This story happened in the first half of19th century. At that time, Britain was a typical patriarchal society, which divided people into three classes, class contradictions were very prominent, and the concept of hierarchy was impregnable. The working people are not only exploited and oppressed by the decadent land aristocrats, but also by the emerging bourgeois dignitaries. Like proletarians, women are in an oppressed position and almost deprived of all their rights as human beings. "No matter what class women are born in, their legal status is equal to that of male criminals, lunatics and minors" (May, 1987: 257). The fate of middle-class women is particularly tragic, because their wives and daughters are regarded as symbols of property and status, locked up at home and dependent on men-fathers, husbands, brothers or sons-for life, becoming dolls bowing to others. For them, marriage is their best destination, and their life depends on it. However, "in marriage, women are often used as a bargaining chip to consolidate family status and promote family fortune? Whether a family can agree to get married mainly depends on the property and status of the suitor, and the right match is the first condition. Marriages opposed by families often fail. If young men and women swear by each other, their only way out is to elope. But eloping means losing everything. They not only have to break with their families and give up the right to inherit family status and property, but also bear great social pressure. In Victorian times, elopement was as shameful as adultery and should be condemned by society at the same time. Since then, elopement must remain anonymous and struggle to survive in the relentless torrent of life. The family's decision-making power in marriage is so great that even men should not take it lightly. Rich young people take a fancy to a woman in the lower class. If he doesn't want to be kicked out of the house, he'd better not mention marriage. At that time, marriage was not arranged, but not free. " (Qian Chengdan, 1988: 354-355)
In this context, Catherine was isolated from beginning to end. Although she spent a wonderful childhood under the protection of her father, after her father died, her brother Haendly legally inherited all the property, and Catherine could only be controlled by her brother Haendly. Although she protested: "Who wants Haendly to be our parent!" (18) cannot change this fact. Her freedom has been more strictly restricted. For example, "we are always allowed to play on Sunday nights, as long as we don't make a scene;" Now, with a sneer, I can send you to the corner to be punished! "(19) As the head of the family, Haendly is an out-and-out tyrant. He hates Heathcliff from humble origins, forbids him to contact Catherine, and insults and insults him in every way; He never cared about his sister, although he seemed to be obedient to Catherine after her serious illness. " But this is not out of brotherhood, but because of vanity. He longed for his sister to marry Linton's family and add luster to her family. "(85-86) The servant hit the nail on the head.
As a middle-class woman, Catherine's only way out is to follow the tradition, abide by women's morality, marry a man with status and be a good wife and mother. Otherwise, the traditional boulder will crush her into pieces. Her love affair with Heathcliff is totally unacceptable to society. In the novel, the servant Joseph once sarcastically accused Catherine, saying, "Our dear daughter has gone out to fall in love by herself! What a serious act! After midnight, you are still drilling in the field, hanging out with that dirty thing and bastard Heathcliff who doesn't learn well! " Haendly immediately shouted,' Tell me-were you with Heathcliff last night? ? In order to avoid this kind of thing, I sent him away this morning and told him to find a way out. " (84) Old Mr Linton went to Haendly himself because Catherine and Heathcliff were running around in the country, and severely lectured him for being unkind to his sister. In order to mold Catherine into a middle-class lady, Haendly and his wife used beautiful clothes and attentive flattery to boost her self-esteem, making her feel "embarrassed to become a wild boar". "When she heard that Heathcliff was called a' lowly rascal' and' worse than an animal', she was careful not to act like him." (63) They instilled deep-rooted traditional values into Catherine and gradually internalized them into her will until Catherine said, "Now I am married to Heathcliff, which can humiliate myself." (77)
In everyone's eyes, Catherine married Edgar? A nobleman like Gil-galad is like going to heaven. However, Catherine knew very well that she would be miserable in heaven. She dreamed that "heaven is not like my home. I cried my eyes out and clamored to return to earth. This made the angels very angry and threw me down to the middle of the wasteland and the top of Wuthering Heights. I woke up crying happily there ... "(70) However, after all, she dared not violate the traditional social customs and offend the angel, and finally promised Edgar, the noble son? Gil-galad's proposal, although she said, "In my soul, in my heart, I clearly know that I did something wrong." She knew it was her only choice, and she couldn't run away with Heathcliff. She said to the servant, "Didn't it ever occur to you that if Heathcliff and I get married, we have to beg?" (72) Not only that, but she will also be regarded as a heresy by the society and cast aside by the world together with Heathcliff.
Under the bondage of tradition, poor Catherine had to make a choice against her will and suffered greatly physically and mentally. Heathcliff's departure immediately hit her head, and she was crazy. Although she once recovered to normal physiological level, she never got rid of mental pain. "If you think so, at the age of twelve, I was dragged away and left the villa, cutting off all my childhood connections, especially what I had at that time-Heathcliff, and suddenly I became Mrs. Litton, the housewife of Thrushcross Grange, the wife of a stranger, and from then on I became an exile and a layman in my original world-then you may see me vaguely. (122) Catherine's heartfelt cry of despair once again exposed the fact that she was forced to do nothing!
