To use the words of Professor Fred Botting, in the Gothic, “transgression is important not only as an interrogation of received rules and values , but also in the identification, reconstitution or transformation of limits. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights focuses on the transgression of social and moral boundaries not only as a response to stereotypes of the early Victorian context, but also as a broader metaphor for human nature and emotion. The relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy is central to the novel because of the implications it has for the characters' contemporaries, the next generation, and the narrative as a whole. Arguably, it is the almost supernatural nature of this fundamental relationship which taints the rest of the novel with anxiety, both in narrative and theme, and which deprives all the characters of a “normal” life. Heathcliff and Cathy redefine the reader's perception of love, demonstrating a passion that transcends status and challenges God. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The all-consuming intensity of this passion leads both characters to abandon morality and compassion, and inflict agony on those that surround them. Brontë’s Heathcliff embodies otherness; the essence of his character is the violation of social norms. Upon his arrival, Heathcliff disrupts the established structures of Wuthering Heights. Nelly suggests that "from the beginning, [Heathcliff] stirred up a bad feeling in the house", suggesting the tension his otherness created within the otherwise traditional family of a gentleman farmer. The principle of patriarchy – inheritance – is attacked from Heathcliff's very existence. Nelly describes Heathcliff as "the poor fatherless child, as [Earnshaw] called him", alluding to the possibility that Heathcliff was in fact Earnshaw's illegitimate son. Nelly's ambiguous statement could suggest that Earnshaw calls Heathcliff that in order to hide the fact that he is not fatherless, but rather that he is Earnshaw's son. However, the potential unreliability of Nelly's account introduces an additional element of uncertainty for the reader regarding Heathcliff's origins. This uncertainty reinforces Bronte's portrayal of him as a strange and complex antihero. It can be argued that Heathcliff's position as Earnshaw's favorite, which arises either from the transgression of Earnshaw's infidelity or from the equally liminal position of abandoned and ethnically different orphan, sets in motion the cycle of jealousy and abuse that run throughout the novel. It is Hindley's view of Heathcliff as "a usurper of his parents' affections and privileges" that makes Hindley "bitter", a bitterness that will make the lives of Heathcliff and Cathy unlivable. Not only is Heathcliff's genealogy unclear, but also he is arguably symbolic of the xenophobic stereotypes of the time, with one reading seeing him as Romani. Isabella Linton supports this interpretation with her comment "he is just like the son of the fortune teller who stole my tame pheasant". Bronte's portrayal of prejudiced and destructive attitudes towards the Roma people, a nomadic minority from India who have been persecuted for centuries across the world, can be seen in the reference to the "fortune teller", a depiction typical but culturally inaccurate of "gypsy", and Isabella's dehumanizing phrase "Scary thing!" Put it in the cellar, Dad. Heathcliff's ethnic otherness is most likely used to denounce racial tensions withinof white-dominated Victorian society – the slave trade had not long been abolished when Bronte was writing – but it is also a metaphor for her deeper isolation and separation from the Caucasian world of etiquette. , culture and morality. Heathcliff is one in a long line of “gothic wanderers,” characters like Stoker's Dracula who exist on the fringes of society and look inward. Nelly thought to Heathcliff: “Is he a ghoul or a vampire? Rather than viewing Heathcliff as a supernatural being, one could argue that the pleasure he takes in suffering from others and his eventual disconnection from mortal life are a product of the brutal marginalization he experienced during the critical phase. of child development, perhaps suggesting that if one is treated like a demon, they will become one. The love between Cathy and Heathcliff overwhelms and contravenes the boundaries of society and morality. Cathy's account of her dream clearly elucidates the uncertainty of her relationship. “I was only going to say that heaven didn't seem to be my home; and I broke my heart crying to return to earth; and the angels were so angry that they threw me into the middle of the moor, on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke up sobbing with joy. For Cathy, the paradise of her dream symbolizes marriage to Edgar Linton, a choice which in some way represents Cathy's "repentance" from her sins and an acceptance of hierarchical, patriarchal and Christian values. If Cathy fully committed to marrying Linton, it would mean giving up her transgressive and wild love for Heathcliff, choosing the life of high society in favor of poverty. The dream suggests a life of Christian virtue, mortally with Linton and immortally in heaven. , will not fulfill Cathy and her expulsion by the angels, which recalls Satan's disgrace in Paradise Lost, actually brings her tears of "joy". The bond between Cathy and Heathcliff challenges the philosophical and theological notion of the soul. Cathy suggests that her and Heathcliff's souls are made of a different material than Linton's, thus challenging the idea that all humans have the same type of soul, each a shard of God. Instead, Cathy controversially suggests that she and Heathcliff have souls originating elsewhere, perhaps from Hell: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from a flash of lightning, or frost from a fire. Part of what makes Wuthering Heights so powerful in its subversion of traditional tenets is the ambiguity and lack of clarity regarding the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy. As the passage about souls illustrates, Cathy never really explains what makes her so like Heathcliff. and so in love, and yet their connection is almost omnipotent. One of the elements of their bond is undoubtedly the galvanizing force of suffering, which has defined both of their identities since childhood, as Cathy expresses it: "My greatest miseries in this world have been the miseries of Heathcliff, and I have observed and felt each of them from the beginning. » The reference here to “beginning” is perhaps biblical, evoking the story of Adam and Eve, from which original sin arose. The presence and oppressive power of original sin can be felt throughout Wuthering Heights to the extent that no character is freed from unhappiness or misery. , despite their initial innocence. We could see Cathy and Heathcliff's love as children as a vague allegory of the story of Adam and Eve, since it is the mutual curiosity of children, in violation of the rules of class, age, ethnicity, and perhaps rules against incest, ».”