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浅析《呼啸山庄》主要人物的创作模型(1)学毕(2)

2013-09-07 01:05 3. Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and Medea in Greek myth Medea
Another important character is Heathcliff. What kind of person is Heathcliff? We can see the comments that other characters put on him.
Isabella writes to Nelly, “Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? … a tiger or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens.” [32]
Nelly says he is “rough as a saw edge, and hard as whinstone!” [33]
Edgar tells little Cathy: “Heathcliff is a most diabolical man, delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates, if they give him the slightest opportunity.” [34]
Even Catherine says: “What is Heathcliff—an unreclaimed creature, without refinement—without cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone.” [35]
He falls deep in love with Catherine yet his hatred is beyond description. He would dig the grave and embrace Catherine’s body in order that his soul can join with hers. His revenge almost destroys two families. “He is a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.” [36]
As a country girl, Emily Brontë has no complicated life experiences. She never falls in love with someone nor is loved by somebody. She spends all her life in Yorkshire and doesn’t have the chance to witness the life in industrial society. She seems a hermit, holding herself aloof from the world. How can Emily portray such a twisted character with his extraordinary love and hatred?
The archetype literature is one of other patterns to create characters in literary works, and it comes from myth after all. “Myth is the main stimulative power, which endows the heroes the archetypal sense and gives myth the archetypal narration, thus myth is the archetype.”[37] Wuthering Heights written by Emily can be said the typical example of such theory.
Comparing with the Greek myth, Medea, Wuthering Heights has exactly the same theme and the creation of Heathcliff’s personality benefits from the character Medea. It can be said that Heathcliff is a “displacement” of Medea. [38]
3.1 The cause of revenge
The cause of Heathcliff’s revenge is the same as Medea. Both are desperate from love and lead to hatred and then begin to revenge.
Medea is the daughter of King Kolkhis. She believes Iason’s pledge that he will love her forever, and she betrays her own country, kills her brother, helps Iason take back golden wooden and kill his enemies, and comes to Korinthos with him. There they have two sons and live a happy life for years. Unfortunate things happen thereafter. Iason abandons Medea and marries Korinthos Princess in order to gain power and high position. And Medea is expelled out of his country by King Korinthos. She twists all her love to hatred and she begins to revenge Iason’s betrayal and mercilessness. First, she burns Iason’s new wife, then she kills Iason’s and also her two sons, from which she thinks Iason will be afflicted for losing sons and will never be happy. After the success of revenge, she runs away to Anthem by the help of “Deus ex Machina”.
Readers who are familiar with Wuthering Heights may find that it tells the story of Heathcliff’s revenge. Heathcliff is a gipsy waif of unknown parentage. He is picked up by Mr. Earnshaw in the street and brought up with his children. He is treated well by Mr. Earnshow, but when the old man dies, the young master Hindley bullies him. He is deprived of the right of receiving education and even reduces to the position of a servant. Yet he is not desperate because he has Catherine to understand him and love him. Then comes the turning point. Catherine decides to marry Linton. All the sufferings make him to be a cruel and savage revenger. He makes all the property in the name of his and Hindley indulges in drunk and dies from it. Then he always goes to Thrushcross Grange to meet Catherine in order that Linton suffers from mental torments. Catherine’s death strengthens his revenge. Just as Medea, Heathcliff aims his hatred at the second generation. He controls Wuthering Heights, and takes an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He trains Hareton as an idiot and lives in the shadow of him. In order to defraud Edger of his money and belongings, he urges Cathy, daughter of Edger, to marry with his dying son by cheat. Besides, he torments Hareton and Cathy physically and mentally, even his own son, small Linton, gains little love from him. From Medea and Heathcliff, we can find the same personalities. They are full of love and they cannot put up with lovers’ betrayal. Their characters are twisted because of losing love, and they become merciless, hard-hearted, ruthless and inhuman. In Emily’s eyes, “man’s dignity could not be injured, and injuring would bring a great mound in the soul. When injuring was beyond the limit, it could make Bodhisattva to become a devil.”[39]
3.2 Unfortunate experiences
Both Heathcliff and Medea bear unfortunate experiences, which becomes the foundation of shaping their characters. Medea betrays her country and families, coming to a place far from home, lonely and miserable. Heathcliff is a waif: “in the streets of Liverpool, where he (Mr. Earnshaw) picked up and inquired for his owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged.” [40] Two children entirely refuse to have it in bed with them, or even in their room. Even the maid Nelly looks down upon him. She would put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the next morning. In such an alien environment, they rely heavily on the lovers of their own—they are their life and their soul. However, they meet with the same misfortune; due to the worldly moral and more important, the temptation of money and power, they lose their lovers. Their rivals in love are so powerful— one is a princess and the other is a son of the rich— that they cannot use the social power to compete with them at all. The only measure they can take is to revenge: Medea murders her sons and enemies with her own hands and Heathcliff kills his son and foes indirectly.
