Imprisonment+&+Freedom

Theme: Imprisonment & Freedom - Wuthering Heights RESEARCH [] Both Catherine and Heathcliff find their bodies prisons which trap their spirits and prevent the fulfillment of their desires: Catherine yearns to be united with Heathcliff, with a lost childhood freedom, with Nature, and with a spiritual realm; Heathcliff wants possession of and union with Catherine. Confinement also defines the course of Catherine's life: in childhood, she alternates between the constraint of Wuthering Heights and the freedom of the moors; in puberty, she is restricted by her injury to a couch at Thrushcross Grange; finally womanhood and her choice of husband confine her to the gentility of Thrushcross Grange, from which she escapes into the freedom of death.
 * Self-imposed or self-generated confinement and escape.**

Heathcliff enters the novel possessed of nothing, is not even given a last or family name, and loses his privileged status after Mr. Earnshaw's death. Heathcliff displaces Hindley in the family structure. Catherine is thrown out of heaven, where she feels displaced, sees herself an exile at Thrushcross Grange at the end, and wanders the moors for twenty years as a ghost. Hareton is dispossessed of property, education, and social status. Isabella cannot return to her beloved Thrushcross Grange and brother. Linton is displaced twice after his mother's death, being removed first to Thrushcross Grange and then to Wuthering Heights. Cathy is displaced from her home, Thrushcross Grange.
 * Displacement, dispossession, and exile.**

//forces that cause imprisonment and restriction of freedom...//

The novel is set at a time when capitalism and industrialization are changing not only the economy but also the traditional social structure and the relationship of the classes. The yeoman or respectable farming class (Hareton) was being destroyed by the economic alliance of the newly-wealthy capitalists (Heathcliff) and the traditional power-holding gentry (the Lintons). This theme is discussed more fully in
 * The clash of economic interests and social classes.**

The male heads of household abuse females and males who are weak or powerless. This can be seen in their use of various kinds of imprisonment or confinement, which takes social, emotional, financial, legal, and physical forms. Mr. Earnshaw expects Catherine to behave properly and hurtfully rejects her "bad-girl" behavior. Edgar's ultimatum that Catherine must make a final choice between him or Heathcliff restricts Catherine's identity by forcing her to reject an essential part of her nature; with loving selfishness Edgar confines his daughter Cathy to the boundaries of Thrushcross Grange. A vindictive Hindley strips Heathcliff of his position in the family, thereby trapping him in a degraded laboring position. Heathcliff literally incarcerates Isabella (as her husband and legal overseer), and later he imprisons both Cathy and Nellie; also, Cathy is isolated from the rest of the household after her marriage to Linton.
 * The abusive patriarch and patriarchal family.**

//sees freedom in death...//

It is not just love that Catherine and Heathcliff seek but a higher, spiritual existence which is permanent and unchanging, as Catherine makes clear when she compares her love for Linton to the seasons and her love for Heathcliff to the rocks. The dying Catherine looks forward to achieving this state through death.
 * The striving for transcendence.**

= =

**MY WORK**
Heathcliff faces imprisonment within the Earnshaw household because Hindley is well-off compared to him: pg 26 // "Poor Heathcliff!Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won't let him sit with is, nor eat with us any more and, he says, he and i must not play together, and threatens to turn him out ofd the house if we break his orders". // He is subjected to the manners of a servant because his appearance and how he arrived depicted him as an outcast, beneath them. He is imprisoned within this connotation of being a 'gypsy brat' and is ignored otherwise. He cannot betray them or try to break free in fear of being banished forever, and in this case of the story (still a child) he is unfit to fend for himself.

Heathcliff is constantly mistreated and punished because he is different, and especially because he was found on the streets with no money, pg 47 //"and when he was confined to the chimney corner he grew grievously irritable"// Catherine when taken in my the Linton's upon being attacked by their dog, is confined within their household. She is permitted to see no one especially Heathcliff in hope of restoring her. She is forced to change and become lady-like and see Heathcliff through their eyes, a dirty peasant and nothing more, pg 61 // "commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes...so that instead of wild, hatless little souage." // She becomes imprisoned by her status and blinded by wealth which causes her to marry Edgar Linton. This then causes her to lock up her feelings for Heathcliff. She becaomes imprisoned by society which causes her to imprison herself.

Heathcliff is locked up because he is despised by Hindley and is treated as a servant, pg 70 //"paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the master".// He is restricted to have visitors, treated like an animal.

Heathcliff only feels free when he is with Catherine, but because she denies him that he feels restricted, pg 81// "The crosses are for the evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those spent with me - Do you see, I've marked everyday?" //

The characters are often imprisoned by their overwhelming sense of emotion and can't cope, this often leads to their downfall. They are often driven by their emotions therefore when their emoptions are restrcited such as Catherine's love for heathcliff, they face depression or worse...death. pg 96// "My great miseries in this world has been Heathcliff's miseries." // Catherine is closely connected with Heathcliff because of the strength of their love and beacsue they grew up together therefore when one character is restricted, so is the other. They share their pain.

