Wuthering Heights

Disclaimer....I do not claim that these notes from our classwork are accurate, nor do I claim that all of this is the specific evidence you need for the test...there are also a lot of things repeated, as I just kept typing at times in order to get this done. So, buyer beware: Use these notes as a springboard as you choose your support.

3.      What elements of the supernatural are found in the story? Which characters are affected by these elements? How are they affected?

• Isabella couldn’t go into Catherine’s room because of Catherine’s ghost
• Lockwood -- the dream and the ghost at the window, grabs his hand; effect -- frightened. Also has an encounter at the end of the novel
• Drove Heathcliff mad and eventually killed him.He demands that Catherine haunt him so that she will always be with him.
• Ghosts: Catherine. Heathcliff goes crazy, stops eating, begs for her to come back. He is haunted by her and he turns into a ghost after he dies. He wants to be haunted, but not tortured. Goblin face. Avoids Hareton. Stops being abusive.
• Little boy/shepherd. terrified by the presence. sees Catherine and Heathcliff
• Lockwood saw the ghost of Catherine. He was in the room no one was allowed in. The atmosphere and stories he hears of the girl makes him think about the house and the people in it.
• Heathcliff pined after Catherine and wanted her to haunt him. Because he loved her and felt guilty for the way things ended with her before she died
• Catherine was a ghost sometimes and Heathcliff thought that Catherine was always with him so he dug her up from the ground.
• The tree is struck by lightning and is split in half. This represents Heathcliff’s decision. Symbolizes his inner destruction. Torment others around him?
• Should Heathcliff torment those around him as others did to him, or should he end the cycle?
• Heathcliff goes to Catherine’s grave and hears Catherine’s voice
• Joseph accused Catherine of witchcraft
• Heathcliff has an almost supernatural control over people. He treats everyone like crap and they still obey and love him, as evidenced by Hareton crying when Heathcliff died.
• Community reports seeing Catherine and Heathcliff’s apparitions upon the moor hills

5.      The story is set in three locations – Wuthering Heights, Thrushcross Grange, and the moors. Identify the symbolic significance of the locations, and explain how that symbolism contributes to the understanding of the characters.

• moors: meeting place between Grange and Wuthering Heights; the neutral ground. Adventurous place. Leads to things. Both families go there when there is conflict. Separation. Peaceful. True selves are revealed. Symbolic that in life and death Catherine is between her two men. Represents Catherine and Heathcliff’s love...that it will end in the ground just like it started. moors represent childhood/familymoors are wild and untamed/rough. They represent Heathcliff and his rough character. moors -- meeting place where everything happens. Conflict starts and ends here. Edgar, Catherine, Heathcliff buried here, in the middle of both houses. Catherine has truly received both men by peacefully resting between not only their bodies but their houses.The moors are a freedom zone from prying eyes where class could be forgotten. Linton’s idea of heaven is lying in the moors.
• Grange: fancy, nicer, people living there are happier and enjoy living there. Expensive and elegant. Bright, open space, clean/polite. Lintons are welcoming but delicate. Sick easier, not built to withstand storms/conflict. Better education. Makes Linton the patient man he is. Opposite of Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff and Edgar are foils. Too comfortable. more prestigious, fancy, welcoming, proper. Characters are taken here to be taken care of. Symbolizes Catherine and Linton. Nice furniture and elegant, very advanced for 1802.  Grange has servants.Thrushcross Grange -- soft and rich; represents Edgar and how much his wealth and status means to him.  Grange is fancy; Linton’s are morally straight people. Dying. Family feel. Tight knit family relationships. Peaceful valley. High class.
• Wuthering Heights: windy there, tree fell on it, symbolizes Heathcliff’s feelings...it it the lesser of the two homes...stones and less nice. dark, gloomy, isolatWuthering -- worn place; people are more rough (Hindley) and meaned. Worn down and stands in storms. “withered”. Earnshaws are a messed up family. Heathcliff is a very dark personality. Rough edges. Windy. Lightning splitting the tree when Heathcliff leaves. Harsh in nature, similar to Heathcliff. Characters are secretive, always arguing and being rude. dark and rough, no comfort. Heathcliff secludes himself, just as the house is secluded. Heights are not welcoming. Savage nature. Archaic furniture. Heathcliff beats Hindley. Let children raise themselves. Hindley abuses Heathcliff. Heathcliff abuses Isabella and Cathy. Cold, barren, wood/stone, on secluded hill. Lack of freedom. Cathy and Isabella locked in. Hindley locks Heathcliff in the attic. Heathcliff can’t keep people around without locking them in. Represents Heathcliff because of furniture and rooms and structure (dark, depressing). Wuthering Heights is more of a dump. Heights: dilapidated, wild, and uncared for; represents how the love is absent in that. Hell. Dramatic. Slew of people all thrown together, don’t get along...stormy hilltop

