Gender Roles In Wuthering Heights Essay Example

Although there are still many inequities between men's and women’s roles in society, there is a lot more equality than there was in the past. Gender roles have been around for a long time. There are stereotypes attached to each gender that still have not been shaken. Women are still usually expected to be “emotional,” while men are supposed to “hide their feelings in order not to appear weak.” When Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontё, was written in 1847, gender roles were a lot more defined. Women were expected to act as the men told them to. Women often did not have a choice in job opportunities, marriage decisions, making money, or a right to an education. The female characters of her novel all had a trait that went against what women were supposed to act like during the nineteenth century. When Brontё wrote her novel, she demonstrated realistic ways that women broke gender roles.

Isabella Linton's choice to leave for London to escape domestic abuse is a way of breaking the gender roles, seeing as during the time it was considered unprecedented for a woman to leave the marriage. When Nelly describes Isabella she says, “She was at that time a charming young lady of eighteen; infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated” ( Brontё 101). In the beginning, Isabella was an oblivious woman, with a temper, and did not expect the horror she would come to find when arriving at Wuthering Heights. As time passes, she learns of her husband, Heathcliff, and his abusive behavior. She asks Nelly, the servant, in a letter, “Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil?”(Brontё 136). Scared of what he might do to her and her son, she escapes to London. In an article by Judith E. Pike called "My name was Isabella Linton": Coverture, Domestic Violence, and Mrs. Heathcliff's Narrative in Wuthering Heights, Pike describes her letter as, “it both reinforces the reader’s disparaging view of the foolish and pampered Isabella as well as foreshadows her later defiance”(8). Her transformation from a “ladylike” figure to a woman who makes the difficult decision to leave, breaks the gender roles by defying the idea that a woman has to be fastened to a marriage.

Catherine (Cathy) Earnshaw’s personality before and after she was forced into “proper” womanhood conveys the struggle of being able to not conform to gender roles. Before Cathy decided to accept Mrs. Linton’s request of helping her transform herself into a “proper lady,” Nelly described her as “too mischievous and wayward”(Brontё 38). In a way, her personality can be seen as a masculine personality trait during this era. Therefore, she is breaking the gender role of having the “expected” characteristics of a woman during this time period. When she returns from the Linton household, she seemed to be stripped of her original personality completely. In “Andrea Dworkin and the Social Construction of Gender: A Retrospective.” Judith Grant states that “ Catherine becomes a “shadow of herself” (i.e., a masochistic, feminine-ized woman)” (7). The term femininity during this time period was for characteristics that men seemed were befit for women. Grant also states in her report that during the nineteenth century, “femininity [is] a betrayal of honor and human wholeness” (7). This describes Cathy accurately, seeing that as her personality became more “feminine,” she became more unhinged. Brontё uses Cathy as a character, who as a child, goes against the feminine characteristics that were expected of women but ultimately conforms due to the pressures of what is said to be expected.

Later in the novel, Brontё uses Catherine Linton as another female character to break the gender roles by being more educated than the men surrounding her. In “TWO GOTHIC FEMINIST TEXTS: EMILY BRONTË’S ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ AND THE FILM, ‘THE PIANO’, BY JANE CAMPION.”  by Carmen Pérez Riu, it states that, “ In Wuthering Heights the withdrawal of the opportunity to become educated is presented as one of the most cruel forms of oppression” (7). The fact that Catherine had an opportunity, as a woman, to know how to read, was very lucky. It is not common for women to have a comprehensive education during the time the novel was written. She was often seen in Wuthering Heights, “ensconcing herself in a chair, with a candle, and the long book open before her” ( Brontё 16). When she was a younger child, she used to make fun of Hareton for not having the ability to read. Over time, she learns to pity his lack of education and offers to teach him. In the article, Riu also said that Brontё used Catherine and Hareton’s relationship because “her teaching does away with the barriers”(7). The fact that Catherine has more of an education than the other children of the younger generation makes way for a brighter future for both Thrushcrross Grange and Wuthering Heights. It is due to the fact that Catherine and Hareton got along because of reading that the plot of the novel was able to have a welcoming end. Catherine Linton breaks the gender roles by being a woman who is more educated than a man. 

Emily Brontё uses her female characters as a way to prove to her readers, during the nineteenth century, that gender roles can be broken and women should not be upheld by the “rules” that have been placed by men.