To what extent do you believe Bronte challenged the expected role of women in wuthering heights?
To a certain extent ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte was successful in challenging the expected role of women. The novel was published in 1847, when the traditional expectation of women was to be a housewife, plain but pretty and never outspoken. Bronte challenged these expectations within herself because at the time, it could have been viewed as out of order for a woman to write a novel (which is why originally, Bronte called herself Ellis Bell), let alone a novel about an outspoken woman like Cathy. In this respect, characters like Cathy and Catherine both carry traits of a modern woman, which at the time would have been a shock to the reader. Whereas, characters like Isabella and Nelly were the expected roles within society.
Firstly, Nelly is the only female role in wuthering heights that doesn’t challenge the expected role of women, because in fact, she could be viewed as the role model for women in society at the time wuthering heights were written. This is because Nelly doesn’t try to push the boundaries and because she partially narrates the story, Emily Bronte might have thought that making Nelly an unruly character would be too much and would over complicate the novel. In my opinion, Nelly doesn’t need to challenge like Cathy and Catherine because she acts as a neutral force because she demonstrates the difference between a traditional woman of the time which was seen as the ‘norm’ and the new modernised woman Bronte created through Cathy.
Of all the women in wuthering heights, it may be argued that Cathy does challenge the expected role of women. This is because she does not follow the typical gender roles of women at her time as she is very controversial, continually outspoken, frequently violent, arguably selfish and nearly always independent as she loves to roam around the moors. When the reader is first introduced to Cathy properly, Nellie is describing the time that Mr Earnshaw brought home Heathcliff for the first time. ‘Cathy – showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing’ this demonstrates why she might challenge the expected role of women because her attitude towards Heathcliff is rude and disrespectful. However, this isn’t a shock for Cathy’s character as she treats Heathcliff and Edgar like this throughout the novel. Men of the time were meant to be strong, brave and outgoing and women were meant to be domesticated, motherly and focused on their physical appearance. In these terms, Cathy appears to come across more like a stereo-typical male because she is strong and outgoing, compared to Isabella who is the more traditional domesticated woman. In my opinion, Cathy may be viewed as more outrageous because of the contrast between herself and Isabella; this is because Isabella accentuates all of Cathy’s bad traits and her attitude. She could very loosely be seen as a typical woman because she changes to become “socially acceptable” when she spends five weeks at the Linton’s house near the start of the novel. When this happens, she learns to become a proper lady and her attitude changes, some may say that this is because she isn’t influenced by Heathcliff.
In comparison to Cathy, Isabella still challenges the role of women, but to a lesser degree as Cathy. This is because Isabella does stand up to Cathy on occasions such as when she is humiliated by Cathy she tells her that she will not allow her to treat her that way and admits that she does desire Heathcliff’s affections. Further on in the novel, Isabella leaves her brother’s home for Heathcliff to whom she decides to marry, which at the time would be shocking because of traditional family values and because of Heathcliff’s character and how he may be perceived as a ‘Villain’ to some readers. At this point, Edgar reacts by disowning his sister stating that he will not have a relationship with her as long as she chooses Heathcliff to which she decides to choose Heathcliff and lose her brother. This shows how she challenges expectations because she has become more outgoing and has a sense of independence. Unlike Cathy, she also has more traditional features which demonstrate that Isabella doesn’t fully challenge the expected role of women. This is because up until she meets Heathcliff, Isabella devotes her life to living at home with her brother, and has a regular upbringing in a normal home and with her family. Also, Isabella is caring, kind ad treats people with respect and cares about other people’s feelings. It may be argued that Isabella doesn’t challenge at all because she never behaves as outrageous as Cathy and because she is a very likeable character with a lot of positive qualities. She doesn’t do much to challenge the expected role of women and much like Nelly; acts like women in British society of the time would be like.
It may be argued that Cathy’s daughter, Catherine, does challenge the expected role of women, but only to a certain extent. This is because Catherine carries traits from her mother and Isabella, making her a well-rounded character and could be viewed as ‘the ideal woman’ because she isn’t as extreme as Cathy, but she also isn’t as mellow as Nelly or Isabella. What makes her challenge the role of women is that when Lockwood first meets her, she is rude, ill-mannered and discourteous towards him because of her poor treatment from Heathcliff. However, some may argue that Catherine neither challenges nor lives up to expectations in terms of her role as a woman in wuthering heights. This is because even though she is the better parts of Cathy and Isabella she never fully succeeds in overpowering the men and gaining full independence.
Ideally, for Bronte to successfully ensure that all the women in wuthering heights delivered their roles correctly (excluding Nelly) they will have all been able to overrule the men within their lives and come across as strong independent women. Emily Bronte failed to do this because of the time she was born in. This is because no woman had ever acted like Cathy before, therefore Bronte could only do so much without pushing the boundaries to the extreme, also, her lack of knowledge and experience in this role type meant that she could not develop it fully, without hindering the characters slightly (Cathy, Catherine and Isabella). The one key problem she had in doing this was demonstrating women’s independence over the men because they male characters in the novel were very dominating and powerful, like they were meant to be. This means that, in conclusion, Emily Bronte was partially successful in challenging the expected role of women because Cathy without a doubt did not follow the traditional conventions of a woman. But, if she had written the novel in the 21st century/modern day she would have been able to push the boundaries even more and create an even more ‘challenging’ woman than Cathy.