Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontл

The Victorian Age is commonly known as the period that comprises many years of the nineteenth century (1837 - 1901), when deep and irreversible social changes took place. For a limited number of people, these years meant advance, success, and prosperity; whereas for an overwhelming majority, they meant wreckage, throwback, and destruction.

On the one hand, it is possible to say that the rising of both economic and political values of the middle class were eventually consolidated in the beginning of the nineteenth century. On the other hand, though, it is worth mentioning that, during the same period of time, several people who belonged to lower classes were forced to abandon their lands and migrate to the cities, which soon later would become major urban centers. These people formed the so called working class and had to live in extremely humble conditions.

As a result, British writers of that period saw themselves committed to using their main tool - the novel - in order to describe and address the social conflicts that inevitably emerged from this huge gap between these two classes. However, it is essential to highlight that one can not say that the conditions of all social classes were accurately and trustingly reflected in all novels written at that time.

This period represented the acme of English novel, when its main characteristics were emphasized: realism, an articulated plot, and the presence of many characters. Basically, these were the ingredients required to depict ordinary life and entertain the middle class at the same time. In order to understand why the middle class became the main audience of prose fiction during this period, it is crucial to remember that it was only in those years that education became more accessible to these people.

During this time, establishing which social class a person belonged to depended not only on the total amount of money he/she had, but also - and mainly - on how this person got his/her income, and which family he/she was part of. In addition to that, by paying attention to the way people behaved, spoke, and dressed, it was fairly possible to perceive how educated these people were, which values they held and, hence, their position in society.

This structure of classes in British society can be represented by the characters and their families in Wuthering Heights. The Lintons personify the ruling elite family, and their property, Thrushcross Grange, may be referred to as being superior to Wuthering Heights.

Thinking about Wuthering Heights as a farmhouse, one might think that the Earnshaws were members of the working class. However, they were immediately below the Lintons in that hierarchical society, since they were landowners and had servants. One example of a representative of the lower middle class is Nelly, a servant of the Earnshaws. Like Nelly, servants were in charge of non-manual labor and, hence, were considered superior to manual laborers. And this is one of the explanations for the troubles Heathcliff created.

Considering that Heathcliff was an orphan, there was no one else below him in Wuthering Heights. At that time, it was impossible for someone like him to ascend socially, even being brought up by and living together with members of the upper middle class. Once again, Nelly can be used as a good example