THE ENGLISH GOTHIC NOVEL: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

The English Gothic novel began with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1765), which was
enormously popular and quickly imitated by other novelists and soon became a recognizable
genre. To most modern readers, however, The Castle of Otranto is dull reading; except for the
villain Manfred, the characters are insipid and flat; the action moves at a fast clip with no
emphasis or suspense, despite the supernatural manifestations and a young maiden's flight
through dark vaults. But contemporary readers found the novel electrifyingly original and
thrillingly suspenseful, with its remote setting, its use of the supernatural, and its medieval
trappings, all of which have been so frequently imitated and so poorly imitated that they have
become stereotypes. The genre takes its name from Otranto's medievalor Gothicsetting; early
Gothic novelists tended to set their novels in remote times like the Middle Ages and in remote
places like Italy (Matthew Lewis's The Monk, 1796) or the Middle East (William Beckford's Vathek,
1786).
What makes a work Gothic is a combination of at least some of these elements:

a castle, ruined or intact, haunted or not (the castle plays such a key role that it has been
called the main character of the Gothic novel),
ruined buildings which are sinister or which arouse a pleasing melancholy,
dungeons, underground passages, crypts, and catacombs which, in modern houses,
become spooky basements or attics,
labyrinths, dark corridors, and winding stairs,
shadows, a beam of moonlight in the blackness, a flickering candle, or the only source of
light failing (a candle blown out or, today, an electric failure),
extreme landscapes, like rugged mountains, thick forests, or icy wastes, and extreme
weather,
omens and ancestral curses,
magic, supernatural manifestations, or the suggestion of the supernatural,
a passion-driven, wilful villain-hero or villain,
a curious heroine with a tendency to faint and a need to be rescuedfrequently,
a hero whose true identity is revealed by the end of the novel,
horrifying (or terrifying) events or the threat of such happenings.

The Gothic creates feelings of gloom, mystery, and suspense and tends to the dramatic and the
sensational, like incest, diabolism, necrophilia, and nameless terrors. It crosses boundaries,
daylight and the dark, life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness. Sometimes covertly,
sometimes explicitly, it presents transgression, taboos, and fearsfears of violation, of
imprisonment, of social chaos, and of emotional collapse. Most of us immediately recognize the
Gothic (even if we don't know the name) when we encounter it in novels, poetry, plays, movies,
and TV series. For some of usand I include myself safely experiencing dread or horror is
thrilling and enjoyable.
Elements of the Gothic have made their way into mainstream writing. They are found in Sir
Walter Scott's novels, Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre , and Emily Bront's Wuthering Heights and in
Romantic poetry like Samuel Coleridge's "Christabel," Lord Byron's "The Giaour," and John Keats's
"The Eve of St. Agnes." A tendency to the macabre and bizarre which appears in writers like
William Faulkner, Truman Capote, and Flannery O'Connor has been called Southern Gothic.
THE GOTHIC AND WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Whether or not Wuthering Heights should be classified as a Gothic novel (certainly it is not
merley a Gothic novel), it undeniably contains Gothic elements.
In true Gothic fashion, boundaries are trespassed, specifically love crossing the boundary
between life and death and Heathcliff's transgressing social class and family ties. Bront follows
Walpole and Radcliffe in portraying the tyrannies of the father and the cruelties of the patriarchal
family and in reconstituting the family on non-patriarchal lines, even though no counterbalancing
matriarch or matriarchal family is presented. Bront has incorporated the Gothic trappings of
imprisonment and escape, flight, the persecuted heroine, the heroine wooed by a dangerous and
a good suitor, ghosts, necrophilia, a mysterious foundling, and revenge. The weather-buffeted
Wuthering Heights is the traditional castle, and Catherine resembles Ann Radcliffe's heroines in
her appreciation of nature. Like the conventional Gothic hero-villain, Heathcliff is a mysterious
figure who destroys the beautiful woman he pursues and who usurps inheritances, and with
typical Gothic excess he batters his head against a tree. There is the hint of necrophilia in
Heathcliff's viewings of Catherine's corpse and his plans to be buried next to her and a hint of
incest in their being raised as brother and sister or, as a few critics have suggested, in
Heathcliff's being Catherine's illegitimate half-brother.
Heathcliff and His Reputation
Forget most of the romantic nonsense you have heard about Heathcliff. Sure he's in love with
Catherine, and you can't question his loyalty, but he has a serious mean streak. Bront is at her
best when she is describing him, and his looks garner a lot of attention from her and the other
characters. Numerous polls have voted him literature's most romantic hero, which says a lot
about the kind of men we like tortured, brooding, and obsessive. Heathcliff is the embodiment
of what is known by literary types as the Byronic hero a dark, outsider antihero (kind of like Mr.
Rochester from Jane Eyre or Edward Cullen from Twilight). He is swarthy, lonerish, and little
demonic, but definitely sexy.
Heathcliff's Childhood
Heathcliff enters the Earnshaw home as a poor orphan and is immediately stigmatized by
questions of parentage. He is characterized as devilish and cruelly referred to as "it" in the
Earnshaw household. His language is "gibberish" and his dark otherness provokes the labels
"gipsy," "wicked boy," "villain," and "imp of Satan." This poor treatment is not much of an
improvement on his "starving and houseless" childhood, and he quickly becomes a product of all
of the abuse and neglect. Racially different, he can and will never be accepted by his adoptive
family or the villagers of Gimmerton. That Heathcliff should be given the name of an Earnshaw
son who died in childhood confirms the impression of his being a fairy changeling an
otherworldly being that takes the place of a human child. Plus, he is never given the last name
Earnshaw.
Heathcliff's arrival is seen as a direct threat to just about everyone, but mostly to Hindley. As
Nelly Dean tells it, "from the very beginning, [Heathcliff] bred bad feeling in the house" (5.55).
Her choice of words is suggestive, since there is so much preoccupation with his racial
background (breeding). Coming from Liverpool (a port town with many immigrants), Heathcliff
very likely is of mixed race. Some critics have suggested that he is black or Arabic. Could he be
Mr. Earnshaw's illegitimate child? This would explain his father's strange insistence on including
him in the household.