3.3 Mental quality
Heathcliff and Medea have the same mental quality: Medea is “the princess of a savage country”, and Heathcliff is “a tempest son”. First, they are passionate, yearn for freedom and dare to love and detest. Loving Iason, Medea abandons her country and families, and Heathcliff regards Catherine as his life and soul, when Catherine is dying, he cries: “ I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul.” [41] And even she dies, he cobs to the window, “Come in! Come in! Cathy, do come. Oh, do – once more! Oh, my heart’s darling! Hear me this time, Catherine, at last!” [42] A person as he is, Heathcliff has to bear between love and hatred, and because of the depth of his passion, he hates as deeply as he loves. Second, their hatred makes one’s hair stand on end: when she is told that her rival in love died, Medea says to the information deliver, “Don’t be hasty, my friend, tell me how they died. If they died miserably, you can double my joy.” [43] Heathcliff goes even further than Medea. Hareton is brought up by him, he just wants to see “if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it”. [44] When Hareton becomes a rough and muddle-headed fellow full dirty words, he speaks out his great pleasure without any reservation: just as Medea, Heathcliff felt no guilty. They love fiercely and hate vigorously. What’s more, the properties of love and hatred of Medea and Heathcliff are resembled. The hatred to their enemies and innocent is from love; it is the alienation of love. It is the frustrated love that spurs them to commit atrocities. They are unable to hold back their animosity to those who betray them, just as a madman cannot be responsible for what he has done. Heathcliff is distorted to be a ghoul, a vampire, and Medea is the murder of her own sons, all of which are because of their lovers’ betrayal. （科教范文网http://fw.ΝsΕΑc.com编辑）
In short, the creation model of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is Medea, the heroine of Greek myth Medea. Love and hatred—two poles of human being have been portrayed in Medea and Heathcliff to the full. Reading their stories, one will not hate Medea and Heathcliff any more, in contrast, feel sympathy with them. Mr. Fang Ping ever said: “love is the blue flame, pure and beautiful; ‘hatred’ is the red flame that is giving off black smoke.”[45] That is to say, the hatred here is not real hatred, it is the alienation of love; malice originates the frustrated love, which is recognized in psychology. Based on comparing the two revengers, Medea and Healthcliff, their commitments are reasonable to some extent, and their distorted characters can be further understood.

4. Hindley Earnshaw and Emily Brontë’s brother Branwell
Hindley is jealous to Heathcliff because he is deprived love from his father, and Mr. Earnshaw “took to Heathcliff strangely, believing all he said and petting him up far above Cathy.” [46] After the old man dies, he beats Heathcliff to the lowest of the world, and destroys and torments him. He becomes a tyrant. “He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instruction of the curate (their teacher), and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead, compelling him to do so as hard as any hand on the farm.” [47] But the result he gains is not good. He degenerated at last and even his old servant looks down upon him.
