WUTHERING HEIGHTS:
Contextual Information
Biographical context Why it’s relevant
Wuthering Heights was poorly received by critics and readers alike upon its The novel’s poor reception highlights the extent to which its content was
initial publication. Many considered the portrayal of passion, cruelty and shocking to Victorian readers. One reviewer from a USA publication,
violence in the novel to be savage and immoral. Graham’s Lady Magazine (1848), branded it ‘a compound of vulgar
depravity and unnatural horrors’.
The settings in Wuthering Heights are based on real Yorkshire locations. The believable settings enhance the novel’s realism.
With the exception of short periods spent in Lancashire, Halifax and Brussels as Brontë’s love of the Yorkshire moors is conveyed through her vivid
a student and later as a teacher, Emily Brontë spent her whole life at her family’s descriptions of the landscape in Wuthering Heights and her association of
house in Haworth, the Yorkshire village where her father was a curate. The the moors with freedom and passion. Her romanticizing of the moors may
parsonage at Haworth was at the top of a steep hill, surrounded by the church’s also reflect a nostalgia for a disappearing pre-industrial way of life at a time
graveyard on one side and the moors on the other. when the Industrial Revolution was encouraging mass migration to cities.
By the age of seven, Emily Brontë had lost her mother and her two older sisters, Her experiences of death and grief may have informed her portrayal of
Maria and Elizabeth. death in Wuthering Heights.
Brontë led a solitary, reclusive existence and does not appear to have had any Brontë’s isolated upbringing is reflected in the isolated setting of Wuthering
friends outside her own family. She preferred the company of animals to people Heights and the limited set of characters in the novel.
and on the rare occasion that she travelled, she longed for the freedom of the
moors. In her Preface to the Second Edition of Wuthering Heights, Charlotte
Brontë remarks: ‘My sister’s disposition was not naturally gregarious;
circumstances favoured and fostered her tendency to seclusion; except to go to
church or take a walk on the hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home’.
Emily had a capacity for cruelty and violence: she is reported to have beaten her • Brontë’s stomach for violence is arguably reflected in the violent
dog, Keeper, leaving him with a badly swollen eye. She also had a will of steel – incidents in the novel, e.g. Lockwood’s attack on Catherine’s ghost,
after being bitten by a dog that may have been rabid, she is said to have cauterized
, the wound herself with a hot iron. Heathcliff’s hanging of Isabella’s dog, the violent conflict between
Heathcliff and Hindley.
• Brontë’s ‘unladylike’ behaviour (by Victorian standards) is mirrored in
Catherine Earnshaw’s rebelliousness. Catherine shows herself capable of
violence when, during an argument with Heathcliff and Edgar, she
pinches Nelly and boxes Edgar’s ears.
While she was brought up in a Christian household, Brontë is said to have had Brontë’s nonconformist attitude to religion is arguably reflected in
unconventional religious beliefs; she rarely attended church services and, unlike Heathcliff and Catherine’s personal visions of the afterlife and conveyed
the other Brontë children, never taught in the local Sunday School. through her satirical portrayal of Joseph’s hypocritical sermonizing.
In later life, Emily Brontë’s only brother, Branwell, became dependent on drugs There are obvious parallels between Branwell and Hindley’s character.
and alcohol. He died in 1848, largely as a result of his dissolute lifestyle. Emily Hindley’s descent into alcoholism and his eventual death mirrors
became ill at his funeral and died some months afterwards. Branwell’s spiraling problems.
Contextual Information
Biographical context Why it’s relevant
Wuthering Heights was poorly received by critics and readers alike upon its The novel’s poor reception highlights the extent to which its content was
initial publication. Many considered the portrayal of passion, cruelty and shocking to Victorian readers. One reviewer from a USA publication,
violence in the novel to be savage and immoral. Graham’s Lady Magazine (1848), branded it ‘a compound of vulgar
depravity and unnatural horrors’.
The settings in Wuthering Heights are based on real Yorkshire locations. The believable settings enhance the novel’s realism.
With the exception of short periods spent in Lancashire, Halifax and Brussels as Brontë’s love of the Yorkshire moors is conveyed through her vivid
a student and later as a teacher, Emily Brontë spent her whole life at her family’s descriptions of the landscape in Wuthering Heights and her association of
house in Haworth, the Yorkshire village where her father was a curate. The the moors with freedom and passion. Her romanticizing of the moors may
parsonage at Haworth was at the top of a steep hill, surrounded by the church’s also reflect a nostalgia for a disappearing pre-industrial way of life at a time
graveyard on one side and the moors on the other. when the Industrial Revolution was encouraging mass migration to cities.
By the age of seven, Emily Brontë had lost her mother and her two older sisters, Her experiences of death and grief may have informed her portrayal of
Maria and Elizabeth. death in Wuthering Heights.
Brontë led a solitary, reclusive existence and does not appear to have had any Brontë’s isolated upbringing is reflected in the isolated setting of Wuthering
friends outside her own family. She preferred the company of animals to people Heights and the limited set of characters in the novel.
and on the rare occasion that she travelled, she longed for the freedom of the
moors. In her Preface to the Second Edition of Wuthering Heights, Charlotte
Brontë remarks: ‘My sister’s disposition was not naturally gregarious;
circumstances favoured and fostered her tendency to seclusion; except to go to
church or take a walk on the hills, she rarely crossed the threshold of home’.
Emily had a capacity for cruelty and violence: she is reported to have beaten her • Brontë’s stomach for violence is arguably reflected in the violent
dog, Keeper, leaving him with a badly swollen eye. She also had a will of steel – incidents in the novel, e.g. Lockwood’s attack on Catherine’s ghost,
after being bitten by a dog that may have been rabid, she is said to have cauterized
, the wound herself with a hot iron. Heathcliff’s hanging of Isabella’s dog, the violent conflict between
Heathcliff and Hindley.
• Brontë’s ‘unladylike’ behaviour (by Victorian standards) is mirrored in
Catherine Earnshaw’s rebelliousness. Catherine shows herself capable of
violence when, during an argument with Heathcliff and Edgar, she
pinches Nelly and boxes Edgar’s ears.
While she was brought up in a Christian household, Brontë is said to have had Brontë’s nonconformist attitude to religion is arguably reflected in
unconventional religious beliefs; she rarely attended church services and, unlike Heathcliff and Catherine’s personal visions of the afterlife and conveyed
the other Brontë children, never taught in the local Sunday School. through her satirical portrayal of Joseph’s hypocritical sermonizing.
In later life, Emily Brontë’s only brother, Branwell, became dependent on drugs There are obvious parallels between Branwell and Hindley’s character.
and alcohol. He died in 1848, largely as a result of his dissolute lifestyle. Emily Hindley’s descent into alcoholism and his eventual death mirrors
became ill at his funeral and died some months afterwards. Branwell’s spiraling problems.