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Living in a society full of traditional patriarchal hierarchy and gender concepts, the tragic fate of Catherine and Heathcliff is inevitable, and they are destined to be victims of patriarchy.
Catherine, as a woman, and Heathcliff, as an inferior beggar, were oppressed by male rulers since childhood. Haendly can do whatever he wants with them, because they are dominated, in a subordinate position, with no property and no right to choose freely. The two oppressed peoples are therefore in the same boat. Catherine once said: "My greatest distress in this world is Heathcliff's distress;" Every distress of his, from the beginning, I was aware of it and I personally felt it. " In the battle against the tyranny of Haendly, they were so closely United that Catherine said, "I am Heathcliff!" " (79)。
In order to get rid of her brother's slavery, Catherine had hoped for Edgar? Linton's love for her. She thought Linton would give Heathcliff her happiness and equality. She said, "If I marry Linton, then I can help Heathcliff hold his head up and arrange that he will never be bullied by my brother again." Of course, this is just Catherine's naive fantasy, and the older maid immediately expressed doubt: "With your husband's money?" As a male ruler above the inferior poor and women, Catherine's husband Edgar? Gil-galad would never do that He married Catherine, and Catherine must obey him. When Heathcliff came home, Edgar thought the kitchen was the right place to receive Heathcliff. What can Catherine do? This house is not hers! She still has nothing. I have to say, "I can't sit in the kitchen. Allen, put two tables here. One is for your boss and Miss Isabella. They are gentlemen. The other one was taken by Heathcliff and me. They are inferior and upper class. Are you satisfied, dear? " Edgar sternly warned Catherine, who had been reunited with Heathcliff for a long time, and said, "Catherine, you can be happy, but don't make jokes on others. There is no need for this family to see you welcome an escaped servant as a brother. " At this point, Catherine suddenly woke up and regretted it. She can only fight with her life.
After losing his lover, Heathcliff's revenge burned in his veins. When he got the money, he immediately changed from a proletarian to a property owner and from an oppressed to an oppressor. He returned to Wuthering Heights, married Edgar's sister Isabella, and treated her cruelly. He bought Haendly's property and controlled Haendly and his son in his own hands; He also lured Catherine Jr, Catherine's daughter, home and forced her to marry her dying son, in order to seize the property she inherited from her father as an only child. All this can be achieved with the acquiescence of a patriarchal society.
At that time, "in Britain, no woman, regardless of her birth, can own her own property. Before marriage, the family property belongs to the father; After marriage, the dowry she got from her father immediately became her husband's property. " (Qian Chengdan, 1988: 349-350) Therefore, Heathcliff can rightfully take the property that Isabella inherited from her brother as his own, and brazenly seize everything that little Catherine inherited from her father Linton by forcing her to marry his dying son. According to the law at that time, "once a woman gets married, she loses the existence of law." Husband and wife belong to the same legal person and this legal person is the husband. " (Xi Guangqing, 1993: 8) After getting married, Hick Lizi and Isabella gained the right to control their wives and everything, and no one can interfere. He clearly told Isabella, "You don't deserve to be your own protector, Isabella. Now, since I am your legal protector, I must ask you to take care of it, no matter how bad the responsibility is. " (148) He insulted her, beat her and tortured her without scruple, but he could "avoid giving her the slightest reason for divorce." (148) In fact, before 1857, divorce was impossible in Britain unless there was a special parliamentary act to approve it. /kloc-the patriarchal society in the 0/9th century stipulated the personal attachment of women to their husbands. No matter how estranged the couple's feelings are, how dysfunctional their sexual life is, or how abusive the husband is to his wife, it is difficult for her to file for divorce. Isabella was cornered and had to run away from home, throwing the gold ring symbolizing the happiness of marriage into the stove to vent her anger at her free marriage.
With the support of the patriarchal social system, even the weak Kobayashi can bully the stubborn little Catherine. He proudly declared: "The doctor said that my uncle is dying-he will die eventually, and he can't escape. I am very happy, because I will replace him as the owner of the grange. When Catherine mentioned it, she always said it was her home. That's not hers. That's my house. Dad said all her things were mine. Many of her good books are mine. She begged me that she would give me many good books, her beautiful birds and her pony Minnie as long as I gave her the key to her room and let her go out. But I told her: she has nothing, who else can she send! -Those things are mine, all of them! " (272) He and his father effortlessly bound little Catherine's hands and feet with the chains of marriage, manipulated her at will, and put her fate in their hands.