As to Hinley’s tragedy, many critics comment that it results from Heathcliff’s revenge. In fact, he becomes depressed and dispirited after his wife’s death. “He became more and more desperate. His grief cannot be cured by crying out. In fact, he never cries or prays but curses and resists—he harbours a bitter hatred for God and for human beings, so he indulges in drinking and lives a loose life unscrupulously.” [48] It is obvious that he creates the tragedy with his own hands. The tragedy roots from the accidental lost of love. As the saying goes: “Love is the whole life for women, but only a small part for man.” It may suit to most of people but Hindley is an exception. In his own world, there are only two persons, his wife and himself, losing her, he always drinks as a lord, and he is willing to send his heat to perdition, even he lacks of the minimum responsibility—raising little son. There is no sunshine in his life, only the hatred to Heathcliff, and the meaning of his rest life is to take back what he lost. Living in the decadent and dark house, there is nothing left but hatred in his heart, even his own son is hostile to him and loves and believes his enemy. （转载自中国科教评价网http://www.nseac.com）
Emily endows Hindley with a grey tragedy. In fact, Hindley is the model of Emily’s brother, Branwell. The man who is placed great hopes by his families but lets everyone disappointed at last. He is smooth in his life, he always abandons himself, yet there is still a hope of saving himself, that is, the love in his heart—he falls in love with Mrs. Robinson, the rich mother of his pupil. For months this lady has spoken kindly to Branwell, walks with him in garden, talks to him alone in the evenings. He thinks she loves him and would marry him. But when the cruel and ugly reality lays on his hand—he is driven away from Mrs. Robinson’s house, he feels desperate, because he thinks the unique love in his heart is broken. He becomes worse and worse, spending more and more time drinking, and taking laudanum and walking alone on the moors and then dies soon. His death should be the spiritual way out to Brontë sisters, but they think: “The error and guilt have been forgotten, only the pity and grieve occupy our heart.”[49] So when we discuss the original tragedy of Hindley, the creation model of Branwell can be found easily.
Branwell is the only son of Brontë family so he is pampered by his father and sisters; meanwhile he becomes imperious and easy to lose tempers. It is the same to Hindley. He is also the only son of old Earnshaw and he becomes the new master of Wuthering Heights. He can revile anybody at will and bring pains and disaster to his family. They also experience losing true love and become degenerated, drown their sorrows in liquor, and suffer the same destiny: die in youthful years.
Emily loves his brother very much. She devotes her youth to her bad-behaved but unfortunate brother. We can reasonably believe that his resisting love to Mrs. Robinson carves in her heart so inveterately that she realizes that desperate love can destroy man to death. Brawnwell’s intensive grief, hysterical crying and desperation provide Emily a vivid model. Only she witnesses her brother’s suffering and grief in love can she create a vivid Hindley. Hindley’s drowning this sorrow in liquor, deep love in his wife Frances is well represented in her novel. （转载自科教范文网http://fw.nseac.com）
Emily Brontë finds the models of heroes and heroines from her actual life and Greek myth she ever read. The figures in Wuthering Heights are always with gloomy faces, distorted souls and abnormal personality. Degeneration, painful struggling and revenge are their containment of life. They live in a hell on earth, where people detest each other and no worldly love and warmth among them, all of which have their literary archetypes.
 
5. Conclusion
Emily Brontë is regarded as one of the most representative writers out of the mainstream of the novels in the 19th century. On one hand, the archetype of literature plays a significant part on the creation of typical characters in Wuthering Heights. Greek myth and drama is one of literature archetypes, which is close to the real world. As Jung says: “The typical environment determines the archetypes of literature. When the environment to a given archetype reappearances, the archetype will activate.” [50] On the other hand, Emily Brontë’s living conditions and experiences as well as her individuality help her to create the main characters. The primitive environment can arouse attraction easily, so the nature’s savagery and wilderness provides her with a typical stage to shape the personalities of the characters. In addition, her boundless imagination and realistic depiction serve better for the portrayal of the characters. In brief, Emily Brontë successfully utilizes the techniques of expression models from real life and myth to portray some very perfect artistic figures, which makes the characters more typical and the plot more complicated and vivid, offering more aftertaste to readers.  

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