10.  In Wuthering Heights, certain parallel or recurring events prove to be significant. Describe the major similarities and differences in a sequence of parallel or recurring events in the novel and discuss the significance of these events.

• both Catherine’s marry the wrong person for status and not love
• Edgar, Linton, and Catherine all die of sickness
• Both Catherine’s thought Hareton/Heathcliff were too low and rough for them
• Catherine dies less than a year after marrying Edgar/Linton dies two months after marrying Cathy. This is huge, because they are mother/daughter...difference is that Cathy ends up with an opportunity to marry who she loves.
• Hindley/Heathcliff both loved their people, bitter after they died
• Heathcliff loses Catherine and father (figure)...he becomes an emotional mess
• Catherine chooses Edgar over Heathcliff, which is easier to do after Heathcliff leaves/Cathy chooses Linton over Hareton...both cause a lot of tension in the family
• Similarities: Both Catherines marry the wrong man. Both are forced (not compatible). Both took the advice from Nelly. Both choose people who are “soft”.
• Differences: Catherine never got to marry Heathcliff because she died, but Cathy married Hareton and lives happily.
• Heathcliff is thought to be gruff and uneducated because that’s what people thought of him. Let others define him. Heathcliff defined Hareton by surrounding him with the hateful attitudes and didn’t even give him a chance to learn. Hareton wanted to learn but Heathcliff gave up when the world was against him. Heathcliff felt bad for himself and wanted someone else to feel his pain. It shows the difference between attitude and character.
• Catherine choosing Edgar to marry who is not who she loves. Cathy chooses Linton for superficial reasons as well instead of who she loves. It shows that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
• People continually rejected and judged. Heathcliff started as child rejected by his real parents. Mrs. Earnshaw wasn’t a fan, but Mr. Earnshaw loved him more than he loved his own son.
• The use of the same names shows parallels -- Catherine x 2; idea of history repeating itself. Both Catherines choose superficial relationships over passionate love. Catherine betrays, Cathy goes against nature without really knowing.
• Hindley’s wife dies in childbirth. just as Catherine does. Hindley stoops into a deep depression, and refuses to do anything but drink. Edgar is so depressed  after Catherine dies and buried her in the backyard rather than at the church.
• Heathcliff tried to force Catherine to marry him, and he did the same to Linton and Catherine’s daughter.

Link to Black Boy notes for essay tests

See the disclaimer for Wuthering Heights above...some holds true for these notes. Use them to springboard you into choosing your support for the essay questions.

 1. Describe the evolution of Richard’s attitude toward white people. At what points do we detect a shift in his attitude?