Finally, the rich Heathcliff forced Hareton, the son of Haendly, to repay the debt left by his father and make him a slave. As a result, the same story is repeated: Hareton and little Catherine, both subordinate, formed an alliance and fell in love like Heathcliff and Catherine. They are subordinate. How ironic is that? Heathcliff's crazy revenge is terrible, but what is even more terrible is the patriarchal social system that helps others to abuse! Is the real culprit!
three
Emily, the author of Wuthering Heights? The reason why Bronte can put forward such bold feminist social criticism in her works is that as a middle-class woman living in a patriarchal society in the19th century, she has a deep understanding of the oppression of patriarchy.
Emily. Bronte was born into a poor family of priests, who lost his mother at an early age and lived in distress. His education is mainly influenced by his father. For a living, her sister Charlotte? Bronte and his sister Anne? Both Bronte and herself have been governesses, suffering from humiliation, discrimination and loneliness. They had planned to run a school, but they couldn't realize it because they didn't have funds and academic qualifications. Constrained by traditional customs, my father spent all his money on training his only son, branwell, and loved Yujia, which made Jambrin Weil almost a tyrant at home. Mrs. Gaskell wrote it in Charlotte? Bronte's biography wrote: "In a family where all the family are girls and there is only one boy, life often has special tests. Everyone expects him to do some small things in life and expect him to act, while the girls just live. They have to accommodate him in some things, which often leads to accommodating him in everything, and as a result, he becomes completely selfish. In the family I described, almost everyone else developed the habit of asceticism, but branwell was allowed to grow up in self-indulgence. " (Ryan, 1990: 139) branwell has been drinking and taking drugs for a long time, wasting a lot of hard-earned money of his sisters. It was not until he contracted lung disease and died in September 1848 that the sisters were relieved.
Emily and her sisters dreamed of becoming writers when they were young, but the patriarchal society gave them a merciless blow. 1836, Charlotte sent several poems written by herself to Southey, a famous poet laureate at that time, only to find that Southey wrote back: "Literature cannot and should not be a lifelong career for women. The more conscientious she is, the less leisure she has to engage in literary activities, even as a talent and pastime. You haven't taken on those responsibilities yet, and when you do, you won't be so keen on becoming famous. " (Ryan, 1990: 108) The Bronte sisters are under great pressure in marriage, Margaret? Ryan wrote in "The Story of the Bronte Family": "At that time, as today, marriage was a major event in every young woman's life planning, and the social pressure at that time was incomprehensible in our different times. It is easy for us to forget how stressful it was at that time and how chilling it was to be an old maid. Charlotte wants to get rid of the endless boring life before her eyes. Marriage is the only way that can be desired and accepted by society. " (Ryan, 1990: 120)
However, the Bronte sisters did not give in. They still picked up the pen and wrote their own ideals and criticisms of society. Charlotte calls for women's independence in Jane Eyre, while Emily shows the evil of the patriarchal society with a tyrannical and grotesque story in Wuthering Heights. Anne also wrote Women's Voice, although they had to borrow men's names when their works were first published.
Emily is the most individual and talented of the three sisters. She is taciturn on the surface, but full of passion inside. Although she doesn't understand politics, she is very concerned about it. She despises all worldly ideas and lives according to her own wishes all her life. In her short life, she was full of beautiful hopes for life. She once yearned for love and pursued true happiness and happiness. But in this ruthless patriarchal society, "she suffered a lot of bitterness and pain, the flame of youth was extinguished in loneliness, and the beautiful vision disappeared in the dark." Feeling depressed and lonely, she wrote in a lyric poem: "I am alone, destiny takes a hand,/no one has asked me, no one has pitied me,/since I was born, I have never caused a trace of anxiety or a trace of relief. "//I secretly laugh and cry silently. /Ah, the changed life has slipped away in such a hurry. /Eighteen-year-old girls are lonely,/They are still as lonely as the day they were born. Once upon a time, the hope of youth was melted. However, the rainbow of dreams suddenly flew to the horizon. /So life experience tells me that truth will never sprout in people's hearts ... "(Fan Yue
With her profound insight and experience of the patriarchal society, Emily sketched a deformed picture of the patriarchal society in Wuthering Heights: under the corrosion of the patriarchal hierarchy and gender concept, people's thoughts were bound and their freedom and liberation stagnated. Proletarians and women on the edge of society are humiliated and unable to control their own destiny. In the end, both the oppressor and the oppressed distort human nature and do all kinds of terrible things. As a result, although Wuthering Heights was published in the same year as Jane Eyre, it was not widely praised by public opinion like Jane Eyre, but caused many people's disgust. There is no doubt that Emily's thoughts were completely out of tune with the times when she lived, and her indifferent acerbity was condemned. However, she did write an insurmountable internal contradiction in the patriarchal society in which she lived. Through a love tragedy, Emily actually expressed a profound feminist social criticism, and she will eventually arouse people's vigilance against the patriarchal social system.