Self Betrayal: Marxist and Psychoanalytic Analyses of Emily Brontë’s "Wuthering Heights"

Abstract

This essay is a Marxist and Psychoanalytic approach to Emily Brontë’s "Wuthering Heights". The protagonists Heathcliff and Catherine are dealt with in terms of self-betrayal that bring economic well-being but can shatter the psychic integrity of the whole personality. Heathcliff shows symptoms of abandonment neurosis transforming natural life energies into destructive urges against his external world when Catherine marries for social status. Her death drive is re-directed inwards when she no longer can have a relationship with Heathcliff and they both perish in a life denying psychotic state. Their intense union is based on their common preoedipal personalities, and they can only be reunited in death.