Figurative Speech in Wuthering Heights
.... Rather, he is upset that harm was prevented. He, much like the hypothetical miser, is given a one-in-a-million chance at happiness but is robbed by miserable luck. This makes Heathcliff seem like a victim of fate, thus gaining sympathy from the reader. Next, Brontë uses simile on page eighty-three when Catherine compares her loves for Heathcliff and Edgar with objects in the forest. Catherine is in a difficult situation. Although she truly and deeply loves Heathcliff, she has already promised to marry Linton, the man who can advance her social status and ensure her future. “My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” Her simile beautifully states how she feels for each of them: she loves both men but not equally and on completely different levels. Her love for Heathcliff is a fundamental, soul-binding attraction whereas her love for Linton acts as only a fleeting supplement to what she has. She will love Heathcliff forever, as long as there are rocks in the woods. Though much more appealing, her love for Edgar will die quickly and leave no evidence of its existence afterwards. On page ninety-four, Emily Brontë uses metaphor to describe how Edgar and Isabella succumb to Catherine's stubborn, difficult nature. “It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.” In this critic...