论文总字数：33959字

摘 要

艾米丽.勃朗特（1818-1849），著名的英国女性小说家勃朗特姐妹中的一个， 其代表作是闻名遐迩的呼啸山庄，著于1847年。在经受无数身体与心理的悲惨折磨与遭遇后， 1847年艾米丽最终决定用文字表述心中的郁闷与悲伤。然而，事与愿违，她的这部小说一直未被发表直到她长辞于世。

十八世纪中后期，哥特小说盛极一时，艾米丽勃朗特的呼啸山庄就诞生在这一时期。呼啸山庄为我们讲述了一个关于爱情和复仇的故事，一直被视为是英国文学的瑰宝。同时，小说中哥特式元素的运用更是使文章情节生动。作品中用来烘托恐怖与神秘的主题、刻画阴森怪诞的环境、塑造人物形象、构造情节的正是这种哥特式艺术手法，为小说增添了无穷魅力。

本文拟从主题、环境刻画、人物形象塑造、情节构造、叙述方法等方面对呼啸山庄中哥特式艺术手法进行探讨，以更好地领略这部小说无尽的魅力。文章分为五大部分，首先，简略介绍艾米丽.勃朗特及其代表作品《呼啸山庄》；其次，文献综述，详细分析及论述不同时期不同作家在《呼啸山庄》赏析方面的优点与不足及自己的研究思路；再次，详细阐述哥特式艺术手法在《呼啸山庄》中的具体体现，首先简单介绍一下何为哥特式艺术手法及作者使用此手法的原因，之后将从哥特式主题、环境、人物、情节详细阐述；最后，针对哥特式艺术手法在此小说中的积极作用及达到的效果加以描述；同时，围绕这部作品及其鲜明艺术手法我将谈谈自己的看法，最后对所有内容做概述总结。总之，通过寓哥特式手法于呼啸山庄中，恐怖神秘的氛围应运而生，夺人眼球，发人深省，此种特殊的艺术手法值得我们学习应用。

关键词：呼啸山庄 哥特式艺术手法 艾米丽.勃朗特

1. Introduction

1.1 A brief introduction to Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte(1818-1849), a well-known female English novelist and one of the famed Bronte sisters, was known for her novel Wuthering Heights written in 1847. She was also a world-renowned poet. Emily Bronte was born in 1818, a poor curate family in the little village of Haworth, Yorkshire, in northern England. When she was three years old, her mother died. Three years later, Emily went to a boarding school run by charity, the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge, where the students were always hungry, cold, tired, and often ill. Therefore, after several months, she was brought home to be taught by her father. It was at that time that made her literary oddities flourished. In 1938, she worked as governess in a rich family, leaving six months later because of homesickness. Later she, together with her sister, wanted to establish a private school in Brussels but they had no pupils.

After innumerable adversity, she eventually undertook the novel Wuthering Heights in 1847. However, this novel was not published until Emily Bronte died. Emily Bronte, a talented English female writer, is prolific in poem. Wuthering Heights is her first and only published novel.

Wuthering Heights was written from October 1845 to June 1846 and published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell; The decision to publish Wuthering Heights came after the success of her sister Charlotte’s novel, Jane Eyre. After Emily’s death, Charlotte edited the manuscript of Wuthering Heights, and arranged for the edited version to be published as a posthumous second edition in 1850. Although Wuthering Heights is now widely regarded as a classic of English literature, it received mixed reviews when first published, and was considered controversial because its depiction of mental and physical cruelty was unusually stark, and it challenged strict Victorian ideals of the day, including religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality.

Wuthering Heights told us a story about love and revenge: the abandoned boy Heathcliff was adopted by Mr Earnshaw and lived with Mr Earnshaw’s son Hindley and daughter

Catherine. Hindley disliked Heathcliff. He insulted and maltreated Heathcliff in every possible way after Mr Earnshaw’s death. At the same time, Heathcliff and Catherine fell in love with each other day by day. Unexpectedly, due to vanity and ignorance, Catherine chose to marry Linton. Under great sorrow, Heathcliff left with anger. Three years later, Catherine died, but Heathcliff returned to revenge. He succeeded in annexing all the property of Hindley’s and Linton’s. However, Catherine’s ghost pestered him all the time, and eventually he died in mental disorder.

