Social discrimination in Wuthering Heights

Abstract

This thesis analyses the representation Social discrimination In Wuthering Heights. Emily Brontë, the novel's protagonist, lived in the Victorian era. A rigid class hierarchy was set with societal expectations during those periods that people with a higher social status should not be concerned with those with a lower standing. The book published at the end of the Second Industrial Revolution, illustrates the shifting shape of society, produced for the rich by new business opportunities and deteriorating working conditions for the poor. This hierarchy is seen by the characters in this novel: Lintons are the most elite, Earnshaws is the middle class, Heathchliff begins at a similar standing to Nelly as a lower class orphan, then Joseph and Zillah at the bottom. Social class plays an important role in forming the Wuthering Heights plot. The social status of Heathcliff and that of the other characters have a profound impact on their destiny. Catherine did not want him as her husband because like the Lintons, he did not belong to the elite social class. He lived with his family, at the mercy of his father and brother. So he is a classless orphan before he grows wealthy. He was born an orphan and there was no social identity or class for orphans. Catherine's father brought him from Liverpool, a poor orphan whom he was unable to abandon in the streets alone and powerless. When Heathcliff leaves and returns wealthier, however, his class and his aura have changed with it.