Psychological analyses of Wuthering Heights abound as critics
apply modern psychological theories to the characters and their
relationships,
The most common psychological
readings are Freudian interpretations. Typical of Freudian readings of
the novel is Linda Gold's interpretation. She sees in the symbiosis of
Catherine, Heathcliff, and Edgar the relationship of Freud's id, ego,
and superego. At a psychological level, they merge into one personality
with Heathcliff's image of the three of them buried (the unconscious)
in what is essentially one coffin. Heathcliff,  the id, expresses the most primitive drives (like sex),
seeks pleasure, and avoids pain; the id is not affected by time and
remains in the unconscious (appropriately, Heathcliff's origins are
unknown, he is dark, he runs wild and is primitive as a
child, and his three year absence remains a mystery). Catherine, the
ego, relates to other people and society, tests the impulses of the id
against reality, and controls the energetic id until there is a
reasonable chance of its urges being fulfilled. Edgar, the superego,
represents the rules of proper behavior and morality inculcated by
teachers, family, and society; he is civilized and cultured. As
conscience, he compels Catherine to choose between Heathcliff and
himself.
In Freud's analysis, the ego must
be male to deal successfully with the world; to survive, a female ego
would have to live through males. This Catherine does by identifying
egotistically with Heathcliff and Edgar, according to Gold. Catherine
rejects Heathcliff because a realistic assessment of her future with
him makes clear the material and social advantages of marrying Edgar
and the degradation of yielding to her unconscious self. Her stay at
Thrushcross Grange occurs at a crucial stage in her development; she is
moving through puberty toward womanhood. She expects Edgar to accept
Heathcliff in their household and to raise him from his degraded state;
this would result in the integration of the disparate parts of her
personality–id, ego, and superego–into
one unified personality. Confronted by the hopelessness
of psychological integration or wholeness and agonized
by her fragmentation, she dies.
Gold carries her Freudian
scrutiny to the second generation; the whole history of both
generations of Earnshaws, Lintons, and Heathcliffs may be read as the
development of one personality, beginning with Catherine Earnshaw and
ending with Catherine Linton Heathcliff Earnshaw. The second Cathy has
assimilated and consolidated the id/Heathcliff and the superego/Edgar
through marriages with Hareton and Linton.
Jungian readings also interpret
the relationship of Catherine and Heathcliff as aspects of one person;
those aspects may be the archetype of the shadow and the individual or
the archetypes of  the animus/anima
and the persona. These interpretations are derived from Jung's
distinction between the collective unconscious and the personal
unconscious. The collective unconscious is inherited, impersonal, and
universal. The content of the collective unconscious is mainly
archetypes; some archetypes occur in a particular society or
time period, others are the same in
all societies and times. The archetypes may find
expression in myth and fairy tales. The most common
and influential archetypes are the shadow, the
animus, and the anima. Every human being also has
a personal unconscious, in which material is stored
that was once conscious but has been forgotten or repressed. The
personal unconscious adapts archetypes based on the individual's
experiences. The personal unconscious finds expression in dreams and
metaphor.
The shadow. In the
collective unconscious, the shadow is absolute evil. In the personal
unconscious, the shadow consists of those desires, feelings, etc. which
are unacceptable, perhaps for emotional or for moral reasons. The
shadow is generally equated with the dark side of human nature. The
shadow is emotional, seems autonomous because uncontrollable, and hence
becomes obsessive or possessive. Heathcliff, then, can be seen as
Catherine's shadow–he represents the darkest side of her, with his
vindictiveness, his sullenness, his wildness, and his detachment from
social connections. She rejects
this part of herself by marrying Edgar, thereby
explaining Heathcliff's mysterious disappearance. But Heathcliff, the
shadow, refuses to be suppressed permanently; Jung explains that even
if self-knowledge or insight enables the individual to integrate the
shadow, the shadow still resists moral control and can rarely be
changed. Cathy's efforts to integrate Heathcliff into her life with
Edgar are doomed; her inability to affect Heathcliff's behavior can be
seen in his ignoring her prohibition about Isabella. The resurfaced
Heathcliff obsessively seeks possession of Catherine to insure his own
survival.
