Wuthering Heights is a world-famous novel, which has always been comprehensively criticized by literary researchers and lovers, and has set off a wave of research upsurge for more than 100 years, attracting much attention. This paper analyzes this classic from different critical perspectives and different critical methods, trying to interpret the unique and complex character of the heroine Catherine from the perspective of literary space.
Keywords: Wuthering Heights; Literary space; Heroine; Personality.
A brief analysis of Catherine, the protagonist in Wuthering Heights, from the spatial perspective of literary significance
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Abstract: Wuthering Heights, a world-famous novel, has attracted extensive attention and comments from researchers and enthusiasts.
Literature. In more than one hundred years, it has launched a vigorous research movement.
Various articles have analyzed this classic novel from different perspectives and ways. This paper attempts to explore both positive and negative aspects.
All aspects of Catherine's character.
Keywords: Wuthering Heights; The space of literary significance; Heroin; Character.
1 Wuthering Heights is Emily? Bronte's unique novel, which is magnificent and full of passion, has been regarded as the "most peculiar novel" in the history of English literature since its publication, and it is a mysterious and peculiar book. The reason is that it replaces deep sadness and melancholy with strong love, furious hatred and ruthless revenge, and has shocking artistic power, which makes her worthy of the status of British and world literary circles.
2 David? Cecil said: "Wuthering Heights is the only Victorian novel that is not (even partially) covered by the dust of time." Since its publication, the critics have never stopped paying attention to this work. Critics in past dynasties have different critical perspectives on Wuthering Heights, and analyzed it in different critical ways (such as biography, psychoanalysis, feminist analysis and myth prototype criticism), each with its own interpretation. However, we try to analyze Catherine's character from the perspective of literary space. Space can be marked, analyzed and explained because it is regarded as a concrete material form. At the same time, it is also a spiritual construction and ideological form about space and its life meaning representation. Lefebvre's first space epistemology, the cognitive objects of this way of thinking are mainly perceptual and material space, and the first space epistemology emphasizes objectivity and materiality ... including the relationship between man and nature. A text literary space can be interpreted from two aspects: one is the original method of spatial analysis, which focuses on the accurate description of the object, and the other is to move to the periphery, which mainly explains the space in social, psychological and biophysical processes. The regional description of literary space is meaningful, far beyond its statistical significance, and does not simply reflect the external objective world. Literary space shows a vivid and organic regional cultural identity, which includes natural space, social space and psychological space. Emily spared no effort to describe the rural scenery and lifestyle of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. In fact, she is describing the hero's living space-natural space, social space and psychological space, which sets off the hero's image and depicts his character.
Heathcliff, the main character in the novel, is composed of Heath and Cliff. Heath means wasteland, especially heather wasteland. Cliff refers to cliff. Heathcliff's name embodies and strengthens Heathcliff's unruly, wild and violent character. Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, two names, one vividly presents the completely different natural environment in which Heathcliff and Linton live, and the other reflects the completely different personalities of the characters living in these two places. Therefore, these names with a sense of space greatly enhance the characterization of the characters.
By comparing the emotional entanglements between the two protagonists in Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Heights, Emily depicts two characters with diametrically opposite personalities & storm and calm. Wuthering heights, located in the wilderness highlands, has been devastated by wind and rain all the year round. Wuthering heights is a local dialect, that is, the wind roared and the rain roared. It is a primitive, natural, wild and violent living space, representing the stormy Chen Mingxia. This paper analyzes Catherine's personal life in Wuthering Heights from the perspective of literary space. The protagonist is wild, passionate and unruly, and his feelings are beyond words. The corresponding Thrushcross Villa is located in the valley where birds are singing and flowers are fragrant. This calm, civilized and rational living space endows the owner with a luxurious, comfortable, noble and elegant life. The people there are gentle, tender, sensitive, passive, more self-control and rational. Catherine, who lives in two worlds, is like a moonlight flame interwoven with lightning and frost. Her inner conflicts and contradictions are vividly described with the help of this external natural force space.
Catherine, the heroine in the novel, is a complex and elusive figure, "as if from another planet". She is not only associated with vengeful spirit Heathcliff, but also the key to the whole book.
Catherine lived in Wuthering Heights as a child, a primitive and closed world. What we see is her original nature, which is integrated with nature. Simplicity, kindness, wildness and stubbornness are the most essential and primitive aspects of her character: "Besides, I believe her mind is not bad after all;" Once she really makes you cry, she rarely doesn't cry with you, so instead of crying, comfort her. " [1] When Heathcliff was locked up by Hindley, Catherine couldn't eat, "her face flushed and tears rolled down from it". In addition to being simple, kind and naive, Catherine's body is also filled with wildness and stubbornness like a villa: Wuthering Heights is rustic from beginning to end, with a wild color and wildness, like the roots of heather. While girls of the same age are playing with dolls, Catherine likes riding horses. When the father asked the children what gifts they wanted before going to Liverpool, "She was only six years old, but there was no horse she couldn't ride in the stable, so she asked for a whip." [2] "She provoked us more than fifty times in one day. From the time she got up and went downstairs to the time she went to bed, we didn't persist for a minute. She won't be naughty. " [3] "When playing together, she is most proud of playing the role of a housewife and sending her companions to fight with others." [4] "When she was happiest, we rushed over to scold her together, making her look like she didn't care, and dealing with us with tough words." [5] Wuthering Heights, the air is fresh all year round. Especially in stormy weather, the scene of the howling wind is thrilling. Catherine's favorite playground is nature. Because nature conforms to her nature, it also gives full play to her passion, freedom, boldness and a kind of wild beauty without impurities. The scene of Catherine and Heathcliff running in the wilderness at dusk is enough to show their unrestrained and enthusiastic temperament: "We (Catherine and Heathcliff) rushed down from the top of the villa and ran to their Lin Yuan in one breath; Catherine lost the game completely because she was barefoot. You have to look for shoes on the moor tomorrow. We got in through a broken fence, groped along the garden road and came to the outside of the house ... "[6] Wuthering Heights is beautiful and vivid:" Every breath from the mountain is so full of life, as if no matter who inhales it, even the dying people will come back to life. " "Soft warm wind, warm sunshine, and melting snow" and "The sky is blue, larks are singing, and rivers and streams are full of water. The wind is very comfortable, and the gurgling sound of the stream in the valley is very nice. This wonderful sound replaces the rustle of summer leaves that has not yet arrived. When the trees bear fruit, the sound will drown the nearby grange. Near Wuthering heights, this stream always sounds like this after snow or on a calm day in the rainy season. " These descriptions show the vivid and beautiful nature, and Catherine found a lot of fun in this paradise on earth. "Their greatest pleasure (Catherine and Heathcliff) is to go to the wilderness together for a whole day in the early morning. As for the punishment afterwards, it becomes nothing more than something to make them laugh ... As long as they are together, they will immediately forget everything-at least when they come up with a naughty revenge plan. " [7] In the boundless, desolate and overgrown with all kinds of weeds, they play together and go crazy together. They are unrestrained and wild.
