呼啸山庄英语本科毕业论文

Wuthering Heights as a Religious NovelWuthering Heights is not a religious novel in the sense that it supports a particular religion (Christianity), or a particular branch of Christianity (Protestantism), a particular Protestant denomination (Church of England). Rather, religion in this novel takes the form of the awareness of or conviction of the existence of a spirit-afterlife.An overwhelming sense of the presence of a larger reality moved Rudolph Otto to call Wuthering Heights a supreme example of "the daemonic" in literature. Otto was concerned with identifying the non-rational mystery behind all religion and all religious experiences; he called this basic element or mystery the numinous. The numinous grips or stirs the mind so powerfully that one of the responses it produces is numinous dread, which consists of awe or awe-fullness. Numinous dread implies three qualities of the numinous: its absolute unapproachability, its power, and. its urgency or energy. A misunderstanding of these qualities and of numinous dread by primitive people gives rise to daemonic dread, which Otto identifies as the first stage in religious development. At the same time that they feel dread, they are drawn by the fascinating power of the numinous. Otto explains, "The daemonic-divine object may appear to the mind an object of horror and dread, but at the same time it is no less something that allures with a potent charm, and the creature, who trembles before it, utterly cowed and cast down, has always at the same time the impulse to turn to it, nay even to make it somehow his own." Still, acknowledgment of the "daemonic" is a genuine religious experience, and from it arise the gods and demons of later religions. It has been suggested that Gothic fiction originated primarily as a quest for numinous dread. For Derek Traversi the motive force of Brontë's novel is "a thirst for religious experience," which is not Christian. It is this spirit which moves Catherine to exclaim, "surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here? (Ch. ix, p. 64). Out of Catherine's–and Brontë's–awareness of the finiteness of human nature comes the yearning for a higher reality, permanent, infinite, eternal; a higher reality which would enable the self to become whole and complete and would also replace the feeling of the emptiness of this world with feelings of the fullness of being (fullness of being is a phrase used by and about mystics to describe the aftermath of a direct experience of God). Brontë's religious inspiration turns a discussion of the best way to spend an idle summer's day into a dispute about the nature of heaven. Brontë's religious view encompasses both Cathy's and Linton's views of heaven and of life, for she sees a world of contending forces which are contained within her own nature. She seeks to unite them in this novel, though, Traversi admits, the emphasis on passion and death tends to overshadow the drive for unity. Even Heathcliff's approaching death, when he cries out "My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself" (Ch. xxxiv, p. 254), has a religious resonance.Thomas John Winnifrith also sees religious meaning in the novel: salvation is won by suffering, as an analysis of references to heaven and hell reveals. For Heathcliff, the loss of Catherine is literally hell; there is no metaphoric meaning in his claim "existence after losing her would be hell" (Ch. xiv, p. 117). In their last interview, Catherine and Heathcliff both suffer agonies at the prospect of separation, she to suffer "the same distress underground" and he to "writhe in the torments of hell" (XV, p. 124). Heathcliff is tortured by his obsession for the dead/absent Catherine. Suffering through an earthly hell leads Healthcliff finally to his heaven, which is union with Catherine as a spirit. The views of Nelly and Joseph about heaven and hell are conventional and do not represent Brontë's views, according to Winnifrith.2Jane has endured hell. Indeed, most of this novel becomes a test of what she can endure. Helen Burns and Miss Temple teach Jane the British stiff upper lip and saintly patience. Then Jane, star pupil that she is, exemplifies the stoicism, while surviving indignity upon indignity. Jane’s soul hunkers down deep inside her body and waits for the shelling to stop. Only at Moor’s End, where she teaches and grows, does her soul come out. She stops enduring and begins living. Jane begins to become an “I” in her 19th year. In the sentence, “Reader, I married him.” Jane makes clear who is in charge of her life and her marriage; she is. That “I” stands resolutely as the subject of the sentence commanding the verb and attaching itself to the object, “him.” She is no longer passive, waiting and sitting for Rochester’s attention. Rather, she goes out and gets him. She has gone a long way from the beginning of the novel. At Gateshead, Jane tries to direct her life. Her little “I” scolds Mrs. Reed and chastises John. Like the later Jane, she knows her mind and speaks it. Unlike the later Jane, however, she does not have the wherewithal to back up her soul. She does not have the physical strength, the mental skills, nor the finances to stand on her own. As a result, she can be thrown into the Red Room to repent her sins and can be cast into Lowood. At Lowood, her pernicious saints, Helen Burns and Miss Temple, suppress the young ego under a blanket of will, religion, and self-sacrifice. Helen teaches Jane to blame herself for everything and blame others for nothing. Helen suffers depredation upon humiliation in the name of dirty fingernails and disorganized socks, all the while chanting “Thank you sir, may I have another.” Jane internalizes this, so that she blames herself for Rochester’s faults and error and even forgives the unforgivable, Mrs. Reed. For her part, Miss Temple teaches Jane to be subversive, but charming. Rebellion is seed cake and a smile. Rebellion is not keeping the students from the ten-mile forced march to church. Jane follows these dictates as well, manipulating Rochester for scraps and sops. With one withering blast, Rochester dynamites these two icons into sanctimonious rubble and sends Jane back out into the elements. Her soul, long buried or locked away in the attic, bursts forth and sends Jane for the escape pods. Out in the moors, sucking on dirt, Jane chooses to live on and rebuilds herself. First with the help of her cousins, then with the arrogantly humble Rivers St. John, Jane rediscovers who she is and discards who she isn’t. Ironically, her final self-definition comes from Rivers when he proposes. Helen Burns and Miss Temple would have knelt at the chance, but Jane lets the cup pass by. In her rejection, she sweeps the debris away and stands by herself. So, when she returns to Thornfield, she comes with her own money and her own identity. Reduced or not, Rochester can only stand with Jane, not tower over her. She comes with a skill, cash, and self-knowledge. And under her own power, she submits herself to Rochester. She allows herself to be called Janet and to refer to him as “sir.” She willingly and momentarily drops her head. But not for long. In the ultimate chapter, Jane directly addresses her “Reader.” The final chapter takes place a year or two post-fire, as the mature Jane looks back on her life. By the act of writing, Jane has defined herself and stepped away from the saint-in-training. By writing the truth, in all of its ugliness, she separates herself from the persona. The Jane in the first 38 chapters is not the final Jane that addresses the reader. That Jane has had a child, has married a man, and has made a spot in the world. The great triumph of that line comes not from the man that she has married, but from the rediscovery and reaffirmation of the voice that once told off Mrs. Reed. The girl lost her voice at Lowood has become the woman who can tell us the story. The novel itself is Jane’s final "I."