外国名著英语读书笔记 Wuthering Heights

外国名著英语读书笔记 Wuthering Heights

my feelings after reading Wuthering Heights

oldearnshawadoptsan orphan and named himheathcliff and

loveshim very y is jealous of him so he teated

him badly after the death of his father .

hindley has a sister called catherine , who grows up

together with heathcliff andin love with each

catherine marries edgar because heathcliff is poor.

heathcliff leaves and back to the town 3 years later as a

rich marries edgar’s sister asrevenge .besides, he

takes all the property of hindley and treats hindley’s son

hareton as a ine died due to her illness while

heathcliff can not recover form the lose of catherine,he

makes edgar’s daughter cathy marries his sick son

linton,after linton’s death he realized the meaningless of

his revenge and allows hareton to be in love with

the end he dies of hunger for he doesn’t eat anything .

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阅读书目Wuthering Heights专业班级姓名学号指导老师完成时间

review on Wuthering Heights

i. introduction

Wuthering height was written by emily bronte, who was a

famous female writer. emily bronte was born in 1818. and

she lived most of her life in the yorkshire moors that she

immortalized in Wuthering Heights. she was the fifth in a

family of six children, growing up in a stone personage in

a village called haworth. when emily was only two years old,

their mother maria was died. the young brontes were sent to

a school for poor children of clergymen, a dreadful place

that inspired the fictional school in emily’s sister

charlotte bronte’s jane eyre. later, they came home to

haworth, where they were cared by an aunt. poetry, history,

and politics were among the conversation topics at home.

such talk fed the active imaginations of the bronte

children. of the three writing bronte sisters, emily was

the most peculiar one. reclusive and nontalkative, she

attended to her chores with a dutiful, stoic nature. only

while roaming the moors did she bee truly alive. in fact,

during the brief times she spent away from haworth, at

school in brussels with charlotte as a young woman. she

became homesick and physically ill. though being confronted

with such difficulties, she kept writing. when Wuthering

Heights was published in 1847, the pen name she chose

caused much confusion and it was often assumed that jane

eyre and Wuthering Heights were written by the same person.

emily’s novel was badly edited and received mixed reviews.

noheless, emily began to work on her second novel. in 1848,

a year after the publication of Wuthering Heights, emily

caught a cold at a funeral, which, with her typical

stoicism, she ignored. the cold steadily developed into a

far more serious illness, but emily refused all medical

advice.

at last, barely capable of breathing without going into a

fit of coughing, she steadfastly attended to her usual

chores. after emily had been ill for nearly two months, on

december 19, 1848, she broke down. shortly after, she died.

and yet, she is remembered as charlotte once described her:

“stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature

stood alone.”

chen yafei, class 1, xx, foreign languages school

when the novel began, it was 1801. mr. lockwood, the

narrator of the story arrived at thrushcross grange, a

grand house that he was renting from heathcliff, who lived

at nearby Wuthering Heights. he spent a night at Wuthering

Heights and had a terrifying dream. later, lockwood asked

the housekeeper mrs. nelly dean to tell the story of

heathcliff and Wuthering Heights.

it was a story that flashed back thirty years to 1771, when

mr. earnshaw brought a street orphan home. he called him

heathcliff and intended to raise him alongside his own

children, catherine and hindley. hindley was intensively

jealous of the new arrival and saw him as an interloper and

rival. however, catherine became heathcliff’s inseparable

friend and fell in love with him. after mr. earnshaw’s

death, hindley took over the estate. he brutalized

heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. and he

forbade his sister to be with heathcliff. later, catherine

became a friend of edgar, who was a mild and refined young

man and agreed to marry him. heathcliff was very depressed

and angry, then he left Wuthering Heights. some time later,

he returned and he had mysteriously bee very wealthy. he

began to take revenge on those who prevented him from being

with catherine. through his efforts, he took ownership of

Wuthering Heights upon hindley’s death. intent on ruining

edgar, heathcliff married edgar’s sister isabella, which

placed him in a position to inherit thrushcross grange

after edgar’s death. catherine became very ill after

heathcliff’s return and died a few hours after giving

birth to a daughter also named catherine. later, heathcliff

became more bitter and revengeful. his wife isabella left

him and subsequently gave birth to a boy, linton. meanwhile,

heathcliff sueeded in taking ownership of Wuthering Heights

and vowed to raise hindley’s son, harenton. then, in order

to rule the property of his enemy, he persuaded catherine

to marry linton. soon after, edgar linton died, followed

shortly by linton heathcliff. this left catherine a widow

at Wuthering Heights, as heathcliff had gained pete control

of both Wuthering Heights and thrushcross grange. even thus,

he was not happy at all. at last, he mitted himself and he

was buried near to catherine.