However, Wuthering Heights is not always quiet, gentle and friendly. It has a cold, cold and wild side, and it has all kinds of emotions and temper. Explaining the origin of the name Wuthering Heights, the author wrote: Wuthering Heights is a meaningful inland adjective, which describes the pressure and turbulence that this place suffered in stormy weather. The chaos of air pressure, the wildness of the storm and Catherine's powder keg temper are the same type. The prominent space signs on the villa are thin thorns, excessively inclined dwarf fir trees, mixed sky and mountains, and suffocating heavy snow; Outside the villa is an endless gray wasteland, while the interior of the villa looks gloomy because of insufficient light. Thorns, fir trees, snow, fog ... The description of the natural space connected with life makes us feel Catherine's willfulness, stubbornness and tenacity. "That row of thin thorns are stretching their branches in one direction, as if begging for warmth from the sun ..." We seem to see her longing for the dawn of life and her persistence in love-as indestructible as the original vitality. When Catherine learned that her soul friend Heathcliff left Wuthering Heights angrily, there was a vivid description of the storm, which shocked the soul and reflected Catherine's temperament like a lightning flame. "Just like the hammering storm that landed on the villa, I only heard the wind roaring and thunder, and then there was a loud noise. A big tree fell in the corner of the house-I don't know if it was broken by the wind or struck by lightning; The thick branches pressed against the roof and made a big hole in the chimney in the east. Bricks, stones and coal ash fell into the kitchen stove. " [8] The author uses the storm of nature to set off Catherine's great grief and fear.
Fear, remorse and ambivalence are externalized into the storms of nature, and the storms and thunder are very consistent with Catherine's original violent character. Here, any words and actions will become pale and powerless in the face of the description of natural forces, because "the importance of wilderness cannot be expressed in cold logical language (which does not mean that it has no logic)." Emily uses the power of nature to express the sleeping passion in human nature. [9] Virginia? Woolf said, "Emily and Charlotte's scenery, their wasteland and their fast-moving summer green fields are not used to decorate a boring page or show off the author's observation-they are full of emotions and show the main idea of the book." [10] The description of Wuthering Heights' literary landscape not only exists as a background, but also provides some objective geographical knowledge and some emotional responses. On the other hand, it also sets off the characters and reveals their personalities.
If Catherine and the natural space have reached the realm of unity of things and me at Wuthering Heights, then her character is primitive and simple, free and unrestrained, wild and rough, and passionate; So what kind of personality does Thrushcross Villa have in the social space regulated by bourgeois civilization and rationality? We might as well switch the location of the story to Thrushcross Village.
When Catherine first came to Thrushcross Grange, she was deeply attracted by the quiet, elegant and rich lifestyle here. "The two of us stood on the footstone.
On the basin, you can look directly at the room with your hand on the windowsill; What we see is-ah, how beautiful! -the room is excellent, covered with red carpet, tables and chairs covered with red embroidered cloth; The pure white ceiling is surrounded by Phnom Penh, and the glass pendant on the glass chandelier hangs down from the central silver chain like rain, flashing soft little candles. [1 1] When she walked into the gilded living room of Linton's house, her personality spirit and strength showed the other side of her personality-vanity. She found herself unable to resist the attraction of the elegant life in Thrushcross Grange, betraying her wild and rude true nature. For the sake of worldly glitz, she married the elegant and considerate Linton, because marrying Heathcliff would lower her status.
10 krone pointed out that the description of novel space is not only a scene where stories and plots unfold, but also a belief about society and life. Literary space is divided into geographical space, spiritual space and social space, and social space is a complex network. Different social strata have constructed different class concepts, values, even local customs and social psychology. It formed a solid fortress with clear boundaries. Being in the society, people are bound to be influenced and bound by social consciousness, and personal self-pursuit and emotional pursuit are often hindered by social consciousness. Catherine lives in a secular hierarchical society, which pays attention to identity and status. In Thrushcross Villa, the change of space experience has greatly changed her values and life beliefs. She can't resist the temptation of bourgeois civilization and reason. Life in high society aroused her strong vanity and desire for fame and fortune. After seeing the upbringing and etiquette of Thrushcross Grange, she was also ashamed of her rude behavior. She wants to change her behavior, make herself as polite as possible, temporarily hide her wildness as a regional cultural identity, and dress up as an elegant lady in front of outsiders. Over time, this constant face-changing behavior has formed her dual personality.