The animus and the anima.
What Jung calls the persona is the outer or social self that
faces the world. The animus is the archetype that completes women, that
is, it contains the
male qualities which the female persona lacks. The animus
generally represents reflection, deliberation, and
ability for self-knowledge and is male. Similarly, the anima
represents the female traits that a man's persona lacks, generally the
ability to form relationships and be related, and it is female. The
relationship of the anima/animus to the individual is always emotional
and has its own dynamic, because, as archetypes, the anima and animus
are impersonal forces. The individual is rarely
aware of his anima/her animus. In some of its aspects,
Jung says, the animus is the "demon-familiar." The
animus of a woman and the anima of a man take the
form of a "soul-image" in the personal unconscious; this soul-image may
be transferred to a real person who naturally becomes the object of
intense feeling, which may be passionate love or passionate hate.
"Wherever an impassioned, almost magical, relationship exists between
the sexes, it is invariably a question of a projected soul-image." When
a man projects his anima onto a real women or a woman projects her
animus onto a man, a triad arises, which includes a transcendent part.
The triad consists of the man, the woman, and the transcendent
anima/animus. Not surprisingly, the object of the projection will be
unable to live out the lover's animus or anima permanently.
Now to apply Jung's theory to
Catherine, for whom Heathcliff is the animus, and to Heathcliff, for
whom Catherine is the anima. For Catherine, Heathcliff expresses anger
and hostility, freedom, command, irresponsibility, rebellion, and
spontaneity. For Heathcliff, Catherine is beauty, love, status, and
belonging. The projection of their soul-images explains their profound
sense of connection or identity with each other, e.g., Catherine's "I
am Heathcliff" speech and Heathcliff's references to Catherine as his
soul and his life. The element of transcendence in the projection is
expressed in Catherine's vision of something, some life, beyond this
one, in her view of existence after death, in Heathcliff's longing to
see Catherine's ghost, and their life together after death. And is
there any question about Heathcliff's being a "demon-familiar"?
 An
entirely different approach is taken by Graeme Tytler, who applies
nineteenth-century psychological theory to the novel. In Brontë's
day, an obvious label for Heathcliff would have been monomaniac,
a term which is today equated with obsession but was in the nineteenth
century a specific disorder with clearly defined symptoms and
progression. Graeme Tytler theorizes that Heathcliff fits the
contemporary medical diagnosis of monomania, as defined by Jean Etienne
Dominique Esquirol, one of the
founders of modern psychiatry. Esquirol defined monomania as "the
disease
of going to extremes, of singularization, of one-sidedness." The
application
of this definition to Heathcliff is too obvious to need further
comment;
equally relevant to a diagnosis of Heathcliff is Esquirol's listing of
the
causes of monomania:
Monomania is essentially
a disease
of the sensibility. It reposes altogether upon the affections, and its
study
is inseparable from a knowledge of the passions. Its seat is in the
heart
of man, and it is there that we must search for it, in order to possess
ourselves
of all its peculiarities. How many are the cases of monomania caused by
thwarted
love, by fear, vanity, wounded self-love, or disappointed ambition.
Tytler distinguishes stages in the
development of Heathcliff's monomania. Heathcliff shows a
predisposition to monomania up to and slightly after Catherine's death
in such behavior as his single-minded determination to be connected to
her after her death. It is,
however, not until eighteen years or so after her death that he shows
signs of insanity. Much of what he says and does after Chapter 29 is
symptomatic of monomania–hallucinations, insomnia, talking to himself
or to Catherine's
ghost, his preoccupation at meals and in conversation, his sighs and
moans, his harsh treatment of Cathy and Hareton, and his being haunted
by Catherine's image.
Brontë: Table of Contents
October 13, 2011
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