Victorian England was fascinated by gypsies, and they appear in novels like Jane Austen's Emma
and Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre, among others. Gypsies, who were thought to have come from
Egypt (which is where the "gyp" part of the word comes from), were objects of discrimination,
partly because their traveling lifestyle made them people without a nation or land (like
Heathcliff), and partly because they just looked so different from the typical Anglo Saxon. In
nineteenth-century novels, gypsies often steal children. They are never the hero (or anti-hero) of
the novel. So Bront really mixes up our expectations here.
Heathcliff's Appearance
Though the mystery of Heathcliff's background is never solved, there is endless speculation and
fascination about his appearance. Mr. Earnshaw introduces him to his new family by saying that
he is "as dark almost as if it came from the devil" (4.45), and he is called a "gipsy" by several
different characters.
Looking as different as he does makes it impossible for Heathcliff ever truly to fit in. His
determination to gain control of both Wuthering Heights and the Grange is driven by his desire to
become master in spite of being so much an outsider economically, familially, and physically.
His envy of Edgar's light-skinned handsomeness is part of what fuels his anger about Catherine's
choice.
During a three-year absence, Heathcliff is physically transformed. No longer a beaten-down
street kid, he has become, as Nelly puts it:
. . . a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom my master [Edgar] seemed quite slender and
youth-like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His
countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked
intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in the
depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued [] (10.53)
By the time Lockwood meets him, Heathcliff is still dark and swarthy, of course, but now
embodies the social status that he has gained over the last 25 years. Lockwood notes:
Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a dark-skinned gipsy
in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country
squire [. . .] (1.15)
At this point in Heathcliff's story he contains oppositions: his ethnic background presents a
strange contrast with his master-of-the-house look. Though he acquires the property, he can
never change his appearance and what it implies socially. (For more discussion of Heathcliff's
race, check out "Themes.")
Heathcliff and Violence
Heathcliff can be a real beast, which comes across through his numerous threats, violent acts,
and symbolic association with that unruly pack of dogs (Throttler, Skulker what names!). In
some ways he is the supreme depraved Gothic villain, but his emotional complexity and the
depth of his motivations and reactions make him much more than that.
Heathcliff often falls back on violence as a means of expression, both of love and hate. Having
been beaten on by Hindley for most of his childhood, Heathcliff is the classic victim turned
perpetrator. His rage is tied to the revenge he so passionately seeks, but he also undertakes