1.2 Need for the study

Generally speaking, authors of Gothic novels often set their stories in a gloomy castle replete with dungeons, subterranean passages, and sliding panels, and made plentiful use of ghosts, mysterious disappearances, and other sensational and supernatural occurrences; their principal aim was to evoke chilling terror by exploiting mystery, cruelty and a variety of horrors. In Wuthering Heights, the classic gothic novel, many Gothic features were exploited to elaborate the novel, such as religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality, which challenges strict Victorian ideals. Taking these causes into consideration, we are able to understand why it was unpopular when first published. However, it was its difference from other works that made this novel attractive and popular later. As a undergraduate of English major, we might not be familiar with Gothic features, let alone made the best of it in our compositions. Therefore, it was imperative for me to make a detailed explain of Gothic features so that we could understand its definition, its functions and could use this writing technique in our paper.

My thesis consists of five parts. In the first part, the general introduction of the author Emily Bronte and her representative novel Wuthering Heights. Next, literature review will be followed in part two. Various ideas and works of writers for Wuthering Heights will be discussed. At the same time, I will also show my thesis layout for you. Then, Gothic features in Wuthering Heights will be analyzed. First of all, the definition of Gothic features and reasons for Bronte’s adopting Gothic features will be expounded. Furthermore, an analysis of Gothic features in Wuthering Heights will be made from four aspects. At the same time, I will present the positive function of Gothic features. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn so as to summarize the thesis.

2.Literature Review

Wuthering Heights receives a high evaluation and captures a great attention throughout the whole world. However, it received both praise and criticism when first published. Although it was criticized at that time for it challenged strict Victorian ideals of the day, including religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes and gender inequality, recently it has attracted interests of many scholars both home and abroad. Plenty of academic monographs, periodical and academic dissertation sprang up one after another. Chinese scholar, Fang Ping, said that Wuthering Heights, an ingenious work, is so classic that it can be compared to the great plays by Shakespeare. Besides, there are some scholars focusing on the relations between Emily’s unique life experience and her works. For example, Wang Guoqing’s(1988) “Make an analyze of Wuthering Heights from Emily’s biography” explores the association between Emily’s lifetime and the creation of her novel Wuthering Heights on the basis of the Biography of Emily Bronte. In the 1990s, some theses with new writing perspectives emerged. Some scholars paid their attention to psychology. At the same time, some scholars, with a view to ecology, excavated the traditional ecological knowledge embodied in the novel. For instance, Ji Ping’s (2006)“ Harmony and Conflict: Discussion On the Nature and Civilization in Wuthering Heights.

Nowadays, there are a great many essays on Gothic features adopted in this novel. Such as, “the discussion of Gothic Features in Wuthering Heights” written by Dong Jing and He Qiong(1990); Li Lingling’s “A Gothic Study of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights”(2008);Li Lingling’s “A Gothic Study of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights”(2008); etc.

In “the discussion of Gothic Features in Wuthering Heights” written by Dong Jing and He Qiong(1990), they point out that under the influence of Gothic novel in the late 18 century, Emily elaborated her masterpiece Wuthering Heights in the manner of Gothic styles. In this thesis, author explores the Gothic features in Wuthering Heights from the Gothic theme, plots, characters and setting. Although the thesis is comprehensive in arguments, it is inadequate in detailed discussion.

In Li Lingling’s “A Gothic Study of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights”(2008), except for the environment and character, the author chooses to analyze the Gothic features from

supernatural perspective. The author points out the description of Catherine’s ghost appearing to Mr Lockwood, the grave digging, the sigh and breath by the ghost, the desire to be buried in the same tomb, all these details send cold shivers down the readers spine, which is the indication of supernatural images.

