Wuthering Heights Forbidden Love

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English Literature Coursework – Forbidden nature of love. The forbidden nature of love is a dominant aspect of both Bronte’s gothic novel ‘wuthering Heights’ and Austen’s ‘Northanger Abbey’ Bronte presents the forbidden nature of love through Cathy and Heathcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights’ and Austen uses Isabella and Captain Tilney to present the theme in ‘Northanger Abbey’. Bronte’s novel received a poor reception when first published because the Victorian audiences found the challenge of the traditional view of relationships within the novel shocking and inappropriate due to concepts such as overpowering passion and ungoverned love. As marrying for love was a luxury in the Victorian era. However for both Bronte and Austen, relationships were unconventional for their time, as neither of the women married. Austen’s novel was much more widely accepted, as the heroine does not condone the inappropriate relationship that begins to form between Isabella and Captain Tilney. “His behaviour was so incompatible with a knowledge of Isabella’s engagement” Austen is satirical and ironic Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship becomes strained and unobtainable because of the pressures society imposes on Cathy to marry for status and weath. Their family and society forbid Cathy and Heathcliff’s love throughout the novel. Critic Suzanne Birkett suggest ‘She later marries Edgar and comes to feel that she is imprisoned by society’s rules.’ As although Cathy has made a wise choice in marrying Edgar because ‘He will be rich’, her forbidden love for Heathcliff still hinders her when Heathcliff once again returns in chapter ten. “There’s no need to be frantic” Edgar “crossly” tells Cathy to calm down after she finds Heathcliff has returned. Suzanne Birkett also suggests that ‘Heathcliff feels excluded from the culture’ Northanger Abbey Isabella and Captain Tilney’s
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