《呼啸山庄》中象征意义的解读

《呼啸山庄》中象征意义的解读

An Interpretation of the Symbolic Meanings in Wuthering Heights

Abstract: Emily Bronte (1818-1848) is considered as one of the most important women writers in the English literature history. The closeness to nature and her

extensively reading made the uniqueness of her works Wuthering Heights. The

application of symbolism endows the novel with special charming. Emily uses

the complex narration, Gothic elements combining with lots of images with

symbolic meanings to displaying the inner world of the characters and

highlights the theme. The writer uses symbols extensively in the process of

creating the novel, endowing the characters, places and scenes with special

symbolic meaning. At the same time, Symbolism helps the author portray the

characters’ personalities and convey the characters’ complicated psychological

activities, furthermore enriches the ideological content of the works, leaving

the reader the infinite imagination and contemplation of meaning of life. The

application of symbolism in Wuthering Heights fully reflects people’s

uncontrollable desire to pursue freedom and happiness as well as the author’s

view on beauty, humanity and love. This article works around the analysis of

the symbolic meaning of the domestic images and the nature images to

interpret the significance of this classic works.

Key words:Wuthering Heights；symbolism；domestic images；nature images

摘要：艾米莉·勃朗特被认为是英国文坛最重要的女性作家之一。艾米莉从小的生活环境和广泛的阅读赋予她对生活与众不同的观察视角和独到的见解。象征手法是使《呼啸山庄》具有独特魅力的艺术手法之一。艾米莉采用浪漫主义的想象、象征寓意和独特的叙事技巧、哥特式元素和大量的具有象征含义的意象来烘托人物的内心世界从而深化主题。在其代表作《呼啸山庄》中，艾米莉赋予了各种意象丰富的内涵。作家在其创作过程中广泛运用了象征的创作手法，从而使得小说中的人物、场所及大自然中的其它景物都带上了特殊的象征意义，使故事情节充满神秘色彩。同时，象征手法的运用反过来帮助作者塑造人物性格、展现人物内心活动，丰富作品的思想内涵，增加了小说的艺术魅力，给读者留下了无限的想象和对人生的思索。作品通过象征手法，充分反应了人们对幸福生活和自由的向往和追求以及作者对美、人性和爱情的看法。本文主要通过对作品中生活中的事物和自然中的事物的象征意义的分析来赏析《呼啸山庄》这部经典著作。

关键词：《呼啸山庄》；象征手法；日常事物；自然事物

Contents

I. An Introduction to Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights (1)

A. A brief account of Emily’s life (1)

B. A brief introduction to Wuthering Heights (2)

II. An Introduction to Symbolism and Its Influence on Literature (3)

A. Origin and the features of symbolism (3)

B. Application of symbolism in other literary works (3)

III. The Application of Symbolism in Wuthering Heights (5)

A. Critics on the use of symbolism in Wuthering Heights (5)

B. The interpretation of the symbolic meanings in Wuthering Heights (5)

1. Symbolic meanings in the domestic things (5)

2. Symbolic meanings in nature (8)

IV. Significance of the Application of Symbolism in Wuthering Heights (10)

A. Displaying the characters’ personalities and revealing the deep psychological

activities (10)

B. Deepening the theme and promoting the development of the story (11)

V. Conclusion (12)

Works Cited (14)

I. An Introduction to Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights

A. A brief account of Emily’s life

Emily Jane Bronte was born at Thorton, Yorkshire on July 30, 1818. She was the fifth of the six children. Her father was appointed as a clergyman to live in Haworth when she was less than two years old. A year later, Mrs. Bronte died, and a maternal aunt came to look after the infants. At her five, she and her sister were sent to the boarding school at Cowan Bridge. But because of the bad condition in the school, their father took them home. The six little Brontes played in a tiny room overlooking the graveyard. They were exceptionally quiet, but Emily had a quick temper like a boy. The most favorite thing for her is roaming around the moors. The children spent most of their time in reading and composition. In 1846, the three sisters published their collection of poems but unsuccessfully. A year later, her masterpiece, Wuthering Heights was published, although at that time it is not as noticeable and popular as today. In 1848, she died of tuberculosis at the age thirty.