As an effect of imprisonment bestowed upon Heathcliff, he seeks freedom by punishing others through similar means of improsonment which he was tormented with throughout his life at Wuthering Heights, pg 132 // "I seek no revenge...only, allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style." //

Catherine now lives with the Lintons and is driven insane by her own punishment to love Heathcliff that she had to subject herself to marrying Edgar. She now imprisons herself with the daily burden of watching her mistake of marrying Edgar before her. For this reason she always thinks what if in regard to Heathcliff and their relationship, pg 147, // "Oh, I'm burning! I wish i were out of the doors - I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free...and laughing at injuries." // Being imprisoned by the Lintons who only thgought they were helping her, influenced by Hindley's hatred for her relationship with Heathcliff, she wouldn't have been in this situation and therefore would have determined her destiny by the path she was on and perhaps be free. pg 190 //"Heathcliff...he's in my soul...the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, afterall. I'm tied of being enclosed here, I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there."// Heathcliff punishes Isabella for never recognising Heathcliff before he was wealthy, and now that he is she 'loves' him. He therefore inflicts imprisonment upon her so she may feel the pain he lived with throughout his life, and still does with the absense of Catherine, pg 204 Isabella complains to Nelly, // "I ought, and I wish to remain, to cheer Edger and take care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my right home - but i tell you, he wouldn't let me! // Even Hindley is fed with his own medicine and restricted within his own household through fear, //"Dam the hellish villian! He knocks at the door, as if he were master here already".// Heathcliff passes his fury to the next generation using Hareton. Hareton then faces imprisonment but grows to be fond of Mr Heathcliff for his father never treated him well anyway, pg 231, // "Hareton, who should now be the first gentlemen in the neighbourhood is reduced to a state of complete dependence on his father;s inveterate enemy; and lives in his own house as a servant deprived of the advantage of wages..." //

Cathy is imprisoned by her families problems and is infact repulsed by her relation to a creature such as Hareton who ties her down to ill-mannered behaviour. pg 230 // "what's the matter get my horse i say" "I'll see thee damned, before i be thy servant. Thou saucy witch!" //

Edgar and Nelly to separate Cathy with Linton (Heathcliff's son) in fear of Heathcliff's revenge calling upon her in his tormenting game. they therefore restict her from passing over the moors to Wuthering Heights, pg 241 // "my daughter; she cannot associate with him hereafter...merely tell her, his father sent for him suddenly, abd he has been obliged to leave us." //

Isabella restrcited Linton from meeting his father Heathcliff because in her eyes he was a devil and would do no good for Linton, especialy to grow up with his persuading manipulative mind games, pg 245 // "What a shame at your mother, never to waken your filial regard for me!...your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed..." // Isabella thought by running away her son and herself would gain freedom, but although death freed her from Heathcliff, her son was doomed. A lack of freedom also shapes the characters either through their behaviour, personality or portrayal for readers. For example, Linton is a weak character, pg 248 //"Don't leave me! I will not stay here! I'll not stay here!" (frantic repetition)// Cathy is restricted from seeing Linton and therefore seeks freedom by writing love letters to Linton which is encouraged by Heathcliff. However when Cathy is caught by Nelly, she faces strict restrictions on top of her existing ones (however in her best interest- to protect her of Heathcliff's revengeful tactics so she may not fall into his trap and continue to be raised with dignity and right manners). pg 267 // "you may well be ahsamed of them! A fine bundle of trash.... For shame! Anmd you would have been the one who led the way in writing such absurdities." // Her love for Linton then is restricted and degraded, // "Loving! Did anybody ever hear the like...you have seen Linton hardley four hours, in your life!" //

Cathy is forced into a marriage too early upon her likeings but Heathcliff persuades her through guilt upon Linton's death. She falls into a marriage she fully didn't understand and has to live in accordance to Heathcliff's demands. THis also causes her to loose all her possessions. pg 319 // "Papa wants us to be married... and knows your papa wouldn't let us marry now; and he's afraid of my dying, if we meet so we may be married in the morning." // Nelly warns of the negative endowers to come, //"You marry? Why the man is mad, or he thinks us fools, everyone. And do you imagine that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will lie herself to a little perishing monkey like you?"// Cathy like her mother has a choice, and her choice removes her freedom. She choses to marry Linton as did her mother marry Edgar, pg 321 // "Mr heathcliff, let me go home! I promise to marry Linton...and why should you wish to force me to do what i'll willingly do myself?" //

No matter how much Heathcliff torments everyone, he himself will always be exiled from the possibility of reversing time and taking Catherine when he had the chance to persuade her otherwise. Even Cathy acknowlegdes this, and this is why what ever he does to her, she reamins free and content because she will always have freedom of speech, thought, love and acceptance that she made the choices in her life and no one else despite heathcliff's interference, pg 337 // "and however miserable you may make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty rises from your greater misery! You are miserable, are you not?" // After her foul mouth vomited this, Heathcliff angered by her rebuttle and resemblance of her mother retrained her all the much more, pg 363,// "She was forbidden to move out of the garden...she complained of lonliness," //

Freedom is only expressed through nature and death. Linton dies and Cathy retorts to Heathcliff, pg 344, // "He is safe, and I'm free". // Heathcliff finally is free when he sees his Catherine once more upon dying, Nature: pg 381 // "weather was sweet and warm, the grass as green as shaves and sun could make it.." // Before death: pg 382 // "he had a strange joyful glitter in his eye, that altered the aspect of his whole face." // Religion: pg 184 //"Last night i was on the threshold of hell. Today, i am within sight of my heaven"// anna xo