Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein Comparative Analysis Essay.

I know that novel names are suppose to be italized, but copy and pasting over takes away all formatting that I have, and I don't have time to go through and re-italize them. So please, do not think that I was to lazy not to do it.

The works of Mary Shelley and Emily Bronte have been classified as classics for years, and they hold a strong tie to the elements of the literary periods that they were written in. In addition- Frankenstein, written by Mary Shelley, and Wuthering Heights, written by Emily Bronte, are both gothic era fiction novels. Additionally, both plots are both full of twists and turns creating a suspense that is encased with gothic elements. Shelley and Bronte both utilize high emotions, supernatural occurrences, and weather to highlight gothic elements while using metaphors and vivid imagery to help achieve that.

Throughout their novels, these two authors place a love story between adopted siblings into their pages. Both Shelley and Bronte use that romantic love between siblings to illuminate the high emotions that is present in all characters. In Frankenstein, Victor is in love with his “cousin”/adopted sister Elizabeth. The two eventually marry based off of the plans that Victor’s mother had in place. “I, with childish seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth as mine- mine to protect, love, and cherish.” (Shelley, 21) At this presentation, Victor saw her as bound to him, with him being the only protectors that she would need. he also claims that she is to be his only until death separates them. “No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me- my more than sister, since till death she was to be mind only.” (Shelley, 21)

Additionally, in Bronte’s novel, Heathcliff is in love with the sister he got when Mr. Earnshaw adopted him into the Earnshaw. Likewise, Catherine loves Heathcliff just as he loves her. “ “... I have not broken your heart- you have broken it- and in breaking it, you have broken mine.“ (Bronte, 181) Heathcliff is telling Catherine that it is from her own actions, not his, that she has a broken heart. He goes to tell her that while her actions broke her heart, they also broke his own. “So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you- oh, God! Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?” (Bronte, 181) He then ends it by asking, how can he live if part of his soul is missing. Heathcliff and Catherine both believe that they are each other’s soul. Catherine had said, “...my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath- a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff- He’s always, always in my mind- not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself...”(Bronte, 100) This illuminates the fact that both Heathcliff and her think that they complete each other. Catherine is telling Nelly of the close bond that Heathcliff and her share. She feels incomplete if he is not around. He is always with her even when they are apart, because he is in her mind. Through use of a metaphor, Bronte makes the love between Cathy and Heathcliff on a spiritual level, for she ‘is Heathcliff’ and not ‘like Heathcliff’.

The use of gothic elements do not end there though, likewise the use of the supernatural occurrences are seen throughout the novels, with Shelley’s being focused around the monster and Bronte’s being focused around Catherine’s ghost. Victor’s vision for the monster is first seen in the fourth chapter of the novel. He was first exposed to the new sciences- natural sciences, something he had never learned before going to the university. “Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not more certainly shine in the heavens, than that which I now affirm is true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing animation upon lifeless matter. (Shelley, ) When Victor was first exposed to natural sciences, he learned about life and death, and what happens to the body after death. It was after lectures from his professors that Victor decided to make a creature of his own- off the remains of the deceased. “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.” (Shelley, ) In the fifth chapter of the novel, Victor has spent years trying to put together a human being, and succeeded on a stormy night in November. Shelley, with the use of imagery creates a horrid description for the creature who was an unnatural thing to walk the Earth.

Meanwhile, Bronte uses the supernatural occurrences to show the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff while also showing what life can be without their other half. The first show of the supernatural occurrence that happens within Wuthering Heights is the first appearance of Catherine’s ghost the night of the snow storm. “....knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand. The intense horror of nightmare came over me; I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, ‘Let me in- let me in.’” (Bronte, ) This is the scene that shows the ghost of the older Catherine. Her ghost is first seen by Mr. Lockwood when he is shown to her rooms by one of the staff of the house. It is after seeing her that he cries out, drawing Heathcliff’s attention. Just after the second case of a supernatural occurrence, we find Mr. Heathcliff sobbing and crying out for the ghost of Catherine to haunt him. This is where the reader first sees the emotional and subconscious connection that is between Heathcliff and Catherine. "He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. 'Come in! come in! he sobbed. 'Cathy, do come. Oh do - once more! Oh! My heart's darling! Hear me this time, Catherine, at last!' (Bronte 25) This quote happens in the third or fourth chapter of Wuthering Heights and it is right after Mr. Lockwood had a nightmare in which the ghost of Ms. Catherine Linton was seen. Mr. Heathcliff came in response to him crying out with fear, and then his actions led to this once Mr. Lockwood told him about seeing the ghost of Catherine.