1. The aspects influencing Emily’s uniqueness

a. Her self-consciousness

In Emily’s short life story we might notice she was distinctly different from other women of her time. Like some famous women writers, such as Elizabeth Browning, Emily Dickson and Virginia Woolf, Emily lost the maternal love early, so she learnt to get strong in mind and thus made her realized herself as an independent being early. The free life style and simple custom in the small town strengthened her ability to look inside the core of life. Frequent closeness to nature made her could freely express her strong inner emotion.

b. Reading influence

Reading greatly contributed to her writing. “Bronte sisters read many eighteenth-century novels, including the works of H. Fielding, S. Richardson, Goldsmith, W. Shakespeare and Walter Scott”(Barnard 48). But the greatest literary influence on Emily was that of the poet George Gordon Byron. The Byronic spirit, the notion of fatal, is much in evidence in Emily’s poetry and her novel. Heathcliff’s mysterious origin, revenge, rebellion, and vitality, provides a prototype of the fated Byronic hero.

Not only from the people around her, but from the widely reading of literature, did Emily eventually makes her works such a unique novel, Wuthering Heights.

B. A brief introduction to Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is considered as one of the most powerful and extraordinary books in the English literature history. It begins with Mr. Lockwood, a tenant of Heathcliff’s, visiting the home of his landlord. The scene in Wuthering Heights piques his curiosity, so back to Thrushcross Grange, he begged Nelly, a servant who grew up there and now cares for the Grange, to tell him of the story about Heathcliff, Nelly narrated the main line of Wuthering Heights.

Mr. Earnshaw, a Yorkshire farmer and owner of Wuthering Heights, brings home an orphan from Liverpool. The boy is named Heathcliff and raised with Earnshaw’s children, Hindley and Catherine. Catherine loves Heathcliff but Hindley hates him because his father likes Heathcliff more than himself. After Mr. Earnshaw’s death, Hindley does what he can to destroy Heathcliff, but Catherine and Heathcliff do not fear him at all and oblivious of anything and anyone else—until they encounter the Lintons.

Edgar Linton and Isabella live at Thrushcross Grange and are completely opposites of Heathcliff and Catherine. The hospitality of Lintons and the totally different life attract Catherine deeply. She spends more time with the Edgar and gradually forgets her old friend Heathcliff, which makes Heathcliff jealous. When Heathcliff overhears Catherine told Nelly that she could not marry him, he leaves Heights and is gone for three years. While he is gone, Catherine marries Linton. But the marriage is not happy in fact because they are from two different worlds. When Heathcliff came back to Heights again, he has already turns into a man with property and gentility. But this time he is determined to take revenge on the two families. First, he married Edgar Hareton’s sister but treat her cruelly. Second, he got the property from Hindley by tricking him into gambling. Finally, the revenge even extended to the second generations. After Catherine’s death, Heathcliff induced Cathy, the daughter of Catherine and Edgar, to marry his own weakling son Linton. Until that time, Heathcliff had already handled the properties of the two families. However, because of suffering from Catherine’s death and the psychic wound for a long time, Heathcliff died in misery and desperately. In the end of the novel, Heathcliff and Catherine are reunited in death, and Cathy and Hareton, the son of Hindley, are going to

be united in marriage.

II. An Introduction to Symbolism and Its Influence on Literature

A. Origin and features of symbolism

As naturalism originated in France in the field of novel, symbolism gradually appeared also in France among a number of rebellious poets. It began from the 1810s and ended in 1914(the beginning of the WWI). Charles Baudelaire, Paul Mallarme, Jean More and Paul Valery were the eminent symbolists at that time.

Valery thought that: “Symbolism is a kind of brand-new and grotesque spirit. It means the power of form and beauty and the authority of art… the inner activity can be stated as ‘mysticism’ in some extent. Because of its self-sufficient, symbolism contents and supports human soul” (张402). Mallarme held that: “Symbolism defied the outdated approaches of Naturalism. Different from ‘sermon’, ‘unreal feeling’, and ‘objective depiction’, symbolism stresses on the expression of thought through the transformation of it” (张403). In a word, different critics and poets have different explanation to symbols. To a certain extent, symbol making use of the specific things in the real world, such as color images or voice, plants and animals, is a means of literary creation showing the author's thoughts and emotions indirectly. “Author used symbolism, a form of imagery, to portray something unusual to the reader. It makes sentences or ideas subtle and not so obtrusive” (林186).

