Bronte' Studies, Vol. Z9, November 2.004

CHILDHOOD AND INNOCENCE IN WUTHERING HEIGHTS BY MARIELLE SEICHEPINE In the mid-eighteenth century writers began to deal with the theme of childhood. This interest increased with the rise of the middle class, which considered children as heirs. In Wuthering Heights, childhood plays a large part and pervades the novel with its presence. Many critics, for example, have commented on Catherine's childish love for Heathcliff. When the novel was published in 1847, childhood was still associated with inexperience, intellectual unawareness, and moral purity, in short with prelapsarian, before the Fall-of-Man innocence — the heritage of the Romantic Movement. Such a vision still prevailed two years later in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, and even thirteen years later in his Great Expectations and in The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. However, Emily Bronte's vision of childhood has been claimed to stand in sharp contrast with the vision which then prevailed in literature, for its perversion and narcissism, and even has something pathological about it. Recent critics have generally focused on Catherine, who is said to embody such narcissism and perversion. This study, which relies on the theories of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, actually focuses on the two main female characters, Catherine and her daughter Cathy, and considers whether the latter generation embodies the same kind of relation between childhood and innocence as the former generation and looks at the extent to which lost innocence and narcissism in particular can be considered to be redeemed at the end of the novel. Childhood is generally considered to be central to Wuthering Heights: 'The theme of childhood, voiced by the elder Cathy on her deathbed, is continued in the main action of the second half of the book [.. .] in one way or another childhood is in fact the central theme of Emily Bronte's writing'.' This time in Catherine's life, which is unquestionably associated with Heathcliff's appearance in her house and the strong feelings the boy then arouses in her, is, indeed, described at length by the narrator Nelly, as it will determine the following events in the novel. Catherine's dreams of happiness are associated with childhood all through her life, and even on her death-bed she still looks like a child in Nelly's eyes: 'She drew a sigh, and stretched herself, like a child reviving, and sinking again to sleep and five minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing more!''^ Einally it is the ghost of a child that visits Lockwood, the newcomer and second narrator in the novel. Until she dies at the age of nineteen, Catherine clings in a passionate way to her childhood memories. The most revealing passage is the scene which takes place after Address correspondence to Stephen Whitehead, Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Keighley, West Yorkshire H D l 2ND, LIK.

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Heathcliff has returned from a long absence and has just quarrelled with Catherine's husband, Edgar Linton. This scene, in which she raves, is significant as it echoes the childhood scenes in which she suffered from being separated from Heathcliff. Her memories have actually never stopped cropping up in an insistent way and she now cannot help lamenting about 'what has kept recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason.'^ The past years even end up overlapping the present situation and the adult in Catherine totally identifies with the child. The year she has spent with Edgar then seems to vanish at once. Her physical sensations as she lies in her bed at Thrushcross Crange release images from the past and she sees herself lying in her bed years earlier at Wuthering Heights. She yearned to transcend death and to recover the freedom she used to share with Heathcliff when she was a child: 'Their mutual destruction by tooth and nail in an effort, through death, to get back to the lost state of gypsy freedom in childhood'." However, childhood in Catherine's case is certainly not synonymous with innocence. Lockwood's reaction when the little girl sobs in her melancholy voice to be let in is significant as he does not soften at all and even turns out to be totally impervious to the child's plea. He then shows himself to be cruel to Catherine, even if he tries to account for his cruelty by claiming that the ghost arouses a feeling of terror in him: 1 discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window — Terror made me cruel; and finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, 1 pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes . . . '

Nevertheless, Nelly's description of her little mistress is not devoid of ambiguity, and this makes the reader feel somewhat puzzled. The housekeeper lays emphasis on Catherine's angel-like sweetness: 'she had the bonniest eye, and sweetest smile [. ..] after all, I believe she meant no harm'.* But the girl's conception of good and evil has nothing canonical about it, as is shown by the dream which she relates to Nelly: '"If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable"', she confesses.'' Thus she expresses her utter rebellion against convention as she inverts good and evil as well as heaven and hell. Heaven to her is certainly not synonymous with peace and bliss: "'heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth"'.* Only Wuthering Heights can actually fulfill this function. Only at Wuthering Heights does she feel really comfortable, '"the angels were so angry that they flung me out, into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights where I woke, sobbing for joy"'.' The aspects of childhood which are associated with Catherine when she has become an adult are mainly negative. In the raving scene, her childish behaviour obviously irritates Nelly who is, however, generally prone to accept her little mistress's attitude, 'she seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from the rents she had just made [...] "Cive over with that baby-work!" I interrupted, dragging the pillow away'.'" Catherine's childish feelings and, more particularly, her narcissism and perversion, have been repeatedly pointed out by critics. She pays much attention to herself and she wonders — or she rather pretends to wonder — at the love she arouses in all the people that surround her: "'How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me".''^ Catherine proves to be unable to choose between her love for Heathcliff and her love for Linton. She cannot determine to give up either of the two men, quite the reverse, she

