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Article: The psychology of loneliness in 'Wuthering Heights.'
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- June 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 University of North Texas. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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As Walter Allen has observed, Wuthering Heights "is utterly unlike any other novel."(1) Historically, the most celebrated aspect of its uniqueness concerns the portrayal of character. According to E. M. Forster, "the emotions of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw function differently to other emotions in fiction."(2) But the psychological strangeness of these two figures has undermined their intelligibility. Bernard Paris points out several critics who do not regard Heathcliff as "a mimetic character"--that is, one whose function is to represent a person.(3) Similarly, Joyce Carol Oates finds Catherine's unusual fixation on her own childhood inaccessible to analysis: ...