those of Catherine. Where as Catherine has happy childhood memories of living there, Isabella only sees the pain and the misery and the violence that she experienced. Catherine may have had such better memories of Wuthering Heights than Isabella because their characters differed so much: Catherine was wild and passionate; Isabella was homely and a romanticist. Life, for Catherine, was a lot different. When she was growing up she was given an education by her father. Hareton, however, who lived in the Heights later on, was denied of this. Also Catherine was around people she could talk to and confide in, like Nelly; Catherine confided in Nelly about her engagement to Edgar. Isabella has no one she can talk to when she arrives at the Heights because there is no maid or housekeeper. However, it is Nelly that Isabella chooses to write to, showing that she is trying to create a link to Thrushcross Grange, where Nelly is living. Catherine and Isabella both have different experiences of Heathcliff. Heathcliff treated Isabella in a very violent and cruel way. Catherine remembers Heathcliff as her playmate when she was young, someone that she would be with on the moors and Heathcliff never treated her in that way. They were both experiencing Heathcliff before he started his revenge and afterwards. 366