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wishes to keep both of them. She thus shows what Freud calls the perversity of the infant, '[Catherine] wants to have it all, an impulse that recalls what Freud has characterised as the polymorphous perversity of the infant'." She cannot imagine that this situation may arouse a feeling of jealousy in either of her suitors or make him suffer. In marrying Fdgar Linton, she thus tries to persuade herself that she will be able to help Heathcliff. On the one hand, she longs for the high social position that only Linton can provide her with: '"... he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband"'.^^ On the other hand, she confesses to Nelly that her deep love for Heathcliff is actually due to the perfect similarity of their souls, '". .. he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am"'.''* Later in her life, when she is married to Linton, she cannot bear having a rival in Isabella and she takes her revenge in abasing the girl and revealing her secret feelings for Heathcliff. The image Catherine then gives of herself is in keeping with the image of ideal self as defined by the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The idealization of self related with narcissism is associated with masterful and confident bearing, and also with rivalry." The wish for symbiosis that Catherine thus expresses appears to be very close to the infant's state of 'non-differentiation'. Pauline Nestor points out 'she [Catherine] is in fact expressing the desire for an impossible symbiosis, for a state of nondifferentiation between the self and other which Lacan contends belongs to the realm of the psychological "Imaginary"'.** Not only does Catherine behave hke a child but she seems to be in such a state of regression that she eventually moves back to the early stage of infancy. Just as in the infant's imaginary a condition of total unity with the mother prevails, Catherine cannot imagine herself as a being distinct from Heathcliff. In what Lacan defines as 'the mirror-phase', either the reflection of the mirror, or the reflection given back by the perception of others, helps the child to distinguish between the 'I' and the 'not-I'; between self and other. The infant then perceives itself for the first time as a being separate from its mother and, consequently, as subject. The mirror-phase thus provides a link with reality, a link between the 'Innenwelt' and the 'Umwelt'.*^ As for Catherine, she indeed proves unable to cope with the mirror-phase. During the raving scene she is quite horrified by the image of herself which is given back by the mirror: '"And I dying! I on the brink of the grave! My God! Does he know how I'm altered?" continued she, staring at her reflection in a mirror, hanging against the opposite wall. "Is that Catherine Linton?"'.'* Later she goes still further as she no longer recognizes herself in the mirror at all; she even comes to think that someone else's face, and not her face, is reflected in it: 'It [the black press] does appear odd — I see a faee in it!' 'There is no press in the room and never was' said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that 1 might watch her. 'Don't you see that face?' she enquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror. And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl. "

Moreover, when she claims that she is Heathcliff, that she and Heathcliff are but one person, and that Heathcliff's soul and her own soul are but one soul, she shows to what extent their respective identities are now blurred:

M A R I E L L E SEICHEPINE

'Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, Nelly, 1 am Heathcliff — he's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself— but, as my own being,'^"

Thus, they find themselves in a situation of non-differentiation, a situation in which the 'I' is the 'not-F, and self and other merge. For the heroine of the novel, therefore, childhood is synonymous with the loss of innocence (or the absence of innocence) in so far as perversion and narcissism are opposed to purity and openness to others. This statement should, however, be qualified as regards the scene which has just been mentioned. If we take innocence in the sense of unawareness, we can then argue that Catherine is nevertheless innocent since she is unconscious, or she is no longer conscious, of the surrounding world. Let us now consider the younger generation in the novel. To what extent does Cathy manage to put an end to this infernal cycle which has repeatedly brought her mother back to the perversity of childhood? At the end of the first book Lockwood warns the reader that he might well find in the daughter the very image of her mother when he confesses: 'I should be in a curious taking if I surrendered my heart to that young person, and the daughter turned out a second edition of the mother'.^^ And he later goes further when he expresses his total disagreement with the housekeeper and doubts that Cathy is an angel as Nelly claims: '"She does not seem so amiable", I thought, "as Mrs. Dean would persuade me to believe. She's a beauty, it is true; but not an angel"'.^'^ As for Nelly's description of Cathy, it is unquestionably as paradoxical as her previous description of Catherine. She first says that the daughter's personality differs from her mother's and that their deep feelings are actually expressed in totally opposed ways: That capacity for intense attachments reminded me of her mother; still she did not resemble her; for she could be soft and mild as a dove, and she had a gentle voice, and pensive expression: her anger was never furious; her love never fierce; it was deep and tender,^

