If the setting of a novel is 19th century Europe, there is a good chance that the women in the novel are treated as a means to achieve an end rather than as autonomous beings who have intrinsic value in themselves. This is the case in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. In the twelfth chapter, Catherine, feverish and desperate, cries: "I would like to be outside, I would like to become a girl again, half wild, robust and free", then she asks herself "why am I so changed" (92) ? The contrast she draws here between her childhood and her femininity highlights the freedom she felt as a child and the apparent oppression she experiences as an adult woman. Readers discover in this novel a number of women, each of whom, like Catherine, faces the same fate: marriage, childbirth and, for some, death. To be a woman in the world of Wuthering Heights is to surrender to marriage and childbirth which, more often than not, result in death; as a result, women lose all autonomy, which is why Catherine aspires to become a girl again: she aspires to free herself from her inevitable feminine destiny. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essayThe first two important women are Mrs. Earnshaw, mother of Hindley and Catherine, and Mrs. Linton, mother of Edgar and Isabella, neither. of which they have their own story because, apart from their husband and their children, they have neither being nor value. Mr. Earnshaw is "the old master" of the Earnshaw household and his wife must stay at home and wait with the children while he goes on a business trip (Bronte 25-26). She has neither property, nor money, nor work to occupy herself; her work, her place, her role are entirely linked to her husband and her children. She died about two years after this business trip (27). His whole story is told in three pages because it's not worth much. Her husband goes on a business trip, she waits for him, feeds his children and puts them to bed and when she returns, she dies. Ms. Linton's script is equally narrow. At one point she is mentioned when she allows her children to go to a party at the Earnshaws' house, on the condition that they are kept away from Heathcliff (39). Later in the story, she cares for Catherine when she has a fever, but Mrs. Linton also has a fever and dies soon after (65). Her story is told in just two pages because, like Mrs. Earnshaw, she has nothing of significance other than the fact that she has a husband and two children. They constitute its main value and without them, it would be nothing. Here are two adult women to whom no freedom, no value is attributed. Their goal is simply to get married and have children; they are nothing more than a means to an end useful to the men and children in their lives. Two women from the next generation suffer a similar fate. Both marry, both have a child, and both die soon after. The difference between Frances Earnshaw, Hindley's wife, and Isabella Linton, Heathcliff's wife, is that their deaths occur on a different timeline. Frances' death is a direct result of childbirth while Isabella's death occurs a few years after she had a child. The first introduction to Frances is in chapter six, when Hindley returns home for his father's funeral and, to everyone's surprise, "he has brought a woman with him" who is described as having "neither money nor name to recommend it” (32). This first impression implies that her primary value is that she is a wife, that she has a husband. We learn nothing about his life, hispast, interests or history other than the fact that she married Hindley and is now a wife. The next step is for her to become pregnant and have a child, which happens in chapter eight. She gives birth to a baby boy named Hareton, but she dies just a few days later (47). Her husband should be grateful because, as he is told, “it is a blessing that your wife was spared from leaving you this son” (46). His objective was achieved. She married and bore Hindley a son. There's really nothing left for her to do, so she dies. This is what it means to be an adult woman: get married, have children, die. Isabella Linton's story is almost the same, apart from the fact that it takes her a few years to die after giving birth to a son for her husband and again we have the example of a female character who really has no story outside of his marriage. and her child. She and Heathcliff elope (97-98). Shortly after, “she had a son” who was “baptized Linton” (135). Two chapters later, she dies and Linton is taken to Wuthering Heights to live with his father. Isabella's story is extreme because the only reason Heathcliff married her was to have a son who could possibly marry someone with the aim of acquiring Thrushcross Grange as an inheritance. This is the most egregious example of treating a woman like a tool. Heathcliff sees no value in Isabella other than her ability to marry him and bear him a son. Other than that, its storyline is dead, as is its autonomy. It is used as an object, it is a means to an end, it serves a purpose. Again, we learn nothing about her life outside of her husband and son because they are her main value. Without them, she means nothing to the world of Wuthering Heights. And with them, it matters even less. She is an object that completes a task and then is left to die. His destiny is dark, gloomy. In fact, the fate of all adult women in Wuthering Heights seems darker and colder with each depiction of a female character. With the appearance of Catherine Earnshaw Linton, we finally meet a female character who fights against this terrible female destiny, but without success. . From the beginning, Catherine is portrayed as a fiery character, “too mischievous and capricious” and she writes in her diary that she and Heathcliff “are going to rebel” (28, 14). As she grew up, she fell in love with Edgar Linton and eventually the two married (age 65). Part of her reasoning when marrying Edgar is to use her money to help Heathcliff get to a better life, but she doesn't realize that as a woman she won't have a say in the way she and her husband spend their money and, in fact, she will have absolutely no control over money, finances or property because she is just a woman; this power is not granted to him (60). After marrying Edgar, Catherine declines quite quickly. She becomes withdrawn, moody and depressed. After giving birth to little Cathy, she dies within two hours because she had been starving for several days before the birth (121). Why had she declined like this and why was she subjecting herself to such bodily torments? Certainly, her depression and anorexia had a lot to do with Heathcliff, with whom she was much more in love than Edgar. But more than that, she had lost any sense of identity or worth. This happened to all the women in this story because they were all treated the same way: as objects whose primary goal in life was to marry a man, have a child or two for him, and then to die. This is exactly what happens to Catherine, just like..