Chinese scholar He Qiong(2009) also analyzes the Gothic features in this novel. However, he adds one new perspective to his paper. The application of Gothic narrative perspective and Gothic narrative sequence makes the thesis unique and worth-reading. In accordance with his idea, in order to render a mysterious and terrible atmosphere, Emily tried to be distinct from traditional omniscient perspective in Victoria age and chose multiple narrative perspectives, in which she told us the story by the secondary character of the novel. Due to the limitation of narrator’s specific perspective, some important information is delayed, a suspense being set to attract the readers. What’s more, he attaches great importance to the Gothic narrative sequence, which is also a novelty of his paper on the analyzing Gothic features in the Wuthering Heights. He states briefly that Emily abandoned traditional narrative order in chronology or flashback. On the contrary she intended to use time series of Gothic perversion. The narrative order, namely, “present-past-present-future”, ingeniously mixes the reality and memory. It is rightly this narrative order that constructs an artistic effect featuring mystery, nerve, terror, which makes the Gothic themes of love and revenge stand out. This Gothic narrative perspective and Gothic narrative sequence cannot be denied a light spot of this classic Gothic novel.

Chen Yun(2013), a graduate of Suzhou University, he respectively introduces the inheritance and transcendence of Wuthering Heights on the basis of traditional Gothic novels. When it comes to the inheritance, his thesis is not distinct from other writers, introducing the Gothic elements from character images, environment, strange and bloodcurdling plots, supernatural scene setting, and gothic themes. As for the transcendence, first of all, the transcendence for the traditional Gothic element: Traditional terror derived from the direct depiction for the violent scene, while Emily chose to stir readers’ feelings by the portrait of the formidable environment on the wasteland and by description of abnormal dream and ghost. What’s more, the transcendence for the traditional themes in Gothic novels: although this novel also refers to love and revenge, the author depicted more vividly than previous novel. At the same time, different from the traditional Gothic novel, in the depiction of the mystery and terror, Emily Bronte put

into use a great many symbolic images, which gives the novel modern color that was in-existent at that age. Last but not the least, this paper also surmounts the previous theses with reference to the unique female Gothic perspective. Although the main character is heathcliff, his story is drawn forth by the woman-Catherine. This distinct female Gothic perspective enriches the charm of this paper.

As a classic Gothic novel, Wuthering Heights is filled with Gothic features via themes, characters, settings and plots, etc. Gothic features is the key to the absolutely understanding of this novel. In spite of the fact that previous studies about Wuthering Heights is plentiful, few scholars pay attention to analyzing the Gothic features in Wuthering Heights in a more complete and detailed way. For example, Li Lingling’s “A Gothic Study of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights”(2008) analyses the Gothic elements in Wuthering Heights only from Gothic character and Gothic setting. Chinese scholar He Qiong(2009) analyzes the Gothic features in this novel. However, he is mainly centered on Gothic narrative perspective and Gothic narrative sequence. These theses about Gothic features in Wuthering Heights are excellent. Taking these factors into consideration, although my paper also concentrates on the Gothic features, it will be elaborated in a quite different way. Except for the characters and environment, Gothic themes, setting and plots will be dug. Furthermore, the reasons why Emily Bronte wrote this novel in Gothic style also will be explained.

My thesis consists of five parts. In the first part, the general introduction of the author Emily Bronte and her representative novel Wuthering Heights. Next, literature review will be followed in part two. Various ideas and works of writers for Wuthering Heights will be discussed. At the same time, I will also show my thesis layout for you. Then, Gothic features in Wuthering Heights will be analyzed. First of all, the definition of Gothic features and reasons for Bronte’s adopting Gothic features will be expounded. Furthermore, an analysis of Gothic features in Wuthering Heights will be made from four aspects. At the same time, I will present the positive function of Gothic features. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn so as to summarize the thesis.

3.Gothic Features in Wuthering Heights

3.1 Gothic features

As the most outstanding technique of Wuthering Heights, having a good knowledge of Gothic features will help us comprehend this novel in a better way. Therefore, this chapter will introduce in detail the definition of Gothic features and reasons for Bronte’s adopting Gothic features.