But she then claims that Cathy has features in common with Catherine. For instance, when she escapes from the house while her father is absent, thus obliging Nelly to search for her for several hours, and then tries to escape again, the housekeeper reproaches her with her childish behaviour, just as she reproached the mother in the past: '"You thirteen years old, and such a baby!'".^'' Nelly also lays emphasis on Cathy's sauciness and perversity: 'a perverse will that indulged children invariably acquire [...] her petted will'." As for Cathy's relationship with Linton, it is described by Richard Chase: 'Nothing could be more Victorian than the marriage of the child lovers, Linton and the younger Cathy, both aged 17, under the baleful influence of Heathcliff. They are sweet, innocent children' (my italics).^* Cathy, indeed, often shows tenderness and patience to her cousin Linton, but she also sometimes openly and cruelly expresses the contempt she feels for him: '"You needn't bespeak contempt, Linton; anybody will have it spontaneously, at your service'"'^^, she tells him because he has shown himself somewhat whimsical .. . but mainly sick. Cathy thus reveals, in her turn, what Lacan calls a masterful and confident bearing, showing her superiority over Hareton, refusing to recognize him as her cousin because, in her eyes, he looks like a mere servant: '"And he never said. Miss; he should have done, shouldn't he, if he's a servant?"', addressing her unknown kinsman as she would one of

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the stable-boys at the Grange, '"How dare he speak so to me? He my cousin!"'.'^* Nelly then reports the hyperbolical language which her little mistress is used to hearing whenever she is talked about and which actually has no other effect than to make her still more proud and haughty: 'she who was always "love", and "darling", and "queen", and "angel", with everybody at the Grange'.^' Being thus worshipped by all those that live with her, and mainly by her father, actually reinforces her self-centredness. Moreover, she feels utter disdain for Hareton because he is innocent and uncultured in her eyes. The boy, who would like his efforts and his progress in reading to be valued, arouses only mockery and rebuff in his cousin. The way in which Cathy relates to her housekeeper one of her meetings with Hareton and the contemptuous behaviour she then openly showed to him is quite significant: The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join in my mirth; whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it really was, contempt.^"

Another example can be found later in the novel when Cathy is detained by Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights. She then cannot stand being ignored by Zillah, the servant, and she reacts in the same way as previously: 'Catherine [Cathy] evinced a child's annoyance at this neglect; repaid it with contempt'.^' She thus spurns Hareton, but she sometimes goes even further in suiting the action to the word and reacting in an aggressive way. Lacan argues that aggression is precisely connected with narcissism.^'^ As a matter of fact, the girl's attitude has even something pathological about it in so far as she cannot bear Hareton's touching her or touching the book which she is reading. So far, Cathy does not prove to be more able than Catherine to overcome her narcissism. She also embodies the idealization of self, obviously privileging self over other, and even rejecting other. She suffers like her mother from a kind of psychological imprisonment. But her relationship with Hareton eventually develops in a positive way and she gradually becomes able to move from narcissism, pride, and contempt towards generosity and interest in other. She will no longer live in the world which she has created — just as her mother did before her — in order to impose her own will. Rather, she will accept to conform to social rules and to adapt to others' needs. Her love will therefore be able to grow at last: Cathy Heathcliff is able to accomplish what the first Catherine could not; she places her love not within a self-created environment, the glorification of the will, but within human society, the modification of the will; and Hareton in his turn endows her existence with a purpose.'^

So, at the end of the novel, the relationship which is established between Cathy and Hareton can no longer be defined as a relationship in which the T merges with the 'not-I', or a relationship in which self subdues other. It is, on the contrary, a relationship between self and reality with self turning to others. Cathy, indeed, acknowledges Hareton as he really is. She accepts, for the first time, someone who is different from her, someone who in some respects is even inferior to her and shows weaknesses and faults. She resorts to her own ingeniousness to try and pick up the thread which has been repeatedly broken between Hareton and herself, adopting a cunning stratagem to do so. She reads an extract from her book in a loud voice so as to attract her cousin's attention and arouse his intellectual eagerness and interest in reading: 'But her ingenuity was at work to remedy the injury [.. .] she would bring some pleasant volume, and read it