the whole story was really a tragedy. mr. lockwood was

shocked by the story and the story concluded with mr.

lockwood visiting the grave.

the novel divides into several chapters, and each chapter

seems to set up a lesson for us to learn.

when i was reading this novel, what impressed me most was

the unhappy marriages. in this novel there existed several

unhappy marriages. one of the examples was the marriage

between isabella and heathcliff. isabella didn’t know

heathcliff well when she married him. she was just

attracted by his appearance, but later she realized that

heaththcliff was not a gentleman at all. as a result, what

she only could do was to regret for herself. another

example had happened between catherine and edgar. although

she had been happy at the beginning of the marriage, after

a while, she became bored and she also realized that her

true love was heathcliff. in my opinion, her choosing to

marry edgar was just because she wanted to be rich and to

be the greatest woman in the neighborhood. till now, i can

remember clearly that catherine said to mrs. dean: “it

would degrade me to marry heathcliff now.” from her words,

we can see that she cared wealth and social status more

than true love, which should be responsible for her unhappy

marriage. in our daily lives, there also exist many people

who share the same opinion with catherine. there is no

doubt that they also have suffered a lot from their unhappy

marriages. it is my personal belief that a suessful

marriage should not be based on wealth, beauty or social

status. however, the true love, respect, knowing about the

one you choose are the essential factors in marriage. to

everyone, marriage seems to be one of the most important

things in life. it has great influence on our daily lives,

our physical and mental health, our social relationship and

even our fate. so, we should take our marriage seriously

and choose the one who is really right for us. thus, can we

have a suessful marriage and a happy life.

after reading the whole story, i was shocked by

heathcliff’s revenge and learned a lot from it. because of

the animosities between himself and others, heathcliff used

all means he could to take revenge on them. not only did

his wicked actions do lots of harm to others, but also

these actions hurt himself a lot. during the process of

taking revenge on others, his sense of superiority had

faded away. then his appearance began to reflect the state

of his mind. his walk lacked confidence; he looked

disagreeable, and spoke seldom. even though he sueeded in

taking possession of all the wealth, he was not happy at

all. at last, he

mitted himself. as it says that “whoever seeks revenge

should dig two graves.” just like heathcliff, if he could

recognize this principle and follow it, all the tragedies

could be avoided. it is widely known that to forgive and

forget offenses enable imperfect people to grow and improve.

maybe, it is easier said than done. however, the longer you

wait to forgive someone, the harder it bees. in our daily

lives, it is unavoidable to hurt others or to be hurt by

others. if we are too sensitive to it and pay much

attention on it, we’ll be unhappy all day and we can not

get along well with others around us. our society worships

harmony. being tolerant and having a harmonious

relationship with others will benefit us a lot. next time

when you get hurt, remember the saying “to err is human;

to forgive, divine.” and follow those instructions. only

in this way can we live happily and make our society more

harmonious.

all in all, i really learned a lot from this novel. it

deserves our reading.

Wuthering Heights

emily published only one novel, Wuthering Heights, but this

single work has its place among the masterpieces of english

literature.

emily was born in thornton, yorkshire, in the north of

england and died of tuberculosis in the late 1848. when

bronte sisters are young, their father asked them to read

many books: the bible, homer, virgil, shakespeare, milton,

byron, scott and many others. the children also read

enthusiastically articles on current affairs.

unlike charlotte, emily had no close friends. she wrote a

few letters and was interested in mysticism. her first

novel, Wuthering Heights, a story-within-a-story, did not

gain immediate suess as charlotte's jane eyre, but it has

got later fame as one of the most intense novels written in

the english language. in contrast to charlotte and anne,

whose novels take the form of autobiographies written by

authoritative and reliable narrators, emily introduced an

unreliable narrator, lockwood.

lockwood, the narrator, is a gentleman visiting the

yorkshire moors where the novel is set, and of mrs. dean,

housekeeper to the earnshaw family, who had been witness of

the life of the original owners of the Heights. bronte

draws a

powerful picture of the strange man heathcliff, who is

brought to Heights from the streets of liverpool by mr.

