Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Tone

"Heathcliff, if I were you, I'd go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. The world is surely not worth living in now, is it? You had distinctly impressed on me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life: I can't imagine how you think of surviving her loss." (page 219)

This is one of my favorite moments in Isabella's dialogue with Heathcliff because I feel as if it's the ultimate burn for the year 1801. After Heathcliff tricks her into marrying him, he immediately starts treating her like garbage and she gets stuck in a relationship that she doesn't deserve. Although her tone is clearly bitter, angry, and resentful here, I have to admit that I think she is somewhat justified in her cruelty. Whereas she doesn't deserve the animosity that Heathcliff shows her because she had no control of Catherine's death, he completely does deserve the cruelty she shows him because he is so mean to everyone around him. Throughout this novel, I think that the overall tone tends to be one of a more "dismal spiritual atmosphere" and is somewhat gloomy. It's centered around love and anguish, and tends to be more negative rather than a novel of romantic happiness. The writing style is not what was typical of the time period, but that's why I like it. I think that Emily Bronte effectively wrote a novel that differed from all others in her time; essentially making this piece timeless today.

3 comments:

  1. I'm sorry my computer is being weird! I did them but they didn't upload properly, so I'm trying to restore them. I'm going to try and restart my computer here in a minute.

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