3.1.1 Definition of Gothic features

Gothic features is typically reflected in Gothic novels. Gothic novel, which is largely dominated by the sub-genre of Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines fiction, horror and Romanticism. Its origin is attributed to British politician and writer Horace Walpole, with his novel The Castle of Otranto(1764), subtitled “ A Gothic Story.” As the scholar Chen Jianhua(2011) said,Gothic novel is known for the atmosphere featuring mystery and terror. It mainly depicts the story about love and revenge. With the background of old castles, moor or nunnery, Gothic novel usually depicts murder, violence, revenge etc, together with ghosts, or supernatural phenomena, its plots horrible and its phenomena mysterious. The definite elements of Gothic features are terror, mystery, illusory and suspense.

3.1.2 Reasons for Bronte’s adopting Gothic features

Wuthering Heights is considered as the classic one of Gothic novels because of its three typical features, namely, terror, mystery, supernatural. When it came to the reasons why Emily Bronte elaborated Wuthering Heights in Gothic features, it was Emily Bronte’s special growing experience that made her develop this novel in Gothic features. As we all know, Emily Bronte was born in a poor curate family. Her mother died when she was young. Lack of love during her childhood and suffered from hunger and disease made her self-abased, gloomy and depressed. What was more, her house was located in remote mountainous areas. Therefore, at her young age, the endless swamp and desolate wilderness were the only place she could play. As a result, she exploited Wuthering Heights, in such a gloomy and terrible way.

3.2 Gothic features in Wuthering Heights

Gothic novels were popular at the age of Victoria, and most of them were regarded as

terrible literature and magic novels. The contents of this sort of novels are mainly death, supernatural, inference, murder and ghost etc. As a classic Gothic novel, Wuthering Heights is filled with Gothic features via themes, characters, settings and plots, etc. Therefore, Gothic features is the key to the absolutely understanding of this novel. To analyze Gothic features in Wuthering Heights in detail enables us to have a comprehensive and complete understanding of the social backgrounds at that time and have a better comprehension for this novel.

3.2.1 Gothic themes

The themes of Wuthering Heights are love and revenge. The abandoned boy Heathcliff was adopted by Mr Earnshaw and lived with Mr Earnshaw’s son Hindley and daughter Catherine. Hindley disliked Heathcliff, regarding him as a vulgar and poor orphan while his younger sister Catherine fell in love with Heathcliff day after day. Hindley insulted and maltreated Heathcliff in every possible way after Mr Earnshaw’s death. At the same time, he also prevented Catherine meeting Heathcliff. During that time, a brilliant and wealthy young man, Linton, whose family possessed Thrushcross Grange also lost his heart to Catherine. Unexpectedly, due to vanity and ignorance, Catherine chose to marry Linton so that she could help Heathcliff get rid of the maltreatment of Hindley. Under great sorrow, Heathcliff left with anger. The long time maltreatment of Hindley gradually distorted Heathcliff’s character and also aroused his revenge on Hindley. Catherine’s betrayal even added insult to injury. All these stirred up his thought of revenge.

Three years later, in order to revenge on two family, Heathcliff came back. Tormented by his deep love for Catherine, by his sense of Catherine’s betrayal for their love and by his hatred for Hindley’s maltreatment and Linton, Heathcliff devoted himself to a perfect revenge plan. In order to revenge, he encouraged and allured Hindley to drink alcohols and gamble so that Hindley lost all of his property ; In order to revenge, he turned Hindley’s son into an ignorant and vulgar person; In order to avenge, he forced little Cathy to marry his son and succeeded in annexing all the property of Hindley’s and Linton’s; However, Catherine’s ghost pestered him all the time, and eventually he died in mental disorder.

Heathcliff loved Catherine , but he could not marry her because of poverty, lack of education and the prevention of Hindley, which sparked off his rage and revenge on Hindley

and Linton. Love interwove hatred and revenge. The novel is filled with Gothic elements, such as darkness, terror, anger and revenge. Two themes were described incisively and vividly in a Gothic style by the author in this novel, which renders the special miserable atmosphere of Wuthering Heights.