earnshaw. heathcliff is treated as earnshaw's own children,

catherine and hindley. after mr. earnshaw’s death

heathcliff is bullied by hindley, who loves catherine, but

she marries edgar linton. heathcliff 's destructive force

is unleashed, and his first victim is catherine, who dies

giving birth to a girl, another catherine. isabella linton,

edgar's sister, whom he had married, flees to the south.

their son linton and catherine are married, but always

sickly linton dies. hareton, hindley's son, and the young

widow became close. increasingly isolated and alienated

from daily life, heathcliff experiences visions, and he

longs for the death that will reunite him with catherine.

in early time, there are many critics on this novel. some

people called it a "strange, inartistic story", but mented

that every chapter seems to contain a "sort of rugged

power". it

supported the second point made in the athenaeum,

suggesting that the general effect of the novel was

"inexpressibly painful", but adding that all of its

subjects were either "utterly hateful or thoroughly

contemptible".

there some symbols in the novel, for example, the moors

and the ghosts.

the constant emphasis on landscape within the text of

Wuthering Heights endows the setting with symbolic

importance. moorland cannot be cultivated, and its

uniformity makes navigation difficult. it features

particularly waterlogged patches in which people could

potentially drown. thus, the moors serve very well as

symbols of the wild threat posed by nature. as the setting

for the beginnings of catherine and heathcliff’s bond, the

moorland transfers its symbolic

associations onto the love affair.

ghosts appear throughout Wuthering Heights, as they do in

most other works of gothic fiction, yet bronte always

presents them in such a way that whether they really exist

remains ambiguous. thus the world of the novel can always

be

interpreted as a realistic one. certain ghosts—such as

catherine’s spirit when it appears to lockwood in chapter

iii—may be explained as nightmares. the villagers’

alleged sightings of heathcliff’s ghost in chapter xxxiv

could be

dismissed as unverified superstition. whether or not the

ghosts are “real,” they symbolize the manifestation of

the past within the present, and the way memory stays with

people, permeating their day-to-day lives.

i think the novel suggests us that lovers should have a

healthy love, and put the needs of the beloved first.

Wuthering Heights is the first english novel which i had

read. before that i used to heard jane eyre, and i?m very

familiar with its chinese version. therefore when our

professor asked me to read an english novel, i chose the

Wuthering Heights written by emily bronte who was jane

eyre ?s writer-charlotte bronte?s young sister and a genius

female writer in britain in the 19th century.

Wuthering Heights was emily?s first masterpiece novel as

well as the unique one. moreover emily was an excellent

poet. in her novel, i can always feel the mysterious and

horrible atmosphere that was reflected not only by the

changeable weather but also the cold-blooded and

hypocritical people such as heathcliff、joseph、 hindley as

well as catherine. emily told a long story about different

personality individuals living in two villas on a great

sheet of wasteland.

after finishing the novel, i searched it on the inter and

curiously found that unlike her sister charlotte emily

didn?t have an actual love and marriage experience. all of

those vivid figures and plex plots in her novel were

imaginary.

usually the literature works mirror out the author?s real

life and living environment. emily bronte lived thirty

years of british society was the age of turbulence. her

family settled down on a remote nook of wilderness (next to

the chillingworth industrial estate ) just like the place

where the Wuthering Heights located. besides, in her novel

she didn?t

mention catherine?mother very much due to emily lost her

mother in her early age, and long-term alcohol and drug

taking led the death of her brother branwell which was the

real model of hindley . what?s more , petrick bronte,

emily?s father, who was a radical conservative, opposed

luddite movement in his early years, and gave help to the

chillingworth workers and supported their strike.

relatively the figure of her father in her novel was mr.

earnshaw who adopted gypsy foundling--heathcliff and

brought him up. it was inherited from their father that

emily and her sisters had more mercy on craftsmen.

in emily?s real life, her brother 、 her sisters and she

were all educated at home, thus they often killed time by

reading books、poetry writing and making up romaunt

together. sometimes they went for a walk on the wilderness,

it was there emily had a good advantage to be closed to the

nature then merged her emotions into her works especially

the poems. it was said that emily often alone walked around

the wilderness and experienced the instant which the nature

and people could extreme meet. all of her those feelings

were expressed in her representative poem works such as

souvenir 、prisoner and night breeze. britain well-known

poet and critic matthew spoke highly of her, “after baron

era, nobody could matched----the most outstanding poet”.

unfortunately i haven?t read her poem, but i will find some

in my spare time.