• Communists: comfortable at first...jewish white person invites him to dinner...after: angry. goes to New York , only housed white people
• North: uneasy, quiet, scared...white women bump into him in cafe
• Memphis...cautious because of previous experiences (fear)...lies to Jewish people because he doesn’t know how they’ll react
• Work in South...fear of white people...optical place (didn’t know why they hated him or what set them off)
• Pre-working in South; doesn’t really see white people; generic hate; standing on corner talking about hating white people with his friends
• A change when he goes to sell the dog to the white lady but won’t sell it to her because she is only a few cents short. He never shows respect because he doesn’t call the men “sir”
• Uncle got killed by a white man (enemy)
• grandmother is “white”
• professor killed a white woman
• selling the dog
• Mr. Crane from optics office who taught him...or tried...a trade.
• Memphis, Chicago
• Communist club -- John Reed
• Directly after moving to Chicago from Memphis, he gets a job at a small restaurant and a white girl got too close and acted different towards him. He realized how different the white people were from down South. 
  
  He began to feel anger towards white people after he was driven out of the optical place. He didn't want to sell his dog to a white girl, he felt confused about race.
  
  In the beginning he doesn't understand the difference between whites and blacks and rewards everyone the same until Gibbs explained to him that he is inferior then when he moved he remained they were big fat meanies.
  
  First he didn't know what to think about blacks and whites,  he wasn't sure what the difference was or what it meant. 
  Second he worked for a white woman but did not want to obey her when she told him what to do. 
  Third, he finally made his own decisions to talk with white people and to quit listening to the outside influences 
  Fourth, he worked side by side with the white people as a writer

3. Richard’s mature character is formed both by the kind of knowledge only gained through experience in the world and by the kind of knowledge only gained through reading books. With respect to Richard, does one of these types of knowledge seem more important than the other? Why or why not?

• books are more important to Richard because he doesn’t care for people. Helps him analyze people in a different way. Stalin books gave him a new view.
• Both are important experience. Allows him to fit in with the ones around him and taught him how to act around white people and books gave him knowledge beyond his community
• he learns that Menke has a different voice from other white people and it helps Richard start to find his voice through writing
• When Richard is learning through the world, he sees oppression and fear, but with books, he see the real emotions people feel beyond what he sees in the real world

• Richard cares more about reading; he is opening his mind and developing point of view. Mencken books...prejudices...learns more about how white people think/act
• He gains knowledge from both. With his jobs he gains a lot of experience and becomes street smart...like he knows how the gangs work and how to treat white men. With reading, he becomes book smart. This gives him a leg up because not many other black kids are able to read well.
• The job at the optical place make him want to move
• Uncle getting killed
• Playwriting controversy with the actors
• Girl who introduced him to books
• Judges people on how literal people were
• called an intellectual though he was going to do the party wrong

9. What are the messages that Richard receives about his own self-worth through his interaction with adult characters, and how do these messages affect him?

• they don’t help fuel his feeling of self-worth. His passive external attitude towards authority and whites becomes easier to turn on and off.
• One morning when Richard was giving his uncle sass, he starts a fight between them and Uncle Tom expects him to bend over backwards
• When Richard is chastised for eating walnuts in his aunt’s class even though he was not responsible for the crumbs, he is shown that he has to place adults above his self-worth

• Family makes him seem worthless/bad/a failure. Employers: most think he’s worthless (exceptions being the Optical guy and the Jewish couple, and the family with Bess and Mrs. Moss.

Reading Calendars

Here are the reading calendars for both books. Regardless of whether you are in school or not, you are responsible for keeping yourself on schedule.

Wuthering Heights:
3/16: Chapters 1-4
3/17: Chapters 5-8
3/18: Chapters 9-10
3/19: Chapters 11-13
3/20: Chapters 14-16
3/21: Chapters 17-19
3/22: Chapters 20-22
3/23: Chapters 23-27
3/24: Chapters 28-32
3/25: Chapters 33-34

Black Boy:
3/16: Chapters 4-5
3/17: Chapters 6-7
3/18: Chapters 8-9
3/19: Chapters 10-11
3/20: Chapters 12-14
3/21: Chapters 15-16
3/22: Chapters 17-18
3/23: p. 329-359
3/24: p. 360-384

Literary Terms

Here are the terms that some of you may have missed due to absences. The test over the terms is Thursday, March 12.