Citation

Tytler G. Bronte Studies 2021; 46(3): 262-273.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021)

DOI

10.1080/14748932.2021.1914999

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Violence in Wuthering Heights is sometimes thought to be so grim in its manifold guises as to leave some readers with the impression that the novel comprises a seemingly endless array of physical attacks on the people portrayed therein. It is true that there are episodes in which some of the central figures inflict bodily assaults of various kinds on one another. Yet it is interesting to note that such assaults are not only comparatively few, but that they have little of the outrageous brutality characteristic of the sundry threats or images of violence which are now and then voiced or harboured by almost all the characters, yet which, ironically enough, are seldom, if ever, effectuated. In other words, much of the violence in the narrative tends to remain safely within the boundaries of the human mind and the human tongue. It is through this very finding, moreover, that we come to see the extent to which Emily Brontë's treatment of violence is at once discreetly realistic and, from a psychological viewpoint, remarkably modern. But at the same time as the author suggests that a proclivity to violence, whether physical or mental, is inherent in practically all human beings, she nevertheless reminds us, partly through her presentation of Hareton Earnshaw, that there are ways in which violence may be controlled, and even avoided altogether. © The Brontë Society 2021.

Language: en

Keywords

violence; suicide; murder; punishment; Emily Brontë; kill; Wuthering Heights