Edgar Over Heathcliff example essay topic

In chapter nine, Catherine reveals to Nelly that Edgar Linton proposed to her and that she has accepted. She wishes to find out Nelly's opinion on the whole affair. In these passages she uses a great deal of imagery to express what she is feeling. She seems to be confessing to marrying Edgar, mainly for the social status attached and that it would be the appropriate thing to do. Since her brother Hindley went into a state of madness after the death of his wife, Frances, Catherine has been given the freedom to make up her own mind, and yet she still chooses Edgar over Heathcliff, the one who she truly loves. One of the things Catherine does is to describe a nightmare that she once had.

This upsets Nelly, as she is very superstitious about nightmares. Nightmares have certain connotations, leading to anxieties, fears, and showing a deeper meaning underneath the surface. What makes the dream quite sinister is that it was about heaven. Heaven is usually represented as a wondrous place, where people would be content, and happy. The fact that Catherine admits she would not be happy there gives the nightmare a quite dark side, "I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home". The idea that anyone could be unhappy would seem quite strange and possibly scary to the reader, particularly the 19th Century audience that would have first read this novel.

This description of her dream reveals a lot about what she thinks of herself and the entire situation. The way she broke her heart with "weeping to come back to earth" and how the angels were "so angry" that they flung her out "into the middle of the hearth on top of Wuthering Heights" seems to represent her marriage to Edgar Linton. Heaven is with Edgar, but she recognises that she doe not belong with him when she says, "I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven". She does admit that she loves Heathcliff", how I love him", but she knows that she cannot not marry him. She understands that she must marry a rich and respected man, which is what Edgar Linton is, and not Heathcliff. She says it would "degrade" her to marry Heathcliff.

The use of the family home, Wuthering Heights, in her imagery makes connotations back to Heathcliff. Because she woke "sobbing for joy" at Wuthering Heights, we can assume that the things attached to the house make her truly happy. Even in the name "Wuthering", it means "stormy", perhaps like Heathcliff's spirit. Everything in the house is a complete contrast to Edgar as well. The house was earlier described as "The floor was smooth, white stone; the chairs high-backed, primitive structures, painted green; one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade". It shows that the Heights are quite bland and plain, yet in a stony way.

There is no feeling of warmth, or comfort, and the sense of "shade" gives the ideas of shadows and darkness. This is the house where Heathcliff lives. In contrast, Edgar lives at Thrushcross Grange; it is nothing like the Heights. In Heathcliff's words, it was described as: " a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with the little soft tapers".

In comparison, Thrushcross Grange is a much warmer place. Signs are shown in its name, also. "Thrush" is a sweet-sounding, beautiful bird and "Grange" means a farmhouse, generally used for storing things. It makes it seem rich, and not emptiness, like Wuthering Heights. The description is almost quite regal sounding with words like "shimmering" and "shower of glass-drops". It has warm colours, and carpets, rather than plain stone.

It has a welcoming and loving feeling about it. This is the house where Edgar Linton lives. It seems to suggest that the two men are compared and represented by the houses they each occupy. Again, Edgar was compared to heaven, perhaps this is what Thrushcross Grange is seen as; somewhere that Catherine does not belong.

She also describes the differences between them with an interesting quote: "Whatever our souls are made of, his (Heathcliff) and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightening, or frost from fire". She is just describing here how different she sees her and Edgar. The moonbeam represents Edgar because it is a soft light, perhaps showing Edgar's tender and caring nature. Lightening, on the other hand, is powerful and dramatic; it is full of action and represents Catherine's fierce temper. Also, lightening is very spontaneous, unpredictable, and destructive. A moonbeam is constant and expected; it never changes.

As for frost / fire, frost is not really being used in the cold sense, more that it settles and becomes lifeless, and unmoving. This is where Catherine puts Edgar down, showing that he is lacking passion. Fire, on the other hand, seems to show a great deal of passion. It is uncontrollable, raging and unpredictable.

Again this relates back to the personality of Catherine. She believes that her and Heathcliff are one together. She means a similar thing as to the soul reference when she says, "I am Heathcliff!" She simply means that they are so much alike that they could not possibly have so much love for anyone else. It is something that she mentions on many occasions, including "He's always, always in my mind: not as pleasure but as my own being". She is a part of Heathcliff. Although Catherine loves Heathcliff, she also loves Edgar at the same time - she merely loves them in different ways.

This is shown by the quote: "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary". She means here that she loves Edgar now, for her own reasons, but she knows that the reasons are merely temporary, and it is very likely that one day she will no longer feel the same way. It is only because she lives for the present that she chooses to marry him. The word "change" may actually be used in the physical sense, as she says, "winter changes the trees". Perhaps here she means that she loves him because he is handsome, and, over time, old age will set in and he will no longer be handsome.

The way she loves Heathcliff is for much more solid reasons, one that can never change It is nothing do with his physical appearance, which she even admits herself when she says " I love him not because he's handsome". Instead of trees, as she uses to describe her love for Edgar, she uses rocks. Rocks are strong, unchanging, and ubiquitous; it feels literally solid as a rock. She re-enforces this with the word "eternal", meaning everlasting, and ongoing. "Eternal" is a very powerful word, often bringing connotations of their love continuing after death, when they are souls together. The two are completely different, however.

The trees are visible, because her love for Edgar is the love she lets people see. She says the rocks are "beneath" and "of little visible delight" because her love for Heathcliff must be hidden, as she knows she can never be with him. In contrast to this scene, Chapter 10 is where Isabella confesses her love for Heathcliff. Catherine, again, uses imagery to describe Heathcliff. She describes him as "an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone".

Here she is still saying that he is wild and out of control with the "furze" remark. Furze is a wild shrub. The "whinstone" is a hard type of rock, showing Heathcliff's toughness. As before, Catherine described him as being wild and powerful, but here she seems to be doing it in a slightly more negative way in the hope that she can deter her sister-in-law from pursuing feelings for Heathcliff. She also uses the rocks in a different way. As before, she had used them to show her solidity of feelings for Heathcliff, yet here she uses them in order to represent Heathcliff's savage nature.