small "extracurricular" acts of violence, like hanging Isabella Linton's dog. Whether he is capable
of sympathy for anyone but Catherine is highly questionable. As Nelly recounts:
[Heathcliff] seized, and thrust [Isabella] from the room; and returned muttering "I have no pity!
I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a
moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain." (14.39-41)
That pretty much sums up his attitude and he's talking about his wife! He treats his son, Linton,
no better. Linton's sickly demeanor is a contrast to his father's strong and healthy physique, and
Heathcliff has no tolerance for the little bugger.
Though Heathcliff expresses and often enacts violence against just about everyone in the two
houses, he would never hurt Catherine. However, his love for her is violent in the sense that it is
extremely passionate and stirs a brutal defensiveness. Importantly, by the end of the novel
Heathcliff admits to Nelly that he no longer has any interest in violence. It's not so much that he
is sated as that he is just over it. As he tells her:
"It is a poor conclusion, is it not . . . An absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers
and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like
Hercules, and when everything is ready, and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either
roof has vanished! My old enemies have beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge
myself on their representatives: I could do it; and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I
don't care for striking. I can't take the trouble to raise my hand!" (33.59)
Heathcliff and Catherine
As readers painfully recall, Heathcliff leaves his beloved Cathy after overhearing her say it would
degrade her to marry him. That moment really hurts, because if anything is obvious, it's that
Catherine is Heathcliff's soul mate and his only ally against the brute Hindley. In a sense, their
love remains immature, since they were only ever "together" as young children. The moments of
joy that haunt Heathcliff for the rest of his life occur over just a few pages. Many of them take
place as an escape from violence, as in this memory recounted in Catherine's makeshift journal:
"Hindley is a detestable substitute his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious H. and I are going to
rebel we took our initiatory step this evening." (3.13)
And soon after:
"We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened
our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand
from the stables. He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks" (3.19)
Without her, Heathcliff quickly turns from mythic hero into well-schooled brute.
Heathcliff and Cathy are haunted by each other; each sees the other as inseparable from his or
her being. As Catherine tells Nelly Dean:
"Nelly, I am Heathcliff He's always, always in my mind not as a pleasure, any more than I am
always a pleasure to myself but as my own being so, don't talk of our separation again: it is
impracticable." (9.101)

This confession is one of the novel's most famous lines, because it so poignantly expresses the
nature of Heathcliff and Catherine's love: it is beyond the physical, transcending all else.
Heathcliff tells Nelly:
"I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped on the flags! In every cloud, in
every tree filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day . . . my own
features mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda
that she did exist, and that I have lost her." (33.62)
Heathcliff and Cathy see themselves as one and the same, which is interesting considering how
big of a deal everyone else makes about Heathcliff's "otherness": his swarthy complexion and
low social standing. Cathy doesn't care about any of these differences; her love renders them
meaningless.
But this closeness also leads to one of the biggest problems in the novel. Because Catherine
considers Heathcliff to be a part of her, she does not see her marriage to Edgar as a separation
from Heathcliff. For Heathcliff, though, soul mates should be together. Her death only increases
his obsession, and he goes so far to have the sexton dig up her grave so he can catch one last
glimpse of her.
While he can be a horrible brute, it's easy to pity Heathcliff. After all, he finds his perfect love and
she marries a stiff like Edgar Linton. Does Bront intend for us to like Heathcliff as much as we
do? It's hard to tell. Emily's sister Charlotte wrote that "Heathcliff, indeed, stands unredeemed;
never once swerving in his arrow-straight course to perdition" (Charlotte Bront, "Editor's Preface
to the New Edition of Wuthering Heights").
Heathcliff as Byronic Hero
Byronic Hero and Unrequited Love in Wuthering Heights
A theme of the Byronic hero and unrequited love proved prominent in Emily Brontes novel
Wuthering Heights. The main character, Heathcliff, is a perfect example of a Byronic hero
because he is introverted and dark, and he exudes a deep passion for many things only masked
by the hatred he feels he must show. As a deep and cynical character, modeled after Lord Byron
himself, Heathcliff is crazed in his actions and keeps to himself quite well, but underneath all of
the bitterness lies a man who just wants to be loved. This theme is prominent in the novel and
also refers back to the era because the novel was written during the period that modeling writing
with a Byronic hero was very popular. The book is a gothic novel, which were dark and
passionate stories which directly relates to the Byronic hero and also the outstanding theme of
unrequited love. Heathcliff and Cathy were deeply in love but they were separated, and Cathy
never got the chance to tell Heathcliff how much she truly loved him before she died. This is the
best example of unrequited love because after Cathy passes, Heathcliff goes through all the
regrets he had in his head about never acting up and taking Cathy back. Up until the very end
when Heathcliff finally passes, his soul is never complete seeing as he never ended up with his
true love. In the end of the story, Heathcliff is buried next to Cathy, so one could view this as
being requited in heaven, but since it is not printed in the text, the audience is not quite sure.
During the gothic period of literature many stories of doomed love and dark brooding stories
were very common. Another thing that was very popular at the time was no happy endings to
the stories. Wuthering Heights had anything but a happy ending, seeing as almost everyone
died, but it is in the deep and passionate words and enthralling dark stories that we see the
various influences of the gothic literature era.