lesson 6- monday 4th october

Monday 4th October lesson
In this lesson we recapped on last lesson on illuminate and how we can see evidence of it in Wuthering heights (Wuthering heights and the gothic the sheet). We then moved on to the meaning of semantic fields with the help of the hand-out sheet (the semantic fields of Wuthering Heights). We learnt that semantic field as a definition was a group of words with similar meaning. We searched for evidence for this in both Wuthering Heights and Thursh Cross grange.

We found that in Wuthering Heights (chapter 1) that the semantic field fell under two themes, extreme weather “atmospheric”, “stormy weather" “north wind” and it also fell under the domestic setting theme “squealing puppies” silver jugs” “chatter of tongues” and “cluster of legs of beef”. Bronte creates a unexpected scene of domestic scene within Wuthering Heights making it more to the reader a normal household however whilst creating this theme of domestic setting she also reveals its more sinister side to the household “villainous old guns” and “horse pistols”, Bronte is grafting violence and the domestic setting with when another to show perhaps that Wuthering heights is not a place of simplicity but more a place of confusion, sinister, the unknown this again linking to one of the gothic elements of the unknown.
In Thrush Cross Grange the semantic field can be seen in Chapter 6 of Wuthering Heights. The semantic field fell under again 2 main themes, the first one being a conjured up image of a heavenly place. “beautiful-a splendid place.... crimson” “gold....... hanging in silver chains” all of these words scream to the reader that this is a place that anyone would enjoy being there however as we read on we see that was not that case as we are introduced a shocking change in the vocabulary and instead are introduced to the opposite of a heavenly place. “Screaming” “shrieking as if witches were running red-hot needles” the language betrays the second theme which is a violent imitation of hell. The children are “weeping” and bullying the dog. This is not what the reader would have expected to see at ThrushCross Grange, we expected it to be a place of joy not a place of violence. Bronte has yet again grafted on violence with the home setting but in this case i think personally she did this to create a sense of terror within the reader as we would expect the exterior of high status (ThrushCross grange) to be radiating wealth “gold” “crimson” but also we would expect interior wise for it to be a civilised place which instead Bronte chooses to the show opposite creating the gothic element of terror, that things aren’t what they seem.

Moving on we then looked at another sheet (life on the edge- opposition and fragmentation in Wuthering Heights) which explored opposition in more detail. We found that although opposition existed in the novel we realized that many of the characters fell in between the opposition e.g. Heathcliff is he evil or is he good, he falls in-between the opposition making him the obvious bionic character of the novel. By having these oppositions but then the reader witnessing it collapsing it creates a sense of unsettlement and anxiety within the reader.
We also looked at what a frequent motif in gothic novels. THE ‘DOUBLE’ OR ‘DOPPELGANGER’. The double suggesting exact repetition (twin), the doppelganger suggests the evil side to a character.

In Wuthering Heights, Bronte shows DOUBLE though Lockwood thinking him and HeathCliff as a double “Mr Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us’ however Lockwood soon notices along with the reader that Lockwood and Heathcliff are the opposite to one another. Bronte within this is showing opposition, Lockwood is sensitive, disillusioned bored with society, whereas HeathCliff is the real thing, fuelled by a burning hatred of society. The doppelganger is shown through Lockwood again in the sense that the characteristics of him show that he is a civilised calm sensitive man however this not this case when the reader see his brutal treatment of dogs “ejaculated’, ‘grasped’, ‘knocked’ are all betrayal of the language to reinforce the doppelganger lurks within Lockwood , what establishes it does lurk within Lockwood is his treatment to Catherine in chapter 3 “I pulled its wrist onto the broken pane and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes”. Lockwood expressed such vicious acts of violence that the reader was not expecting from a character like him. David Punter suggests that the gothic novel explores its themes through its structure and this is seen particularly clearly in the destabilising of conventional oppositions in this novel. We see the destabilising of convention when Catherine declares HeathCliff is more herself, by saying this she is destabilising the boundary between the self and the other.

Homework:
Wuthering heights is essentially a novel of oppositions, how far do you agree with this? Read up to chapter 11 and make summary. All of this bundle of work due in next lesson which is next Friday so we have plenty of time