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  • Essay / Wuthering Heights as part of the literary canon

    Incest, violence, gambling and the north of England - some central subjects of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights that were abhorrent to the elites polite Victorians who originally conceived the principle of the “Canon”. The Literary Canon of the West was conceived as a collection of texts deemed "worthy of study" by the establishment, due to what were defined as "universal themes" and "aesthetic" qualities. It is rare for texts to enter the canon, particularly texts which deviate from this set of “qualities” deemed fixed, while remaining coated in ambiguity. The canon is intended to classify distinct and timeless literature due to the aforementioned qualities, but the selected works still exude a complexity that can be considered "unified" with that of other canonical works. For this reason, the canon appears to be a contradictory and arbitrary category for which varying contexts of reception and production ultimately render the merit and meaning of each entirely subject to the individual, and should not be categorized according to "ideology dominant”. no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is one of the works often considered canonical, due to its transcendence among some readers, that which defies the expectation of such the text must be "non-offensive". It was a sentiment shared by Charlotte Brontë, who wrote that she did not consider it "right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff", the cruel Byronic anti-hero whose controversial behaviors reveal why Wuthering Heights embodies the contradictions of the Canon itself. Often, what many despise in Wuthering Heights is what others deem valuable. Let us, however, examine the cataclysmic (and therefore accessible) creation of Brontë's youngest novelist, in relation to the canon. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë addresses the plight of women contemporary with her in a more stark manner than most other related canonical works. This overt politicization is in part a commentary on the eternal conflicts of nature, such as those so often reflected upon by the greats of the Canon, but it has proven far too engaged with the reality of emerging feminism to merit the text any recognition of the establishment. many years to come. Brontë shapes the story around the brutality of the “foolish and wicked” Cathy, who always manages to place Linton and Heathcliff under her spell, a totally unconventional woman for the times. It could be argued that Brontë uses erasure in a natural way and that elements of her novel are then perceived as "universal themes" of generic canonical texts by the ruling classes of society. The declaration “I am Heathcliff!” He is always, always on my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure” is in fact not the opening of the romantic manifesto. It is Brontë's synopsis of her character's complex co-dependence with her adopted brother that is a means of foreshadowing the double condemnation of the characters, whose ruin would never be revered as possessing objectively great aesthetic qualities. The immediately shocking example set by Brontë's dysfunctional creatures alienates the majority of the potential audience, who reflected the "pious and old" mindset of Victorian Joseph, or the "talkative neighbors" who feel violated by the activities of the Earnshaw family. . - The idea that works of art can embody universal values ​​forall of humanity is a dangerous myth. Minds who share this view should at least recognize that Brontë’s “Wurling Heights” rarely does so. The novel will never appeal to the masses; his savage characters are a construct of contradictory humans whose examples should not be encouraged to transcend social groups. Although the appeal of Brontë's characters lies in the fact that they are flawed and therefore cannot be part of a canon that claims to be the guardian of universally divine values. Typical canon language often revels in complexity and ambiguity. The writer is a craftsman whose mastery is appreciated by critics. In "Wuthering Heights," Brontë is willfully inelegant and uncontrolled: "Oh, damn it! I'll get him back; and I'll have his gold too; and then his blood." The images are mundane but dramatic, evoking images of "hell" and "blood" that shape the novel as crude and bloody in the minds of its critics, and "reader" against its fans - contrary to typical tropes of the cannon. Brontë structures the novel's narrative in a deliberately repetitive manner. Powerful words and phrases are repeated throughout the novel, and the plot, narrators, and characters arguably contain "doubles", with the exception of the hopeful ending for Catherine and Hareton, once that Brontë removed the vicious circle of deaths. This makes the novel accessible in a way that many canonical texts are not, as it reflects the social downfalls, far from aesthetic, of readers' reality. Brontë's language throughout the novel's parallel arcs is diverse, lively, and therefore enchanting. Lockwood's opening bourgeois prose, compared to Joseph's regional code, to Cathy's poetic pleas are ultimately too indulgent and varied to embody universal prestige. Consider the techniques of Tolstoy, a writer whose works undoubtedly and repeatedly fall into the realm of the canon. . His masterpiece Anna Karenina is the ultimate realization of a transcendent fantasy, with the pursuit of a forbidden affair ultimately leading to tragedy, and its mockery of the hypocrisy and therefore humanity of the upper class. Company. Although scandalous, Tolstoy's undeniable talent lies in creating a novel that strikes at the heart of human emotion and rebellious desire, revealing the immorality of the upper classes while assuming that such falls are true for us all . Although the politics of Wuthering Heights are open to many similar interpretations, their vulgarity and focus on the powerless prohibit equating them with the non-offensive or "universal" themes with which canonical texts like Tolstoy's are more regularly associated. . Heights', however, remains more than just worthwhile reading material. The novel is valuable in the shock it generates, depicting brutal divisions of class, gender and ethnicity among its characters. The novel has no objectively artistic value in the presentation of ambitious situations. If the novel were published in a society of equality, liberty, and fraternity, its reflections might be dismissed as dramatic images of bizarre personal circumstances. The value of the novel is inseparable from the culture that views it and the fortunes of the readers, not from the concrete sacredness of the writer's work, and the assertion that all art can achieve "eternal charm" is linked to the subjective concept. of the “Canon” itself, which can be increasingly rejected on the basis of the relativism of artistic value. Eagleton and others have attributed this flaw in each "Canon" as derived from its construction by the ruling elite, in an attempt to oppress.