How the figure of the male villain is used to examine contemporary issues in the novels 1984 and Wuthering Heights?
George Orwell’s novel 1984 (1949) and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) are both classified as historical novels. There is a long period of more than one century between the dates of the publication of these two novels. Each of these novels holds a profound connection to the specific literary period and reflects upon the societal features of their
While some scholars identify Wuthering Heights as a “Victorian novel [which goes beyond] the conflict between right and wrong”[1], others indicate 1984 as a “classic dystopian novel”[2] that its recent “popularity runs concurrent to the election of President Donald Trump”[3]. This research essay explores the ideas of otherness and dominance as the ways through which male villains are brought to represent the major contemporary issues such as racial difference, imperialism, colonialism, detestation, dictatorship, control of language, and perpetuation of oppression.
Despite the long time in between the publication dates and the mentioned differences, the overall thematic of Wuthering Heights and 1984 shares the same features and qualities of Gothic narration such as dimness, fears, hostility, torture, and uncertainty about the future. Fear as the main theme allows both novels to demonstrate a shared tendency and to a large extent, represent the same ground in which the English sovereignty and values are shown to be in danger. For instance, the scholarly interpretation of “reverse colonization”[4] in Wuthering Heights and the reading of “final triumph of totalitarianism”[5] in 1984 both imply that the English society and values are threatened. The figures such as O’Brien in 1984 and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights are used to examine the relevant issues of the eras. Subsequently, male villainy is brought into both novels in order to reflect upon these major contemporary concerns.
Although Wuthering Heights is full of dissimilar notions including romance, hatred, myths, and legends; its quality of developing villains in the context of otherness allows this novel to reflect upon one of the main contemporary issue of the time which is the racial difference. Bronte uses the sense of otherness to improve the male villain character in Wuthering Heights. In the earlier chapter of the novel Heathcliff is identified as “a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman”[6]. This brief introduction is rather a provocative sentence as it reveals Heathcliff’s colour of skin which is his natural feature but meanwhile introduces him as a gentleman. Nevertheless, in following, the dark skin and Heathcliff’s racial state is brought under further speculations. The narration indirectly invests in sceptic approach upon Heathcliff in the way that the novel, on the one hand, defines him as “erect and handsome figure”[7] and on the other examines his character under the social system of racial grading. The novel represents some doubts about Heathcliff and continues to describe that “[p]ossibily, some people might suspect him of a degree of under-bred pride”[8].
Furthermore, the initial reaction of Linton in Thrushcross Grange, against Heathcliff is also based on his racial difference. In Wuthering Heights also, Hindley shouts on him “‘Off, dog!’ […] hitting him on the breast, […] ‘Take my colt, Gipsy, then!’”[9]. On the contrary, Heathcliff also interrupts the normal life of Earnshaw’s from the onset of his arrival. At first, he causes Hindley’s jealousy, being tortured by Hindley, and later he returns for revenge. Heathcliff says, “‘I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!’”[10]. Heathcliff also tortures Catherine, locks Nelly for four days and five nights in a room, and finally gains the tenure of Wuthering Heights through exploiting Hindley’s weakness in boozing and gambling. Twitchell posits that among the “literary variation of vampirism [Heathcliff represents] the struggle for power”[11]. Furthermore, Przybylowicz defines a villain as the character “who wishes evil things to happen and who helps to make these evil things happen”[12], in both ways, Heathcliff develops sinister intentions to get power. Therefore, in Wuthering Heights the male villain is centred on Heathcliff while he is also identified as being of a different race. In this way, Wuthering Heights examines the issue of racial difference as the character of Heathcliff is depicted and placed in adjacent positions of the male villain and the state of otherness.
The idea of otherness is also used in Wuthering Heights through Heathcliff’s villain figure to examine other contemporary issues of Victorian era such as the ideology of imperialism and the British colonialism. In the novel, Heathcliff is frequently associated with some of those countries which Great Britain had control over such as India and America. The very first time when Mr. Linton sees Heathcliff, he exclaims about the young man, “Oho! I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool - a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway.’”[13]. Mr. Linton’s judgement about Heathcliff clearly symbolises the ideas of English supremacy and colonial ownership as he utters the proprietorship of the neighbouring English man (Mr. Earnshaw) on Heathcliff who is supposedly either from India or America.
