TheDifferentLovebetweenTwoGenerationsinWutheringHeights
Introduction
Emily Bronte is considered as one of the greatest female writers in the history of English Literature .The long novel Wuthering Heights is her masterpiece and shows her unique opinions of love and marriage . In this novel , the hero is Heathcliff , and the heroine is Catherine . Through them , “ Emily ranges human passions against social conventions with extraordinary violence , while at the same time retaining a cool artistic control .” (王佩兰，马茜，黄际英，2002: 368)
In terms of the plot of this novel , the writer narrates a story about love , hate and revenge. Originally , Heathcliff and Catherine loved each other . Because of her vanity , Catherine married Edgar who was a rich and handsome gentleman . Then Heathcliff converted his love into hate and revenged the persons who related to Catherine . The love between Heathcliff and Catherine makes people understand them gradually instead of thinking that they were crazy . The mistake, which Catherine chose her marriage , is the masterstroke of the novel . Her mistake influenced the fate of the two generations . In the novel , there are two triangle patterns in two generations------one pattern includes Catherine , Heathcliff and Edgar ; the other includes little Cathy, Hareton and little Linton . Emily used the two patterns to narrate the love story between a woman and two men . Though little Cathy was Catherine’s daughter , they lived in different periods and their characteristics were completely different . Both of them played more important roles in their own triangle pattern and inpenetrated the development of the whole plot . Their opinions and choices in the road of love reflected different love of the two generations . Just the different love , the results they got were also different .
ChapterⅠ Sensibility vs. Sense
Anyone , who reads Wuthering Heights ,will be moved by the holy love and deep emotions between the hero and the heroine . Heathcliff was brought up by Mr. Earnshaw . Catherine and he loved each other when they were very young . Later, she met Edgar in Thurshcross Grange by accident and lived there for a short time . She felt the obvious difference between Edgar and Heathcliff . One was a handsome , young , lively , rich and decent gentleman , while the other was an ill-mannered , ill-tempered , stubborn and poor villager . When Edgar asked Catherine to marry him, she in fact had the answer in her mind . If she married Edgar , she would become the greatest woman in the neighbourhood . If she married Heathcliff , her identity would be degraded and she would always live a poor life . When she considered whether she married Edgar or not, there were some dialogues between Catherine and her servant Nelly:
“Why do you love him , Miss Cathy?”
“Nonsense, I do—that’s sufficient.”
“By no means; you must say why?”
“Well, he is handsome, and pleasant to be with.”
“Bad!” was my commentary.
“And because he