Both authors use storms to create a deeper meaning into the scenes in which they are created in, suspense and horror are just two feelings that are felt by the reader. Weather is used throughout both works, to create tones for scenes and to get more development into characters. Shelley’s weather was first focused on Mr. Walton’s journey with his letters to his sister and then shifted once she started to talk about the monster. Her use of the weather was to make the monster seem more brutal in nature and something that had to be destroyed. Bronte’s use of weather conditions are used to give more background information about the families and then to describe the feelings of everyone at Catherine’s death scene. Bronte’s use of the weather marked the change of mindset in the people of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. It is in the letter’s that we learn that Frankenstein is to be told in a Frame within a frame story. The weather in letter four leads us to the discovery of one man running across the ice, and the discovery of a man who chases after him. “Last Monday (July 31st), we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather.” (Shelley, ) This scene’s weather is important to setting up the basis for the rest of the novel. In Letter number four, this is where the members of Captain Walton’s ship first meet Mr. Frankenstein, and it is where his story begins.

When the reader is first introduced to the monster, it is a dark stormy night and sets the tone for most of the next chapter. “It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.” (Shelley, ) In this scene, it is at the start of chapter five and Victor had finally given life to his monster. He was excited to see what it would do, but it was after he gave it life that he was terrified that he made such a monster. He is disturbed by the appearance of his creation, and it terrified by it. “While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; I clasped my hands, and exclaimed aloud, "William, dear angell this is thy funeral, this thy dirge!" As I said these words, I perceived in the gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, the filthy daemon, to whom I had given life. “ (Shelley, ) The weather turned into a storm the night that William was just outside of his hometown. He was waiting for sunrise to be able to go home after hearing about the death of William. He was shocked and angry at seeing the thing he created out there. With the use of imagery, Shelley managed to manifest an image of a very misshapen man.

Bronte uses the weather in the second chapter to create two chapters in which the reader sees more of Mr. Heathcliff’s behavior to those around him, and then the ghost of old Catherine. “This spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four-miles' walk, arrived at Heathcliff's garden-gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow-shower. /On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry-bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.” (Bronte, ) In the first two paragraphs of the second chapter, Bronte not only used the weather to drive Mr. Lockwood back to Wuthering Heights, she also used vivid imagery to make the scene of the storm dark and dangerous. This storm is what causes the storyline to begin, first starting with Mr. Lockwood’s dream of the ghost of Catherine in chapter three. It is here that the weather comes to play an important role in the events that will come throughout the novel. After the death of the elder Catherine, the weather shifted, going from the traditional weather of summer into the patterns that are traditional during winter. In the evening the weather broke: the wind shifted from south to north- east, and brought rain first, and then sleet and snow. On the morrow one could hardly imagine that there had been three weeks of summer: the primroses and crocuses were hidden under wintry drifts; the larks were silent, the young leaves of the early trees smitten and blackened. (Bronte, ) The use of the strong weather change in the novel after Catherine’s death signifies the ultimate change that stretches from Thrushcross Grange to Wuthering Heights. It marks the strong shift from the mental revenge that Heathcliff sought to the physical revenge that he throws to Edgar. Bronte uses strong imagery to get across the fact that Catherine was gone and everything was going to change.

Gothic elements played with metaphors and strong uses of imagery were tools that Mary Shelley and Emily Bronte used to put the nature of their novels into the world. They put a strong hold on the use of weather, the supernatural occurrences, and high emotions, both authors have placed a strong love story between their characters inside their novels. The story of love, revenge, and hatred are shown strongly through the actions of all characters as they develop throughout their plots. With two authors who have created such a suspenseful plot full of twists and turns, it is no surprise that their novels have become classics and are taught in classrooms nationwide.