Gothic Literature: An In-Depth Look at Wuthering Heights

There are a large population of people who hear “Gothic novel” and think of Stephen King, R.L. Stein, and Anne Rice. For the average person, the author of “Wuthering Heights” is merely an answer to a trivia question about three sisters who share the last name Bronte. These two notions, although not entirely incorrect, hardly begin to address one of the most ghastly genres of literature and a woman who mastered it. In this paper, I will examine the Gothic novel and its characteristics, while conveying how “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte wavers between precisely illustrating the conventions of this literary school, and how it breaks from the Gothic tradition.

According to Stephen Dailly, an established British Literature analyst, the Gothic novel got its name from the barbarous Goths that invaded England during the early medieval period. Overtime the term became synonymous with the mysterious and exotic, and thus was attributed to the novel with these characteristics (Dailly 1). The characteristics of this novel are complex, contrasting, and intricately detailing.

To begin with, most of the action takes place in a morbid setting. However, the morbidity of this setting is often contrasted by a seemingly pleasant setting where the sub-plot is revealed. By use of contrasting settings, it is the aim of the Gothic novel to experience two distinctly separate worlds that are neither wholly comfortable nor tangible to the reader. “Whether by superficial color contrasts or more basic emotional and thematic juxtapositions, the Gothic novel sustains unmitigated sensitivity“(Berenbaum 23).

Each extreme is represented equally in each setting to keep the reader on his or her guard at all times. It is the belief of the Gothic novel, that familiarity to either setting dulls ones senses, which produces a reaction that is in opposition to the purpose of the Gothic novel (Berenbaum 23). It is in this way that the setting contributes to the horror that is associated with the Gothic novel.