This paper examines the enduring critical appeal of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, arguing that both novels derive their power from an ability to expose primordial human emotions in their rawest form. Drawing on commentary from critics including Harold Bloom, Dorothy Van Ghent, Kathleen Tillotson, Debra Teachman, and others, the paper traces how shared themes of high romance, social transgression, and daemonic male dominance have consistently disturbed and captivated readers across generations. It further explores how each novel maps a private inner world—whether the repressed Victorian femininity of Jane Eyre or the mystical, nature-driven suffering of Wuthering Heights—ultimately arguing that this primordial quality accounts for both works' timeless literary significance.
The paper demonstrates effective critical synthesis: rather than treating each scholar in isolation, it weaves multiple critical voices together to build a single overarching argument. For example, Tillotson's observation that Jane Eyre maps "a private world" is linked to Teachman's analysis of Bertha Mason as a symbol of repressed Victorian femininity, and both are then contrasted with Van Ghent's more mystical reading of Wuthering Heights. This layering technique shows how to use secondary sources as building blocks rather than as ends in themselves.
The paper opens with a framing introduction establishing both novels' shared critical reputation, then moves through three thematic phases: Byronic and tonal similarities between the two works; a focused analysis of Jane Eyre's inner world and female identity; and a parallel analysis of Wuthering Heights' darker, more mystical register of suffering. A brief section on contrasting critical reactions bridges these analyses before the conclusion returns to the paper's central thesis about primordial emotion.
Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre have captured the imagination of successive generations of critics, from the time they were published until today. Widely acclaimed, these two novels continue to mesmerize scholars as the harbingers of a unique literary genre — romance set within a gothic drama, characterized by harsh vitalism and a conspicuous absence of conventional moral zeal.
More than their technical aspects, however, a review of the critical literature on these two works reveals an almost unanimous view that the enduring appeal of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre lies in the works' ability to virtually unplug human emotion and expose it in its raw form.
Charlotte Brontë, the author of Jane Eyre, and Emily Brontë, the author of Wuthering Heights, were sisters. It was therefore natural that a shared upbringing, a sibling relationship, and common influences found their way into the literary works they each penned. As such, it is hardly surprising that the two novels share a great deal of similarity in their Byronic influence and thematic content. Indeed, it is this similarity of themes that successive generations of critics have often analyzed and commented on, along with the ability of both novels to astound and disturb the readers' emotions.
While most critics offer differing interpretations and varying insights into the novels' shared themes of high romance, socially sanctioned relationships, and daemonic male dominance, they are virtually unanimous in agreeing that both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre disturb readers' emotions because they touch on primordial chords.
The ability of the two novels to touch on primordial emotions is both directly and indirectly revealed in the reactions of critics. For instance, soon after the publication of Jane Eyre, a reviewer in Sharpe's London Magazine commented, "Such a strange book! Imagine a novel with a little swarthy governess for heroine, and a middle-aged ruffian for hero."
Besides the "strange" choice of characters for the roles of hero and heroine in Jane Eyre, successive generations of Brontëan commentators have also recorded surprise and incredulity at passages in both novels which suggest that the well-to-do are sometimes uncivil to their employees. The reactions of such critics in describing the novels as strange, however, find explanation in West's observation that the story told in Jane Eyre seems absurd not because such incidents never happen, but because we dislike admitting that they happen.
If Jane Eyre succeeds in shocking its audiences, Wuthering Heights excels in achieving the same effect. Jane Eyre, at least, shows some modicum of respect for social values and etiquette in that Jane refuses to indulge in an illicit relationship with Rochester. Wuthering Heights, in contrast, displays no such concern in its unabashed narration of Heathcliff and Catherine's passion for each other — a passion that completely disregards the presence of spouses. Indeed, this aspect of the work has invited a great deal of critical comment. Margaret Lawrence points out, "the love in it was not only devastatingly possessive; it was also unaware of the gulf that marriage vows were supposed to make between lovers when they were married to other people."
This deviance from all cultural norms of behavior has been commented on especially in critical analyses of Catherine Earnshaw's character. While Bloom interprets Catherine's behavior as emanating from "no coward soul," the Victorian Pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti went so far as to describe the book as a "fiend of a book, an incredible monster ... The action is laid in hell ...." Indeed, as Bloom observes, Rossetti even imputed to Wuthering Heights a considerable female sadism.
While Rossetti's reaction may have been extreme, it is nonetheless indicative of the power of Wuthering Heights to shock and disturb its readers. Jane Eyre, for all its relative simplicity, has a similar effect. Naturally, therefore, many critics have attempted to analyze the source of the effect that both novels are most renowned for. Tillotson, for example, ascribes the effect of Jane Eyre as timeless precisely because it stems from the fact that it is "primarily a novel of the inner life, not of man in his social relations; it maps a private world." From this, it can be inferred that the appeal of Jane Eyre lies in Charlotte Brontë's ability to "lift a curtain, and reveal what the world usually keeps hidden." In other words, Jane Eyre touches on human emotion in its raw form.
Clearly, it is the critics' view that Jane Eyre reveals the private world of women rather than of men. Teachman has even interpreted Bertha Mason Rochester's character as one that showcases the repressed side of Victorian women. "As the shadow side of respectable Victorian women, Bertha displays the rage and violence that women were required to repress in Victorian life." To support this point, Teachman also suggests that Jane Eyre acts as a counterfoil to Bertha insofar as she strives to be a fully developed human being. As Teachman observes, Jane "believes that, as a human being, she has a right to want more than the proper Victorian lady is expected to want. 'Anybody may blame me who likes,' Jane challenges her readers."
As it was, neither Jane nor her creator Charlotte Brontë was blamed. The novel was an instant success, hailed as a work of genius by the Examiner and Fraser's. Of course, there were a few contemporary dissenting voices, such as the Quarterly Review, which denounced Jane Eyre as an anti-Christian composition.
Such reactions are not surprising when considered in light of the prevalent social values of the time. Indeed, what is more surprising is Jane Eyre's success in appealing to both its Victorian and later audiences. This implies that the private world of women depicted in the novel possesses universal qualities. The only plausible explanation must lie in Jane's desire to assert her rights as a woman and as a human being. Jane expresses this desire when she reflects, "I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach that busy world ... regions full of life ... I desired more of practical experience ...."
Similarly, critics have deduced that the power of Wuthering Heights lies not so much in the daemonic qualities of Heathcliff, but in the fact that the novel reflects a "quality of suffering" that is universally felt.
To appreciate this quality, Van Ghent suggests that critical analysis must go beyond the novel's apparent unsympathetic attitude toward social and moral reason, and instead recognize it as an expression of an absolute — something universal and undistracted. The primordial chord that Wuthering Heights addresses goes far beyond the inner world of Jane Eyre, reaching a plane that is mystical and primeval. Van Ghent explains this plane as representative of the forces of nature, or an unregenerate universe, as depicted in the great Chinese paintings of the Middle Ages.
Both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights have been closely analyzed over the years from several different angles. However, as this paper has attempted to show, there is one singular fact that stands out among all the critical interpretations: the primordial quality of both works, in that they touch upon inner, hidden emotions and humankind's deepest, most private world. By doing so, the Brontë sisters succeeded in literally unplugging human emotions and exposing them in their rawest form.
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