Vision and Gaze

A Brontë-related (and Icelandic) thesis 

The Importance of  Vision and the Gaze in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

by Beatrice Fiducia

Advisor:  Ingibjörg Ágústsdóttir

2023

This thesis explores the role of vision in Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights from the point of view of various theories on the gaze within the fields of psychoanalysis, feminism, media studies, and philosophy. The first section of the essay explores the connection between emotions and vision in the novel, specifically by examining Catherine and Heathcliff's final farewell along with the significance of the gaze in the retelling of Heathcliff's death. In particular, the characters' eyes in these scenes appear to be endowed with the ability to provoke and betray several powerful and annihilating emotions, while also being central to Heathcliff's haunting and to his eventual downfall.

The essay also examines the role of vision and the gaze in the identification between Catherine and Heathcliff, which results from childhood abuse and from their interactions with Thrushcross Grange and the Linton siblings. Specifically, the instability of Catherine and Heathcliff's identities leads them to develop an attachment along the lines of Jacques Lacan's Mirror Stage, and such connection is further exacerbated by the moral contrast between themselves and the very different, even angelic Isabella and Edgar. Finally, this thesis analyzes the relationship between gender dynamics and vision in the novel by focusing on the power of the gaze to defy oppression and exercise control over others. This specific function of the female gaze in the novel is especially evident when considering the way in which Catherine and Cathy interact with and oppose male characters. By carefully surveying a relatively trifling aspect of such an impenetrable novel as Wuthering Heights is, it is possible to gain insight into the broader and more significant issues within the text, and to also shed light on Emily Brontë's viewpoint and her persona, which has been and will continue to be the object of confusion and speculation among her readers.