A Marxist Reading of Emily Bronte's

Wuthering Heights
 Karl Marx believed that human history consists of a series of struggles

between classes; between the oppressed and the oppressing. According to

Marxists, literature reflects those social institutions out of which it emerges

and its ideologies. So, Marxists generally view literature "not as works

created in accordance with timeless artistic criteria, but as 'products' of the

economic and ideological determinants specific to that era" (Abrams 149).

Literature reflects an author's own class or analysis of class relations,

however shallow that analysis may be. Marxist approach relates literary

text to the society, to the history and cultural and political systems in which

it is created. It does not consider a literary text devoid of its writer and the

influences on the writer. A writer is a product of his own age which is itself

a product of many ages.

The Marxist critic simply is a careful reader or viewer who keeps in

mind issues of power and money, and the role that class plays in the work

as well as the author's analysis of class relations. It is also occupied with

how characters overcome oppression. In a Marxist approach to literature,

the following factors need to be discussed; if there is a class history and

class struggle in a literary text and that struggle means there is a domination

and oppression. And in that, someone has to win and someone has to

defeat. It belongs to a particular society and culture.

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 Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë's only novel, was published in

1847. It was written between October 1845 and June 1846. Wuthering

Heights contains elements of gothic fiction and it is tempting to picture it

in all the glory of a gothic romance, rather than in the context of social and

economic forces. Even so, such a view of the novel actually helps to

expand our understanding of it, and specifically, of characters’ motivations

throughout the novel.

Wuthering Heights is a novel that tells the story of two generations

of a family. Heathcliff, as a boy, comes into the Earnshaw family and

becomes the brother of Catherine and Hindley. Earnshaw, the man who

adopted Heathcliff, is very nice to him. On the other hand, Hindley is mean

to Heathcliff; as he sees him inferior to them. The three kids start to grow

up, and almost instantly Heathcliff, and Catherine become inseparable.

When Earnshaw dies, Hindley became the new owner of Wuthering

Heights.

Hindley mistreats Heathcliff and abuses him. Although Heathcliff

is reduced to the status of a servant, he and Catherine remain close, but

Catherine begins to be interested in an Edgar Linton who lived next to

them. Catherine eventually decides to marry Edgar, not because of love,

but for his social status. She decides to marry Edgar for his social

standards. Indeed, he is handsome, young and cheerful. But she informs

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Nelly, the house keeper, of her deep attachment to Heathcliff, saying

“Nelly, he is more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his

and mine are the same one.” (Bronte; 1992: 97) But Heathcliff who loves

Catherine more than anything in his life overhears Catherine saying to

Nelly “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now.” (Bronte; 1992: 98)

Catherine, in other words, states that she would have decided to marry

Heathcliff if he was more civilized and had a better social status.

After Catherine marries Linton, Heathcliff decides to runaway. Later

in the novel he returns, rich and educated, and sets about gaining his

revenge on the two families that he believed ruined his life.

The novel was published during a major new turn of the century

industrialist movement. Many new values were introduced into British

culture including regentrification of the poor and to challenge the

traditional criteria of breeding. This social-economic reality provides the

context for Marxist readings of the novel, including both social class

struggles and rejection of working class mentality. The novel opens in

1801, a date Brontë chose in order "to fix its happenings at a time when the

old rough farming culture, based on a naturally patriarchal family life, was

to be challenged, tamed and routed by social and cultural changes; these

changes produced Victorian class consciousness and ‘unnatural' ideal of

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gentility." 1 In 1801 the Industrial Revolution was under way in England;

when Emily Brontë was writing in 1847, it was a dominant force in English

economy and society, and the traditional relationship of social classes was

being interrupted by the aspire of middle classes to be more sophisticated.

The obvious criticism in Wuthering Heights that a Marxist would

have, would be towards the social class struggle apparent in the novel. As

Marxists believe in no social hierarchy, the general belief would be that the

chaos in the story was purely due to the fact that there was a social class

distinction between characters such as Hindley and Francis towards

Heathcliff and Catherine's choice of Edgar instead of Heathcliff. Therefore,

the basic conflict and motive force of the novel are social in origin.

Heathcliff, the outsider, has no social or biological place in the

existing social structure; he cannot offer Catherine a socially-stable

relationship, on the contrary, he offers her an escape from the conventional

restrictions and material comforts of the upper classes, represented by the

genteel Lintons.

At the end of the novel, Heathcliff, the adult, becomes a capitalist

and cruel and is continuously connected with awful feelings, actions and

images. He turns the ruling class's weapons of property accumulation and

1
http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/novel_19c/wuthering/economic.html

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acquisitive marriage against them. In adopting the behavior of the abusing

middle classes, Heathcliff works in common with the capitalist landowner

Edgar Linton to suppress the lower class. Heathcliff persistently pursues

his goal of possessing Catherine, an obsession that is unaffected by social

realities. Heathcliff’s motivation throughout Wuthering Heights is

obsession with taking revenge on his old enemies, Edgar Linton and

Hindley Earnshaw, as well as their children. Marxist theory provides a

perspective on the way in which he goes about seeking his revenge: social

and economic hegemony. Heathcliff’s method of taking revenge on his

enemies is to degrade them socially and dominate them economically.

In conclusion, Wuthering Heights informs the reader about the

principal theme of social structures and power struggles in a small

community. Most characters break through the unyielding social structures

of the nineteenth century. Their desire for power and respect in their

community drive the characters to change their station and practically

every character in the novel changes their social status in either a negative

or positive way. Wuthering Heights shows the effects of power and how

power affects social classes.

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 Works Cited

 Abrams, M.H. "Marxist Criticism." A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th

ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999. 147-153.
 Birmingham, Meredith. "Marxism and Bronte: Revenge as Ideology." 2006.
Retrieved from: http://www.brontefamily.org/Marxism%20and%20Bronte.pdf

 Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. 1847. New York. 1992.

 Panda, Aditya Kumar. "Marxist Approach to Literature: An

Introduction." Journal of Teaching and Research in English
Literature JTREL. VI.3. (2015): 1-5. Web. Web. 28 March. 2019.