Furthermore, Nelly washes and dresses Heathcliff and tells him that “[w]ho knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen”[14]. Although Heathcliff is welcomed at the beginning he is driven to outcast position gradually and that becomes possible through Hindley’s hostility and the way that he treats Heathcliff like a servant. Hindley destructs Heathcliff’s relevance to his adoptive family of Earnshaw but meanwhile does not expel him completely. Hindley does not merely ruin Heathcliff’s dignity and deprive him of an honourable life but also takes him under more control through hand covering him to Josef (a servant himself) for further exploitation. This is an instance which can imply the general approach of imperialism in imposing its authority through one colonised countries on others. A critical reading of the Wuthering Heights in relation to the idea of otherness shows that Heathcliff ‘s villain figure is brought to examine the major issues of the time such as imperialism and colonialism.
While racial difference, imperialism, and colonialism are mostly relevant concerns in the way that male villain is used in Brontë’s novel, detestation and hatred are other issues pertinent to offer an analysis of male villain involvement in both novels: 1984 and Wuthering Heights. Although the main thematic area of Orwell’s 1984 includes oppression, it happens through various means including cleansing the memory of the past, mutability, and absolute surveillance on personal life by the One Party. The rules of the One Party and ultimately the dominance of the Big Brother is hinged on the actions of a single male villain character who is O’Brien. O’Brien carries out dissimilar activities and undertakes some contradictory performances in service of the party and Big Brother. On one hand, he keeps a close relation with Winston Smith who contemplates a rebellion against the Big Brother, on the other hand, O’Brien perpetrates the cruelty instructed by the party on Winston Smith. In fact, no other character in the whole narrative can reveal the inner chamber of the One Party as O’Brien can and he does it all based on his belief in hatred. O’Brien believes in extreme hate as the foundation of the party. He clearly says to Smith that “old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred”[15]. Therefore, O’Brien is brought into the novel to examine a contemporary issue of the modern era which is lack of love and humanity in a larger scale of an oppressive political party ruling in totalitarian systems. O’Brien declares that “there will be no love, except the love of Big Brother”[16]. His vision towards the rest of the world is based on hate and his role in the story is intrinsically intertwined with hatred. This way the novel examines the villainous character of O’Brien to illustrate the problem in which political domination is achieved through the complete substitution of love by hate.
Similarly, the character of Heathcliff is used in the novel of Wuthering Heights to assess how hatred influences a pre-oppressed person to turn into an oppressor himself. In response to the imperialistic treatment of English society, Heathcliff does not merely resist against that oppression but he also turns out to “power of the "savage" outsiders […] unleashed”[17]. Despite the fact that an unleashed power can range to some certain extent, Heathcliff extends his oppressive behaviour beyond limits. Heathcliff even tortures his lover Catherine, which emphasises that power and hatred tend to dominate love and humanity.
Some scholar questions about Heathcliff’s ultimate motivation and asks what drives him to perpetuate brutality and oppression. Przybylowicz mentions that his “early actions may be excused because of the degradation he has had to suffer, but can there be any excuse for his later regression?”[18]. Although in response to her inquiry, Przybylowicz suggests that “Brontë surely means to test our ideas of nature vs. nurture,”[19] it also seems reasonable that the novelist enacts hatred within a male villain character to examine the subsequence of oppression as a relevant issue of the time which was the fear of revolt of those colonised and the terror of rebellion against British imperialism. In other words, the male villain is used to examine the fear of an uprising of those subjugated people, which was an issue of the Victorian era.
Having his inferiority complex erupted, Heathcliff has become villainous inevitably. Some scholars suggest that Heathcliff’s racial difference together with his past harsh experiences under the dominance of English society lead him to develop a long-lasting hatred. Meyer observes that “with his dark skin and indeterminate, widely suggestive colonial origins, is at once the novel's "ghoul" or "vampire"-its "incarnate demon"”[20]. Through developing Heathcliff’s villainous character the Brontë’s comment upon the British imperialism and colonialism expands to a further stage. The novel was written at a time concurrent with Great Britain’s historical period to keep the emperor standing worldwide. In Meyer’s reading, Heathcliff represents the potential of the uprising against the emperor “incarnation of the resistant energies of those subjected to British imperialism”[21]. Therefore, the anxiety of declining the British empire is an important issue which is emphasised in this interpretation. In order to warn about this relevant issue, Wuthering Heights grounds Heathcliff’s action on hatred. This way the character of Heathcliff as the male villain in Wuthering Heights is used to reflect upon the concerned issues of the late eighteenth century which was the anxiety of uprising of those colonised people and the fear of reverse colonization.
