What's In A Name?

To start with we analysed the names of our frame narrator Lockwood and our central character Heathcliff.

As a class we talked about the oppasition of these two name. The soft sounding ‘Heathcliff’ and the much harder sounding ‘Lockwood’. The soft ‘t’ and ‘f’ sounds in Heathcliff we said opposed his nature. The melifluous sound of his name does not match his much rougher nature and the various descriptions of him as a ‘imp of Satan.

Lockwood’s name on the other hand, a much harder sounding name with its hard sounding ‘k’ and ‘d’ sounds gives us a very hard hitting name for a character who describes himself as a misanthropist and who often makes false deliberations as a frame narrator; confusing blizzards for small snow showers and mistaking dead cats for a pile of dead rabbits.

We went on to talking about the words with which these two names are made up of. ‘Cliff’ in Heathcliff presents the reader with images of danger or limitations. As we know this is very closely match to the nature of Heathcliff, his aggressive attitude towards Hindley shows a very extreme and hazardous side to Heathcliff’s personality. ‘Heath’ in Heathcliff however, gives the reader a very different image. A heath is described as an area of ‘flat uncultivated land with low shrub’.  The word ‘uncultivated’ shows no growth or an area not being cared for, as for Heathcliff as a person, we see an air of isolation about him throughout the. A ‘dark skinned gypsy brat’ from Liverpool that is taking in by the caring Mr Earnshaw is greeted with hostility by his step-brother Hindley and never seems to be truly accepted by the inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange or Wuthering Heights. He is constantly regarded with satanic references as a ‘devil daddy’ or ‘that devil Heathcliff’.

In the name Lockwood we see the word ‘Lock’. We discussed how the word ‘Lock’ implies a sense of being closed in or security. Lockwood is a reserved character and this description seems to fit with his misanthropic nature.  We could say that Lockwood is ‘Locked’ within the story of ‘Wuthering Heights’. When Lockwood; a quiet and reserved character is presented with the far more passionate and expressive nature of Heathcliff he feels like he must ‘prostrate’ himself in front of Heathcliff. David Punter would deem this ‘uncanny of the monumental’ and it is this that has ‘Locked’ Lockwood within personality and the novel.

We then went on as a class to discuss Nelly. We discussed the different names associated with Nelly. Mrs Dean is quite a formal name used by Lockwood, it shows respect and perhaps mutual friendship. Heathcliff calls her Nelly, this is much more informal and shows how Nelly is more sympathetic to Heathcliff and this has led to him taking a liking to her.  We discussed how Nelly could relate to Iago from Shakespeare’s ‘Othello’. We said that perhaps; Like Iago, Nelly is overlooked by other characters and perhaps no one would suspect Nelly to distort the truth or to give more of her opinion than unbiased truths. This is similar to the way that Iago is overlooked by Othello.

As a class we then went on to read Paul Cheetham’s article on ‘The problem of Heathcliff’ which considers ‘the hero at the heart of Emily Bronte’s Novel. The article had several sections:

Monster.

In this section Paul Cheetham talks about the origins of Heathcliff and how ‘Bronte’s choice of the impersonal pronoun appears very deliberate’. He says how Heathcliff is constantly refered to as ‘it’ and how several characters go on to describe Heathcliff’s eyes as ‘a couple of black fiends...like devil spies’. The satanic references here show how hated Heathcliff was by his new family.

Cheetham also describes Heathcliff as possessing a liminal space in the eyes of character such as Nelly who is ‘uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor’. In this case Nelly is unsure if Heathcliff is of this world or not; this places Heathcliff in a liminal space between being satanic; and of hell, or of being human, cheetham says that this adds to the obscurity of Heathcliff and makes his position all the more ambiguous.

Satanic Associations.

In this sections Cheetham discusses the various references in the novel about Heathcliff being of hellish descent. Cheetham talks about how even Nelly (who he says is the most loyal and sympathetic towards Heathcliff) is unsure of his origins and deliberates ‘is he a ghoul or a vampire?’. Cheetham talks of the text being littered with words such as ‘fiendish’ and ‘diabolical’ and relates this to John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, he says how Milton’s character: Satan , relates to heathcliff in the way that ‘your bliss lies, like his, In inflicting misery’.

To sum up Cheetham talks of Heathcliff being consumed by a fervent passion for revenge; both on Hindley (for abuse as a child) and on Edgar Linton (for his union with Catherine).

What can redeem him?

In this short section Cheetham ponders how Heathcliff could possibly redeem himself. He says that a ‘mystical fusion’ of Catherine and Heathcliff as a couple is remarkable for a character as dark as Heathcliff. the article then discusses how Catherine’s confession of love to Nelly in chapter 9 is a great show of love littered with ‘hard and painful’ words. Words such as ‘miseries’ and ‘not as a pleasure’ to conclude this section Cheetham says that ‘it is the nature and effect of that love’ that can redeem Heathcliff.

Transcendental love.

in this final section of his article Cheetham discusses how the love that Heathcliff and Catherine share is one so strong that it must ‘require something beyond marriage for its consummation’. Cheetham says how Heathcliff comes close to achieving this goal in chapter 29 when he sets about digging up Catherine’s grave with intent to ‘hold her in his arms’. But at a crucial moment Bronte intervenes and leads the reader away from a scene of necrophilia and merely has Heathcliff ‘hear the sighs of Catherine’s ghost’.

Finally Cheetham says how the couple eventually achieve this consummation at the end of the novel when both of them are dead and Heathcliff and Catherine are ‘free to roam the moors for all eternity’

Homework.

·         Write summary of Paul Cheetham’s article. (Each section in detail)

·         Two paragraphs on personal views of Heathcliff.

·         Finish detailed analysis of the various names Heathcliff is called.