Because symbol is not a direct and simple description of the objectives but by means of metaphor and hints to arouse the readers' imagination, thus the symbol is often associated with uncertainty and multi-meanings. Because symbol can trigger readers with abundant imagination and has multiple meanings, thus it can give originally common things with great power, and this is the artistic charm of symbolic art.

B. Application of symbolism in other literary works

Hawthorne and Melville are masters of symbolism in American in the nineteenth century. The Scarlet Letter is Hawthorne’s undisputed masterpiece, which makes large use of revealing the powerful psychological insight into the anxiety of human soul. Author endowed lots of images with deep symbolic meanings. For example, the letter

“A” stands for “Adultery” literally, but it also means “Angel” at the same time; “L ittle Pearl” means purity, integrity and eternal love, etc. In this novel, the use of symbolism builds up the framework and launches a close link between the human relationships.

One of the striking traits of Moby Dick is Melville’s use of symbolism to express his understanding of the whole world. Ahab, the captain, is the emblem and embodiment of the pioneers engaging in the exploration of the great nature. He represents those challenging the mysterious nature fearlessly despite all the obstacles and hardship. Though confronted with many unforeseeable difficulties, Ahab never draws back or ceased his expedition. Moby Dick, however, is a complicated symbol. It is depicted as an unexplainable and powerful force of nature. It is the combination of strength and cruelty. It is the awful mystery of the universe. Melville tries to convey such a faith: in the battle between man and nature, people are inevitably confronted with such obstacles as Moby Dick, but, in the long run, man will be the final winner, but at the same time, man must follow certain principles.

Hardy tries to reveal the conflicts and harmony between man and nature as well as the conflicts among human beings themselves by the use of symbolism. The description of nature scenes in Tess of the D’Urberviles explicitly demonstrates Hardy’s superb ability to integrate his story into its natural background. Red, the color of blood, is ass ociated with Tess’s whole life in the novel. The first time Tess appears in the novel is when she danced with a red ribbon. Here the red ribbon and her pouted-up mouth suggest her innate quality—youthful, enthusiastic and vigorous. What’s more, Hardy often connects Tess with plants in nature to show her pure quality and tragic fortune. The color white usually symbolized purity and naivety. Tess is just like the white flowers in her hand, innocent and beautiful, but the life is fragile and short like the flo wers’.

In Jane Eyre, the use of fire imagery is very much related to the character and mood of the protagonists and it also serves to show Jane in a sort of intermediate position between the two men. As the novel progresses, the fire imagery becomes a representation of the emotional and moral dialectic of the characters. Rochester is very much associated with fire, with the ‘strange fire in his look’, and particularly with his ‘flaming and flashing eyes’. The fire image appears many times in the novel. It stands for a kind of strong the Romantic fire of passion that seizes Rochester and Jane.

III. The Application of Symbolism in Wuthering Heights

A. Critics on the use of symbolism in Wuthering Heights

Lots of studies have focused on the exploration of the theme, characters, writing techniques, artistic styles or the analysis of the structure of Wuthering Heights. But the successful applying of symbol is the most important feature of the work. Emily used symbol successfully to express deep philosophy with concrete things. She explains her ideas and feelings of the society, life, and happiness. Some critics lay their points of view on the use of symbolism techniques in Wuthering Heights. Virginia Woolf said: “The symbolic image reminds us of how Emily Bronte stop short of the final mystery, but also how to explore human situations and emotions right up to it” (杨159).

Symbolism in Wuthering Heights grows out of natural surroundings, actual objects and events of the story. They are intimately related to the emotions and experiences of the characters. Davies commenced like this:

Though the symbolic elements in the story almost thrust themselves on the

readers’perception, symbolism is never a single, straight-forward meaning

and not as simply organized as might first be supposed. Emily creates

symbols with complex coexisting meaning, and with meaning that varies on

different levels. (Davies 90)

Symbolism plays an important part to help explore the characters’inner deep activities. When a literary work is restudied, its deep exploration of psychological consciousness should be connected with wider connotation through symbolism. Hence the re-evaluation of Wuthering Heights will be worthwhile.

