Othering, Scapegoating, and the Crisis of Modernity in Wuthering Heights

Abstract

A classic example of romantic literature, Wuthering Heights is also an example of the way Victorian literature moves beyond Romanticism to embrace the modern age. The iconic romantic hero (Heathcliff) who must suffer othering, discrimination, and rejection to eventually die a romantic death, also paves how for the modern world and its ethos of embracing difference and otherness. The “other” in Victorian England was this constant threat to the status quo, the latent revolution that the Victorians have feared and anticipated. However, Hegelian (and other) conceptualizations of the meaning of the “other” as a prerequisite signifier of the self challenges this conventional image of the “other” as a mere outside object. In this paper, we read Heathcliff as a metaphoric defense mechanism against the fast pace of modernity. Combining textual analysis with a contextual regard for the spirit of the age in which the novel was written, the paper proves that Heathcliff’s ordeal is the scapegoating of the romantic hero who helps the society to mature and accept otherness and modernity.