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aloud to me'.^'' She eventually fulfils her aim if we refer to Nelly's description of the two characters bending their beaming faces over the same page, which is symbolical of their mutual acceptance. Cathy now no longer despises her cousin's 'simpleness'. Conversely, she shows her readiness to convey her own intellectual knowledge to him and she thus helps him to progress. Their common readings, as well as the discoveries and intellectual enjoyments which they derive from reading and which they share with each other, unquestionably induce Cathy and Hareton to overcome their self-centredness and aggressiveness. Together they are then led to build up a new world which will enable them to evolve and to fulfill themselves. Cathy and Hareton's relationship may still have something childish about it: 'There is a childishness too about the love relationship of Hareton and the younger Cathy',^^ but it has nothing to do with the confident bearing and rivalry which used to characterize it. Cathy has managed, at last, to put an end to her psychological imprisonment and now proves able to give her cousin a helping hand. The only two characters that remain with Nelly at the end of the diegesis thus seem, conversely, to complete each other 'both their minds tending to the same point — one loving and desiring to esteem and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed — they contrived in the end to reach it'.^* In short, they are eventually endowed with qualities which will enable them to reach a common aim. The situation is thus somewhat paradoxical. As Cathy comes out of childhood and becomes an adult, she does not lose innocence, as is usually the case when one becomes an adult. Rather, she gains a certain innocence as she eventually succeeds in overcoming rhe wicked tendencies which she has inherited from her mother and which have characterized her all through the first years in her life. For the first time she shows qualities which are generally associated with childhood. At the end of the novel Cathy and Hareton show a maturity which does not mean that they are disillusioned. Their maturity, on the contrary, is endowed with innocence in several ways. First of all they embody purity and the absence of guilt in so far as they manage to remove evil and to help each other. Besides, they are really eager to learn and they marvel at having so much to discover together: The red firelight glowed on their two bonny heads, and revealed their faces, animated with the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three, and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel, and learn, that neither experienced, nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity.^^

Cathy and Hareton come out of the mirror-phase and they are now ready to enter a new phase in which self is related with society, even though social relationships do not play a very large part at Wuthering Heights.^^ In conclusion, it is significant that in the very last scene in rhe novel, which is undeniably related with benevolence by Nelly, the warm light falling on the two young people's faces undeniably symbolizes the positive evolution which from now on will characterize both their hearts and their minds. References ' Richard Chase, 'The Brontes: A Centennial Observance', in The Brontes: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. by Ian Gregor (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1970; repr. 1986), pp. 19-33 (P- 3^)-

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^ Wuthering Heights, book ii, chapter ii, p. \66. Page numbers refer to tbe Penguin edition of zooo edited by Pauline Nestor. ^ Wuthering Heights, i, xii, 1Z4. •* Dorotby Van Gbent, The English Novel: Form and Function (New York, 1958), p. 158. ^ Wuthering Heights, \, ill, 25. ' Wuthering Heights, 1, v, 41. ' Wuthering Heights, 1, ix, 80. * Wuthering Heights, I, IX, 80. ' Wuthering Heights, 1, ix, 80. '" Wuthering Heights, i, xii, izi-zz. " Wuthering Heights, 1, xii, izo. '^ Pauline Nestor, 'Introduction' to Wuthering Heights, p. xvii " Wuthering Heights, 1, ix, 78. " Wuthering Heights, 1, ix, 80. " Lacan defines tbe idealization of self tbus: 'C'est cette image qui se fixe, moi ideal, du point oil le sujet s'arrete comnie ideal du moi. Le moi est des lors fonction de mattrise, jeu de prestance, rivalite constituce', Jacques Lacan, Ecrits I-ll (Paris : Seuil, T966\ 1971; 1999), 11, p. 289 '* Nestor, p. xvii. " Lacan, 1, p. 95. " Wuthering Heights, i, xii, izo. " Wuthering Heights, i, xii, izz. ^° Wuthering Heights, i, ix, 8o-8z. ^' Wuthering Heights, 1, XIV,15Z. " Wuthering Heights, 11, xvii, z