Wuthering Heights by Emma
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| Assignment Type | Term Paper |
|---|---|
| Subject | N/A |
| Academic Level | Undergraduate |
| Citation Style | MLA |
| Length | 2 pages |
| Word Count | 764 |
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When Heathcliff speaks to Catherine in chapter 15 of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, he employs the rhetorical tropes of hyperbole, metonymy, erotema, and catachresis. Heathcliff weaves some realistic language in with his bombast, but relies most heavily on hyperbole.
You teach me now how cruel you've been—cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself.
Heathcliff embeds his hyperbole in truthful comments and unexaggerated prose, lending his overwrought speech the illusion of logic. He says that Catherine has been “cruel and false”, which is true. He then immediately claims that she has “killed herself”, a blatant use of hyperbole and just as cruel and false as he has accused her of being. Describing her terminal illness as some kind of justice that she brought on herself is plainly false.
Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you—they'll damn you.
After this Heathcliff returns to emotional but somewhat accurate language saying, “you may kiss and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears” but even by the end of that statement he has turned again, suggesting that his love and pain are brought only by her and excusing himself from responsibility. He then says that his tears will “blight” her and “damn” her, which they plainly will not do. She is already terminally ill and while his tears may pain her emotionally, they will not blight her. Certainly, his tears have no supernatural power to damn her.
You loved me—then what right had you to leave me? What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it.
In addition to hyperbole, it could be said that Heathcliff uses erotema here. While his question, “what right had you to leave me?” is ostensibly not being posed to reader, it is indeed rhetorical, given how narrative works, it can be interpreted as being posed to the reader. He then answers his own question with another rhetorical question before returning to hyperbole. If Heathcliff truly believes in the existence of “God” and “Satan” then he must believe that such beings could easily part too mortals, and are certainly more powerful than a sickly country girl. What his hyperbole means, however, is that Catherine means more to him than the articles of faith that guide the lives of those around them. The strict social order that means so much and has separate them is what he is rejecting here, claiming that his desire for Catherine, his lover for her, and the power that love gives her is greater than that of deity whom they believe created the entire universe. Truly, this is hyperbole at its romantic “best”!
I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.
No hearts were broken in the making of these words. His heart is not broken; Healthcliff has no medical affliction at all. In this case, the heart is a metonymy for the feelings of emotional well-being Heathcliff felt when he and Catherine had no one but each other in their lives. What is broken is not an organ of the body, but his trust in her, the comfort her took from her presence, from her love, and from his feelings of love for her. The habit of feeling strongly for her remains, but there is no peace in those feelings, only scenes like this one.
So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you—oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?
This is an example of catachresis. It is impossible for the soul, if it even exists, as it is understood to be kept in a grave. What Heathcliff is saying here is that once she is physically dead, he will be emotionally dead. Thus, once she dies and her body is put in the grave, he will have no interior life whatsoever. Though they are separated and desperate, for as long as she is physically alive, he will maintain some kind of human feeling, some sense of himself as more than merely a corporal being. With her death, he tells her here, he will become nothing more than a pile of flesh.
You teach me now how cruel you've been—cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself.
Heathcliff embeds his hyperbole in truthful comments and unexaggerated prose, lending his overwrought speech the illusion of logic. He says that Catherine has been “cruel and false”, which is true. He then immediately claims that she has “killed herself”, a blatant use of hyperbole and just as cruel and false as he has accused her of being. Describing her terminal illness as some kind of justice that she brought on herself is plainly false.
Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you—they'll damn you.
After this Heathcliff returns to emotional but somewhat accurate language saying, “you may kiss and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears” but even by the end of that statement he has turned again, suggesting that his love and pain are brought only by her and excusing himself from responsibility. He then says that his tears will “blight” her and “damn” her, which they plainly will not do. She is already terminally ill and while his tears may pain her emotionally, they will not blight her. Certainly, his tears have no supernatural power to damn her.
You loved me—then what right had you to leave me? What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it.
In addition to hyperbole, it could be said that Heathcliff uses erotema here. While his question, “what right had you to leave me?” is ostensibly not being posed to reader, it is indeed rhetorical, given how narrative works, it can be interpreted as being posed to the reader. He then answers his own question with another rhetorical question before returning to hyperbole. If Heathcliff truly believes in the existence of “God” and “Satan” then he must believe that such beings could easily part too mortals, and are certainly more powerful than a sickly country girl. What his hyperbole means, however, is that Catherine means more to him than the articles of faith that guide the lives of those around them. The strict social order that means so much and has separate them is what he is rejecting here, claiming that his desire for Catherine, his lover for her, and the power that love gives her is greater than that of deity whom they believe created the entire universe. Truly, this is hyperbole at its romantic “best”!
I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.
No hearts were broken in the making of these words. His heart is not broken; Healthcliff has no medical affliction at all. In this case, the heart is a metonymy for the feelings of emotional well-being Heathcliff felt when he and Catherine had no one but each other in their lives. What is broken is not an organ of the body, but his trust in her, the comfort her took from her presence, from her love, and from his feelings of love for her. The habit of feeling strongly for her remains, but there is no peace in those feelings, only scenes like this one.
So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you—oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?
This is an example of catachresis. It is impossible for the soul, if it even exists, as it is understood to be kept in a grave. What Heathcliff is saying here is that once she is physically dead, he will be emotionally dead. Thus, once she dies and her body is put in the grave, he will have no interior life whatsoever. Though they are separated and desperate, for as long as she is physically alive, he will maintain some kind of human feeling, some sense of himself as more than merely a corporal being. With her death, he tells her here, he will become nothing more than a pile of flesh.