B. The interpretation of the symbolic meanings in Wuthering Heights

1. The symbolic meanings in the domestic things

a. The window

The window appears many times in Wuthering Heights. Window is a transparent thin piece of glass. But in this novel, it functions a medium that connects the inside world with outside world. At the same time, it is also a barrier between the two worlds. The first time window appears in Wuthering Heights is when Catherine and Heathcliff wander into the Thrushcross Grange. They look through the window and find little Lintons were

playing in the gracious room. “W e did despise them”(Bronte 59). Heathcliff doesn’t think they are happy because he thinks they could not get “out”. They are not free. But Catherine is attracted deeply by the scene and Lintons. With the spoiling and care of Lintons, she turns her heart to the luxurious material and begins to despise her own innocent and natural life and forgets that Heathcliff and she in fact were the ‘outsider s’ in other’s eyes. So when she rejects Heathcliff and marries Linton, she loses herself. By her marriage to Linton, she tries her best to be the ‘insider’, but she could not in fact. When she realizes the mistake she made, she even tries to find her way out of it by death. To be exact, she throws open the window to find the eternal freedom. She opens the window, shouts: “…find a way, then...you (Heathcliff) are slow...you always followed me!”(Bronte 161).

On the night after Catherine’s death, Heathcliff returns to Wuthering Heights through the window, because Hindley has barred the door against him. Here the window becomes the joint between the imagination and the reality. In imagination, Catherine scratches on the pane, looking through the transparent thin window that separates her from humanity but can not get “in” and lingers on. In reality, Heathcliff can not get “out”. When Heathcliff died, his window opens and the rain drove straight in. Here we see that by means of death and by the opening window, Catherine and Heathcliff has their wishes fulfilled, pairing off in the heaven. For both Catherine and Heathcliff, window is the door open to happiness.

The window appears everywhere. It reveals the barrier between primitive and civilization, nature and society, as well as human and ghost. Emily uses the window to emphasize her theme--- to surpass the barrier and restore the human nature. At the end of the novel, the task of the window has fulfilled. The barrier has been cleared off. Catherine and Heathcliff get together in the other world, Cathy and Hareton will marry and live happily at the Grange.

b. The book

Book is another image Emily uses to emphasize her theme. It represents the civilization and is the connection among people. To some extent, it is an important clue throughout the book.

In chapter two young Cathy first introduces the book to the reader. She takes advantage of a book in order to drive out Joseph, the servant. She uses the book as a

weapon. In the same way, Catherine fills the blank spaces in her books with her own observation and bad commence about Joseph. Book is an oppressing tool in the hand of Joseph, but it is a rebellious method in the children’s hands.

The book image, playing as a fortress, is the most important part in the novel. Once Edgar can not deal with the problems in reality, he visits his books frequently to seek temporary peace and refuge. He is afraid of his daughter’s meeting with Heathcliff but she doesn’t obey him, then He turns to his books. The danger still exists but he pretends not to see it and indulges himself in the books and hid himself like an ostrich. Here the book is misused as a shield for his coward character.

The things becomes getting better when book used in the second generation. Even Hareton is taught curses and rudeness, but he has good virtues in heart. Hareton has his self-esteem though he is rough and illiterate. In his heart, he longs for knowledge and respect. Only book can help him to realize his dream. Although there are some little conflicts between them, finally they do not hate each other and gradually fall in love. The connection of their affection is also book. Cathy sends Hareton a book as a gift and Hareton finally changes into a gentleman with the help of Cathy and book.

The power of book is continuities. After one year absence Lockwood returned to the Heights, he is greeted by the sight of the two lovers united by the book. They are reading happily and pleasantly. A world of eternal summer regenerates from the books.

The book, representing civilization and good virtues, runs through the two generations. From every character’s attitude to books, we can gasp the characters of each better. And also the book, which can unite people and reconcile them, pushes the novel to one another summit.

c. The two houses

In Wuthering Heights, there are two places where the story virtually takes place. From the symbolic depiction of the settings, the reader can learn clearly the characteristics of the owner’s ands foresee the conflicts between the two families.

Wuthering Heights is always in a state of storminess while Thrushcross Grange always seems calm. Wuthering Heights is exposed to the wind and filled with unpleasant things such as drab décor and fierc e dogs described as ‘cold’ and ‘dark’. This is similar to the character of Heathcliff. In addition, the author depicts specific parts of the house as analogues to Heathclif f’s face. The windows of the Heights are ‘deeply se t in the wall’