Wuthering+Heights-Visions+and+Dreams

Dreams have the ability to show the manifestations of the characters innermost desires, often dreams act as a way for characters to transcend their limitations that are placed on them throughout their lives.Dreams act as a way to forebode/foreshadow things such as Catherine death and are often they are described as being both of expressive nature and repressive. Dreams allow for the reader to peer into the mind of the characters. Dreams and visions show feelings of characters often dreams will convey feelings of displacement and even shows the feelings of dispossession. Visions and dreams are expressive due to their ability to show the feelings of each character and the lingering presence of Catherine. Even in her death Catherine still impacts the future generations as she lives on through Heathcliff. The inability to move forward is explored through these dreams and often shows the characters wishes to break free from social constraints.
 * Dreams and Visions:**

//**Why are visions and dreams... 1. Repressive-**// Unable to move forward, stuck by their passions and love for one another

//**2. Expressive-**// feelings, desires and freedom to be togehter for Catherine and Heathcliff can only be gained through death

//"Heathcliff's great natural abilities, strength of character, and love for Catherine Earnshaw all enable him to raise himself from humble beginnings to the status of a wealthy gentleman, but his need to revenge himself for Hindley's abuse and Catherine's betrayal leads him into a twisted life of cruelty and hatred; Catherine is torn between her love for Heathcliff and her desire to be a gentlewoman, and her decision to marry the genteel Edgar Linton drags almost all of the novel's characters into conflict with Heathcliff...////The dangers of such a repressive narrative are most apparent in the first narrator, Lockwood, and his reaction to the dreams in the panelled bed that once belonged to Catherine Earnshaw. There Catherine has dreamed as well, had carved her name into the wooden panels, and had preserved parts of her childhood diary. And there Heathcliff would also dream, finally dying triumphantly in the very chamber where Lockwood dreamed of Cathy struggling to enter.”//
 * Dreams of authority by Ronald. B. Thomas:**

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=hh9eQfSeUhMC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=Dreams+and+visions+in+Wuthering+heights&source=bl&ots=6tMHrpFrJC&sig=vBJfkDmOoUsHI0yjh2L2n6r97bQ&hl=en&ei=x7s4Sv2tHM2OkAXrp7TjDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA114,M1
 * //Site that is very helpful for this theme (where i got the above information from)://**

http://www.mona.uwi.edu/liteng/courses/e32c/documents/fateofmilothe%20moralvisionofwutheringheights.pdf
 * And this site..**

//"Seventy times Seven and, The First of The Seventy Seven first. A pious discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabes Branderham in the Chapel of Gimmerdon Sough." Pg 22// //"Sir. I exclaimed sitting here, within there four walls, at once stretch, i have endured and forgiven..." "Thou art the man. Cried Jabes...seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage-seventy times did i console with my soul..." Pg 24//
 * Chapter II Volume I:**

Mr Lockwood dreams that he is in a chapel and listening to Jabes a Reverend who invests his time in working at local houses of worship, giving sermons based on the forgiveness of discourse. Lockwood is in an unfamiliar place and is an outsider looking in, this shows feelings of displacement.

//"...instead of which my fingers closed on the fingers of a little ice cold hand." Pg 25 "Who are you? I asked, struggling meanwhile to disengage myself." Pg 25 "Catherine Linton it replied.."//
 * Chapter II Volume I:**

After this dream Lockwood awakens and falls asleep once again, within his dream he goes to the window and reaches out to grab a branch. His hands instead grab a tiny cold hand, he panics and asks for the name of the person whose hand he is holding. In a state of panic he rubs the wrists of the child onto the glass of the window until the blood soaks her bed dress, the voice mourns of the twenty years that she has been on the moors. Upon hearing Lockwood's scream Heathcliff runs to his room and ushers him along with the others who have come after hearing Lockwood out of the room. Lockwood upon leaving the room can hear Heathcliff begging "Cathy" to come into the house. Even in death Catherine's presence is strong and haunting within Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange and shows that Catherine is imprisoned even in death by her passions for Heathcliff as she was in life.

//“I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one- I’m going to tell it…” Pg 80//
 * Chapter IX Volume I:**

Within Wuthering Heights dreams have the ability to shape and change characters, it is important to know how dreams and visions affect the characters and often are used to tell the reader something about the characters.

//"But it is not for that, i dream't, once, that i was there." Pg 80 "...I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and i broke my heart with weeping to come back to Earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out, into the middle of the heath on top of Wuthering Heights; where i woke sobbing for joy" Pg 81//
 * Chapter IX Volume I:**

Catherine tells Nelly of her dream when she is in heaven and though she is in heaven Catherine longs to be in Wuthering Heights. Nelly being superstition refuses to listen to Catherine's dream, but Catherine laughs at Nelly's superstition and continues to tell her of her dream. Her dream continues with the angels angered over her constant weeping, fling her from heaven down onto the moors of Wuthering Heights and her tears turned from grief to those of joy (as she is pleased that she is back home). This dream is foreshadowing her death and shows that she believes that only in death can she truly become free. This shows the connection with nature, Catherine longs for nature when longing for the moors.

//"I couldn't lie there; for the moment i closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she did as a child..."//
 * Chapter XV Volume II:**

Heathcliff constantly feels Catherine's presence, convinced she is with him always he believes that in death they will be united. Heathcliff explains that every time he closes his eyes he sees Catherine (after her death). Heathcliff dreams of him and Catherine finally being together in his death, in the depths of the earth in Catherine's resting place. Heathcliff is buried with her and their cheeks are frozen together, Heathcliff believes that their bodies will dissolve together. This is symbolic of their union in death as their bodies dissolve together. Often dreams allow for the reader to see the manifestations of each characters inner most desires.

//"But the country folks, if you asked them, would swear on their Bible that he walks. There are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house. Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I. Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on 'em looking out of his chamber window, on every rainy night since his death." Pg 336 //
 * Chapter XX Volume II:**

Nelly believes that people have seen the spirits of Heathcliff and Catherine together after Heathcliff passed away. Nelly has seen for herself Catherine and Heathcliff's spirits together on the moors of Wuthering Heights. These visions show that Heathcliff and Catherine could only be togehter in death due to the contrainsts placed on them in life.