This thesis is pided into five parts. First part is a general introduction to the thesis. The second part is an introduction of the author and the novel. In the third part, this thesis analyses Catherine’s dual personality in detail. Part four discusses the causes. A conclusion is reached in the last part.

2.0           Emily Bronte and

Emily Bronte is a woman of considerable strength. Her only novel, Wuthering Heights, is generally considered a masterpiece that stands outside the mainstream of Victorian literature. The following is brief introduction of Emily’s life experience and Wuthering Heights.

2.1  About Emily Bronte

Emily Bronte (1818-1848), the fifth child of Patrick Bronte, was born at Thornton, Yorkshire on July 30, 1818. She died on December 19, 1848 after a brief but harrowing illness. When she was three years old, her mother died of cancer, and her aunt came to look after the infants.

In 1824, the four eldest girls, including Emily were sent off to a boarding school for clergymen’s daughters at Cowan Bridge. As a result of the poor food and a fever that swept the school, Maria and Elizabeth died. Alarmed, Mr. Bronte brought Charlotte and Emily home to be educated. What Emily experienced in the boarding school could be the origin of her isolated disposition. Emily remained at home for the next ten years, until she was sent out again to a school, RoeHead where Charlotte was a pupil and later a teacher. She was sent home soon because of her physical decline owing to homesickness.

When she was twenty-three, the Brontes decided to run their own school at Haworth. In order to achieve this, the sisters would need to perfect their French, so Emily and Charlotte set out to Brussels. But they were forced to return home by the death of their aunt after several months. The plan to run a school failed and both Charlotte and Emily were in very low spirits.

In 1846, the girls published a selection of their poems at their own expense but they sold only two copies. A year later, Wuthering Heights was published but unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the only boy of the Brontes, had been ill and died in September 1848. Emily had a cough and a cold during the funeral. She refused all medical help and struggled through her normal household work until almost the day of her death. She died of tuberculosis on December 19, 1848 at the age of thirty.

Living environment played its part in creating the uniqueness of Emily Bronte. In Haworth, a vast expanse of marshes, storm-scarred moors and lonely valleys were people’s life setting. It is well known that all the Brontes use imagination based on the world around them and clearly Emily Bronte was no exception. Charlotte ever talked about the nature of Emily Bronte, “my sister Emily loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in a vivid hill-side, her mind could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights.” (Yang Jingyuan, 1983: 31) Only here, did she feel the deepest happiness and liberty and reveal her innermost feelings. (Gao Yujuan, 2001: 33) All these gave her the sources of her powerful imagination and greatly motivated her creative inspiration.