New Approach to the Literary Education for the Novel Wuthering Heights Against Cinematic Adoption

Abstract

The current research addresses the shift of thematic perception of Wuthering Height in films from being originally a classical novel addressing a complex non-ideal relationship to an arguably romantic idealistic love story. This study argues that the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine goes beyond simple love story as adopted in 1939 film by William Wyler. On the contrary, the genuine theme of the work explores a dark ambiguous relationship which incorporates dark psychological notions of primitiveness, deception, selfishness, aggression, abuse, indifference, and violence. Through analysing extracts of the novel and revealing the psychological implications of the text itself in terms of characters’ behaviours, reactions in certain incidents in addition to other story elements, the criticism provided in this study elevates the literary contribution of the target novel of the nature of human relationship to a level of psychological complexity which illuminates on the reality of the concept of love as ambiguous and paradoxical rather than to a simplified reflection of love as “ideal” and “pure”, as inaccurately illustrated in the cinematic work in the 20th century. Moreover, the study affirms that cinematic adoption of many classical novels appears to have tendency to neglect the psychological complexity that the literary work depicts in depth in the narrative for the sake of advertising for less sophisticated representation of theme to evoke idealistic sensationalism, popularism, and attractive appeal to the audience.