3.2.2 Gothic settings

The Gothic story usually happened in wilderness, ruins, castle or or residence and the scene of this kind of story are often gloomy and terrible. When depicting the setting in Wuthering Heights, the author used Gothic features. Wuthering Heights was located in the wilderness of Yorkshire, where there were a lot of gorse and rocks. There was the year-round raging winds, powerful and sharp storm, rain and snow blowing day and night. In the beginning, this novel had shown us the typical Gothic weather. At the beginning of the novel, the environment of Wuthering Heights is brimming with strange atmosphere under the description of Emily Bronte. Trees stand on either side of road, having Peculiar shape and malformed posture. All these are presented in a anthropopathic manner rendering a kind of disconcerting atmosphere of Wuthering Heights.

This typical Gothic weather was reflected throughout the whole novel. For example, Lockwood went to Wuthering Heights at his first time: “It stood on the top of a hill. Around the house was a circle of short, dark trees. The house was long and low and made of gray stone, It has narrow windows in the wall. The ground was hard because of the winter frost. The air was cold as I walked towards the house. I arrived at the gate of the house garden. It was beginning to snow, and the snowflakes were blinding my eyes.” [3] Lockwood lived in Wuthering Heights: “There, I saw a sad sight. The dark night was coming early. The sky and hills could not be seen, in the great storm of snow.”[13] “I was lying in bed, listening to the howling wind and the driving of the snow. I heard also the noises of a tree branch, that touched my window as the wind came by. The branch trapped against the window.”[18] When Catherine was buried, lightning flashed and thunder rumbles; At that night, when heathcliff died, the rain poured down from the sky in torrents; besides, it was as dark as pitch. Enveloped by this atmosphere, the whole villa seemed gloomy, mysterious and horrible. By the description of Gothic weather, building and settings, the intense Gothic and terrible atmosphere pervaded in the novel, which uncovered the desolation, terror and mystery of Wuthering Heights.

3.2.3 Gothic characters

Another aspect of Wuthering Heights’s Gothic features is found in the character of the novel. Main characters in Gothic works are usually vicious, abnormal and maniac. Heathcliff is a typical representative instance of Gothic character. He is so barbaric in behavior, impertinent in manner, vulgar in education and merciless in nature. When Lockwood saw Heathcliff at his first time, “he seemed a gloomy and silent as gravestones in the churchyard at the foot of the hill. The features of his face were cruel-looking. His skin was as dark as a savage’s.”

All behaviors and words of Heathcliff were filled with Gothic features. The excessive revenge in his abnormal and extreme character eventually destroyed two families and even directly led to the death of his beloved Catherine. His wild nature and individuality was similar to the atmosphere of the wasteland. However, no one could deny that, Heathcliff’s abnormal and evil deposition was the result of social oppression rather than inherent nature. Wicked social environment, Hindley’s maltreatment and Catherine’s betrayal distorted Heathcliff so that he safeguarded himself with desire, greed and revenge.

As a typical role filled with Gothic elements, Heathcliff is a man with extreme temperament, which directly destroys the collapse of the Earnshaws and the Linton and indirectly leads to the death of his beloved Catherine. The author shows the weakness and cruelty of human beings by the depiction of Heathcliff’s revenge for the Earnshaws. Meanwhile, she also presents human being’s positive aspect for us by the description of Heathcliff’s enduring and perpetual love for Catherine.

3.2.4 Gothic plots

A further dimension in which Wuthering Heights parallels Gothic works is its plots development. Gothic novels were often terrible in plots development and had fascinating content such as violence, death, anomaly and revenge, which could be found anywhere in Wuthering Heights. For instance, when Lockwood slept in Wuthering Heights at that snowy night, he dreamed Catherine “My fingers closed on the fingers of a small, ice-cold hand. I saw a beautiful young girls pale white face looking at me through the window. The ghost looked as if it were going to float into the room that second.” Catherine’s ghost frequently appear throughout Wuthering Heights, although the way they are presented does not make it clear if they are real ghosts or simply Heathcliff’s imagination. In some places, they seem to be more realistic. The author spared no efforts to let readers believe the existence of supernatural power-ghost. Whether the ghosts are real or not,the emotional state of two lovers is realized in the shadowy figures by the consciousness of the characters themselves.

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