Form and Content in Wuthering Heights and Effi Briest

Introduction: Form as Meaning

We are often told, of course, that we should not judge books by their covers. But it is something entirely different to judge a story by its form, for the way in which an author chooses to frame a story is as important to our understanding of it as the content of the story itself. This becomes clear when we examine books that tell very different stories shaped by very different forms. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights could not have conveyed either the passion or the essential existential solitude of its characters had it not been written as an amalgam of first-person narratives wrapped in a Romantic form. Likewise, Theodor Fontane's highly realistic Effi Briest would also have been a very different novel had it been written, for example, as a Romantic work. This paper examines the ways in which form and content affect each other in these two works to the extent that they become essentially indistinguishable from each other.

Romanticism and the Structure of Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is an essentially Romantic work, and we cannot understand the skill with which Brontë married form to content within it if we do not read it within the broader context of the Romantic novel — a form concerned not solely, and often not even particularly, with happily-ever-after endings, but rather with an exploration of a particularly intense, personal relationship with the world. This kind of intensity can best, and arguably only, be told through a first-person narrative, which explains Brontë's rather unusual choice of structuring the novel as a series of first-person narratives rather than using a single first-person narrator or a single first-person narrator in combination with an omniscient authorial voice.

Published in 1847, the year before Emily Brontë died of tuberculosis, Wuthering Heights tells of the passionate relationship between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff — a relationship we learn about through a number of different narratives. Each one of these narratives convinces us that the two are psychological matches for each other, both equally wild and free souls. But Catherine marries the gentler Edgar Linton, thereby prompting an unquenchable thirst for revenge in Heathcliff that is not sated even by Catherine's death. It is only in the next generation that all of the families involved can find a sense of peace.

Although it is perhaps better known today as a poetic style, Romanticism was of course also an important framework for the novel during its height. It developed in the 19th century both in relationship to previous artistic styles and as a result of the political and historical forces reshaping the world during that century. It must therefore be understood as a style that was in some senses purely aesthetic but in most others essentially political.

Romanticism as a style was linked to a larger social movement that sought to upset the orderly conventions laid down by the Enlightenment, in which everyone had a place in society they were supposed to know and be content with. It was also a protest against the Industrial Revolution and the ways in which industrialization forced people to abandon ways of life they had followed for centuries. We see elements of both of these aspects of Romanticism in Wuthering Heights, in the fiercely held solitude and traditionalism and the love of place and land that run throughout the novel.

Emotion, Folk Voice, and Romantic Style in Wuthering Heights

There is also, of course, an emphasis on the importance of all emotions — not only romantic love but of every powerful feeling. And not only is there an emphasis on the importance of strong emotions held by the speaker, but also an emphasis on attempting to understand what emotions motivate other characters as well. The importance of being attuned to one's own emotional needs and the desire to understand others as powerfully motivated by their own inner lives are aspects common to Romantic literature, but especially prevalent in Wuthering Heights, as is clear in this passage from Chapter 17:

"I ought, and I wish to remain," answered she, "to cheer Edgar and take care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my right home. But I tell you he wouldn't let me! Do you think he could bear to see me grow fat and merry; and could bear to think that we were tranquil, and not resolve on poisoning our comfort? Now, I have the satisfaction of being sure that he detests me, to the point of its annoying him seriously to have me within earshot or eyesight: I notice, when I enter his presence, the muscles of his countenance are involuntarily distorted into an expression of hatred; partly arising from his knowledge of the good causes I have to feel that sentiment for him, and partly from original aversion. It is strong enough to make me feel pretty certain that he would not chase me over England, supposing I contrived a clear escape; and therefore I must get quite away."

Romantic writers discarded certain ideas and practices that writers who came just before them had considered most important. Romantic writers believed that beautiful, lyrical writing and a sense of spontaneity were more important than following literary "rules." They also wanted their writing to sound more like the poems and songs produced by common folk. Romantic writers looked to folk poetry and even medieval romance for models, leading them to reject regular meters, strict forms, and other conventions of the classical tradition.

We see examples of the rural speech of England throughout Wuthering Heights, as in this passage from Chapter Three:

"T' maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath nut o'ered, und t' sahnd uh t' gospel still i' yer lugs, and yah darr be laiking! Shame on ye! sit ye dahn, ill childer! they's good books eneugh if ye'll read 'em! sit ye dahn, and think uh yer sowls!"

Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive from the far-off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber thrust upon us. I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog kennel, vowing I hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub!

"Maister Hindley!" shouted our chaplain. "Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathy's riven th' back off 'Th' Helmet uh Salvation, un' Heathcliff's pawsed his fit intuh t' first part uh 'T' Brooad Way to Destruction!' It's fair flaysome ut yah let 'em goa on this gait. Ech! th' owd man ud uh laced 'em properly — but he's goan!"

Conclusion: Form and Content as Inseparable

The Realistic novel is, indeed, supposed to present us with a view of the world as it actually is. But the world is actually as we believe it to be in many ways, and Fontane's dark and claustrophobic view of the world and of human relations was perfectly matched to the conventions of the Realistic novel, just as Brontë's literary argument for the importance of human passion and the connections to the natural world of one's childhood are perfectly matched to Romanticism. In each case, form and content are not merely compatible — they are inseparable, each reinforcing and enabling the other.