In the "Feminist Criticism" one passage beings talking about how the "French feminist associate language with separation from the mother (452)" and I began to think about how that influences young women, especially when they leave their mothers after marriage. Someone goes from being a daughter and an 'equal' part of a household to belonging to a man and in a way running the household under a husband. I think that today this is not so much the case, but in the time setting of Wuthering Heights I think this holds true. The article then goes on to say, "Language systematically forces women to choose: either they can imagine and represent themselves as men imagine and represent them (in which case they may speak, but will speak as men) or they can choose "silence," becoming in the process "the invisible and unheard sex" (Jones "Inscribing" 83), I do not like the reality of this ultimatum, I can either blend into the wall or think as a man? Why can't a be a woman, think like a woman, and speak my mind like a woman? It's funny because I do think like a woman but I also speak my mind.
Lyn Pykett's essay "Changing the Names:The Two Catherines" I found it interesting when Pykett talks about "Catherine's fundamental inability" to pick one of two men. He then goes on to discuss the fact that maybe the novel asks the question "what is a woman? (p 470)" I never really thought of the novel in this way, but as I look back I begin to see that feminine roles in this book are a little bit different that what the norms may have been. Cathrine was raised motherless, maybe you can say she was raised without guidance on how to be a 'proper lady' and in the end she married the wrong guy. I'm not sure if that is a true statement, but I like to think that Heathcliff and Catherine could have been happy together..but then we wouldn't have a novel would we?
You’re exactly right that men back in Brontë’s day believed that women’s proper place was confined to the world of the home. However, that belief has significantly eroded over the years, as women now have expanded out into the public sphere alongside men, which has evened up gender relations. I agree with you that women should not have to choose between silence and speaking as men. When I read the part about language systematically forcing this choice upon women, I tried to imagine how inferior they must have felt to be so restricted in the language they can use. Since people think through language, a restricted language means restricted thoughts. I also found the part in Pykett’s criticism about older Catherine’s “fundamental inability to choose between Edgar and Heathcliff” interesting (Brontë 470). It’s like she has, in Brontë’s words, a “double character” in that her natural tendency is to want to be with Heathcliff, but it seems that the pressure to conform to social norms is too great to where she ends up marrying Edgar (Brontë 458). I like what you end with about how older Catherine and Heathcliff could maybe have been happy together. Everybody likes a happy story, but like you said, we wouldn’t have a novel like Wuthering Heights. After all, it is older Catherine’s decision to be with Edgar that drives the plot of the novel.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the author (and you) that women were basically just objects owned by their husbands and fathers in that time period. However, I like what Pykett says about the novel asking what a woman is, but I think that Catherine married the wrong man because she WAS trying to be ladylike which, in those days usually meant shallow and cold, and marry for social standing and money as opposed to marrying Heathcliff, whom she loved. I'm not disagreeing with you in any way. Perhaps the absence of Catherine's mother and the lack of teaching had by the daughter may or may not have contributed to her mistake of marrying Edgar.
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