Another contemporary issue is the dictatorship which is enforced through controlling of the language and it is exhibited by the performances of O’Brien as the male villain in the novel 1984. In the novel, One Party is determined to shape the overall history by shortening it to merely the narration of absolute domination of the party. O’Brien says to Smith, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever”[22]. Although in this instance, O’Brien is more likely to predict a history yet to be made, he is actively imposing the party’s control on history through torturing Smith until he submissively repeats the slogan of party that, “[w]ho controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”[23]. The slogan is a product of words which happens in the language. Nevertheless, when the party’s slogan affects Smith and ultimately defeats him, it is then history. Because there is a fundamental change in which Smith who was a previous rivalry has now come to complete submission. As Theo Finigan points out, controlling the language is the way to manipulate the lived experience of people and through that way applying an arbitrary strategy in which the unwanted facts will be removed from history, “Newspeak works by erasing the historicity of language”[24].
Nevertheless, the actions of O’Brien are not merely complementary to what Finigan observes about Newspeak, as he is not only erasing history but also makes it. Following O’Brien’s successful interrogation, Smith “was light years distant”[25], it means he is far away to think about uprising anymore. O’Brien has achieved the victory. The novel examines autocracy and its brutal way of control through a ruthless process in which O’Brien is brought to act a critical role in depicting the “images that worked for the government”[26]. In a dictatorship, the people’s “experience of time, memory, and history”[27] need to be changed but it will not unless the male villain manipulates the tools of thinking such as language. This manipulation of language is so powerful that eventually, Smith comes to love the Big Brother and it becomes possible through utilisation of male villainy in examining the issue.
Finally, the fear of modern cruelty and the continuation of oppression in its new forms are other contemporary issues which are illustrated in the novel 1984 through the performances of the male villain. When Smith asks O’Brien if he was also captured by the party before, he answers with a ‘regretful irony’ that “they got me a long time ago”[28]. The novel signifies that a rebellion who is oppressed by the party may change into a new oppressor to torture the upcoming rebellions. Although O’Brien is an extremely vague character and there is no evidence that he has opposed the party, Smith exhibits both: rebellion and obedience. The fact that Smith who is erased from history and has changed, all the way from hating to loving Big Brother, remains no doubt that he continues the way that O’Brien has gone so far.
While 1984 implies the perpetuation of domination within an oppressive system of totalitarianism, Wuthering Heights also mentions control and power in relations to revenge and hostility. Therefore, despite the long-time of more than a century between the publication of these two Victorian and dystopian novels, the male villain is used to examine the respective contemporary issues which are mostly generated by otherness and dominance.
Bibliography
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[1] Shapiro, “"Wuthering Heights" as a Victorian Novel,” 284.
[2] Kenney, “Dystopian novel,” 1.
[3] Ibid, 1.
[4] Meyer, “Your Father was Emperor of China, and Your Mother an Indian Queen,” 112.
[5] Finigan, “Into the Memory Hole,” 422.
[6] Brontë, Wuthering Heights, 6.
[7] Ibid, 6.
[8] Ibid, 6.
[9] Ibid, 45-46.
[10] Brontë, Wuthering Heights, 71.
[11] Twitchell, “Variations of Vampirism,” 13.
[12] Przybylowicz, “Everyone's a Villain in Wuthering Heights,” 6.
[13] Brontë, Wuthering Heights, 58.
[14] Ibid, 67.
[15] Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 306.
[16] Ibid, 306.
[17] Meyer, “Your Father was Emperor of China, and Your Mother an Indian Queen,” 101.
[18] Przybylowicz, “Everyone's a Villain in Wuthering Heights,” 10.
[19] Ibid, 10.
[20] Meyer, “Your Father was Emperor of China, and Your Mother an Indian Queen,” 102.
[21] Ibid, 102.
[22] Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 307.
[23] Ibid, 289.
[24] Finigan, “Into the Memory Hole,” 446.
[25] Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 330.
[26] Butler, “Remembering George Orwell's 1984,” 1.
[27] Finigan, “Into the Memory Hole,” 435.
[28] Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 273.