FREE ESSAY ON MEDEA

MEDEA

Literary Criticism Summary
According to the editor Currer Bell, the novel Wuthering Heights may seem rather 
crude and unintelligible to those who know nothing of the author. Strangers who are 
unacquainted with the setting where the story takes place, or who are unfamiliar with the
customs 
of the time may also look at Wuthering Heights with a critical eye. To all such Wuthering

Heights must appear a rude and strange production (Bell 5). 
Readers may feel that the manners, language, and the very dwellings of the characters 
are somewhat repulsive (Bell 5). People who are perhaps calm and collected will have no
idea 
what to make of the rough, strong utterance, the harshly manifested passions, the
unbridled 
aversions, and headlong partialities (Bell 5). Many people have been taught carefully to
observe 
the evenness of language and manner, and it is these people whom the roughness will shock
.
The entire novel is regarded for its rusticity. It is moorish, and wild, and knotty as
the 
root of heath (Bell 5). However, Currer Bell insists that this is exactly the way the
novel should 
be. The author was a product of these wild and rustic moors, and it is quite natural that
she writes 
about what she lived in. Her descriptions, then, if natural scenery, are what they should
be, and 
all that they should be (Bell 6).
The author herself was not a very social person. She looked upon most 
people with benevolence, but there were very few instances where she interacted with them
on a 
.
personal level. However, this did not stop her from accurately identifying the ways,
language, and 
family history of most people. She could hear of them with interest, and talk of them
with detail,
minute, graphic,and accurate; but with them she barely exchanged a word (Bell 6-7). Her 
imagination was dismal yet powerful.
Still, there are certain examples in Wuthering Heights that bring a sort of brightness to

the other dreary aspects of the novel. The character of Nelly Dean is an example of
tenderness 
and compassion. In the character of Edgar Linton one can see a sense of constancy and 
thoughtfulness. Also, some glimpses of grace and gaiety animate the younger 
Catherine (Bell 8). Even the first Catherine possesses strange sort of beauty in the
midst of all 
her intense passion.
Heathcliff possesses only one characteristic that shows he is in fact human. It is not
his 
love for Catherine, which is wild and fierce, but it is his, rudely confessed regard for
Hareton 
Earnshaw- the young man whom he has ruined; and his half -implied esteem for Nelly Dean 
(Bell 8). If it weren't for these mere examples, we would look upon Heathcliff as a child
purely of 
corruption.
Wuthering Heights was a novel formed out of poor materials with simple tools, yet it 
reflects an amazing sense of power. There was no model for it except the visions of the 
author's mind. It took time and effort, but the novel took on a human form and there it
stands 
dark and mighty, radiating a sense of strength and charm.