Romanticization and Literary voices

A thesis:

"I Hate it, but i can's top": The romanticization of intimate partner abuse in young adult retellings of Wuthering Heights
Brianna R. Zgodinsk

In recent years, there has been a trent. In the following study, I trace the factors that contribute to Catherine’s rejection of Heathclid in young adult adaptations of Wuthering Heights to amend the plot so that Catherine Earnshaw chooses to have a romantic relationship with Heathcliff, when in Brontë’s novel she decides against iff as a romantic partner in the original text. Many critics have argued that her motives are primarily Machiavellian since she chooses a suitor with more wealth and familial connections than Heathcliff. These are indeed factors; however, by engaging with contemporary research on adolescent development, I show that the primary reason she rejects Heathcliff is because he has exhibited a propensity for violence and other abusive behaviors. I also analyze the consequences of reversing her decision in the updated young adult versions, which include the made-for-television film MTV’s Wuthering Heights (2003), the Lifetime original film Wuthering High (2012), and the novel Catherine (2013). The most significant consequence of this change is that in order to make Heathcliff a “chooseable,” twenty-first century hero, the writers of these works have to romanticize his violent tendencies through the perspectives of their female protagonists. When the young women begin to question how secure they are around their partners, they ultimately decide that fidelity to their “soulmate” relationship is more important than safety or autonomy, with the writers using Catherine Earnshaw’s famous “I am Heathcliff” speech to support their protagonists’ conclusions. I argue, though, that while Catherine does allude to the type of otherworldly love these young women are venerating, Brontë uses her speech to confront the limitations of that love, not to hold it up as an ideal.

And a paper:

Giovanna Buonnano
Exploring literary voices in 'The lost child'
Commonwealth Essays and Studies
Volume 40 Issue 1 (Autumn 2017)

Abstract: In The Lost Child (2015) Phillips weaves an intricate web of multiple stories that move in time from post-war Britain to the nineteenth-century Yorkshire setting of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, which is here imaginatively reworked. In this novel, it is also possible to trace the influence of the Caribbean writer Jean Rhys and references to aspects of Phillips's autobiography. This article discusses intertextuality in the novel and argues that literary refractions and the ensuing polyphony contribute to Phillips's ongoing project of critically engaging with the English cultural and literary heritage.