Medio Ambiente.

Emily Brontë has often been cited as a powerful female writer, a trailblazing figure in the world of literature who paved the way for future generations of female storytellers. In exploring Brontë’s literary legacy, there is frequent mention of her defiant, rugged nature — how her love for the natural world, her beloved moors, established an earnest and decidedly unfeminine image. It is intriguing that this critical conversation surrounding Brontë’s power as a novelist and poet is connected with this deliberate

framing of Brontë in exemption of her gender. It is to this point that I’d like to introduce the childhood image of young Emily Brontë and her gun. The story of young Brontë learning to shoot under her domineering father’s direction can be traced to the diary pages of John Greenwood, the Haworth stationer and an acquaintance of the Brontë family. Greenwood writes:

[Patrick Brontë] had such unbounded confidence in his daughter Emily, knowing, as he did her unparalleled intrepidity and firmness, that he resolves to learn her to shoot too. They used to practice with pistols. Let her be ever so busy in her domestic duties, whether in the kitchen baking bread at which she had such a dainty hand, or at her ironing, or at her studies reaped in a world of her creating — it mattered not; if he called upon her to take a lesson, she would put all down.94

Greenwood embeds Brontë in a striking dichotomy: “her domestic duties” and “her studies reaped in a world of her creating.” Brontë’s identity appears to straddle both spheres; Greenwood’s language encourages this

interpretation of Brontë as a hybrid figure — the “intrepid” daughter who still obeys her father, “put[ing] all down” to heed Patrick Brontë’s call.

94 _{Dudley Green, Patrick Brontë Father of Genius, p. 133, manuscript of John Greenwood’s} diary now held in the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

The diary continues:

[Patrick Brontë ’s] tender and affectionate ‘Now, my dear girl, let me see how well you can shoot today,’ was irresistible to her filial nature and her most winning and musical voice would be heard to ring

through the house in response, ‘Yes, papa’ and away she would run with such a hearty good will taking the board from him, and tripping like a fairy down [to] the bottom of the garden putting it in its proper position, then returning to her dear revered parent, take the pistol, which he had previously primed and loaded for her. ‘Now my girl’ he would say, ‘take time, be steady. ‘Yes papa’ she would say taking the weapon with as firm a hand, and as steady an eye as any veteran of the camp, and fire. Then she would run to fetch the board for him to see how she had succeeded. And she did get so proficient, that she was rarely far from the mark. His ‘How cleverly you have done, my dear girl’, was all she cared for.95

Greenwood’s portrayal of Patrick Brontë in this diary contrasts with the impression one develops when reading Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë. Although Gaskell consulted Mr. Brontë while writing The Life of Charlotte Brontë, the volume depicts Patrick Brontë as an austere patriarch who ruled his home with an iron fist. Greenwood’s portrait of this scene diverges from Gaskell to depict a moment of domestic virtue. Patrick Brontë’s tone is

characterized as “tender and affectionate” and Brontë is described as having a “filial nature” and a “musical voice.” Greenwood’s tone contrasts with the content of the scene in which Brontë develops her shooting skill. Greenwood notes Brontë becomes “proficient” in shooting, which Greenwood suggests was motivated by a desire to gratify her father. There is certainly room to challenge Greenwood’s impression of the scene and consider Brontë’s

marksmanship as protofeminist. Indeed, Gilbert and Gubar would encourage us to read Brontë’s affection for her father as a currency of appeasement

95 _{Green, p. 133, manuscript of John Greenwood’s diary now held in the Brontë Parsonage} Museum.

that disguises the very real transition of the gun from his hands to hers.96 Armed with Gilbert and Gubar’s critical apparatus, we might then extend the image of the gun to the figure of the novel. For, Brontë’s early shooting lessons could be considered early lessons in the patriarchal language of man, a language Brontë would need to appease and conform to — albeit slightly — in order to publish her novel and find her voice.

Greenwood concludes with more evocative commentary on Patrick and Emily Brontë’s unique relationship:

She knew she had gratified him, and she would return to him the

pistol, saying ‘load again papa’, and away she would go to the kitchen, roll another shelffull of teacakes, then wiping her hands, she would return again to the garden, and call out ‘I’m ready again, papa’ and so they would go on until he thought she had had enough practice for that day. ‘Oh!’ He would exclaim, ‘she is a brave and noble girl. She is my right-hand, nay the very apple of my eye!’97

Overall, Greenwood’s language is decorous and inappropriately effusive. But it does highlight the peculiar and fascinating dynamic between Patrick and Emily Brontë, a relationship I believe to be at the core of our framing of Brontë as in exception to her gender. At this time Patrick Brontë was already suffering from cataracts and feared complete blindness. One could imagine Brontë’s burgeoning shooting skill provided some comfort to Patrick Brontë, although perhaps not in the glowingly romantic manner Greenwood

describes, because it provided a relief, an understanding that his family would be protected no matter his condition. This transfer of familial duty,

96 _{Gilbert, Sandra M, and Susan Gubar. 2000. The Madwoman in the Attic : The Woman} Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. Conn.: Yale University Press. 97 _{Green, p. 133, manuscript of John Greenwood’s diary now held in the Brontë Parsonage} Museum.

from the patriarch to his middle daughter is especially notable given the context of this research. As Stevie Davies explains, this early childhood episode provides a roadmap for Brontë’s evolution into a commanding and all-powerful author. Davies writes: “The pen, the gun and the book: [Patrick Brontë] placed these weapons in his daughter’s hands. Power was to become a major theme of Emily Brontë ’s pen.”98 _{This chapter will trace Brontë’s} evolution from gun to pen to book by examining how the convergence of immateriality and materiality in Wuthering Heights relates to Brontë’s authorship and critical legacy.

In the following pages, I will provide examples of how these moments of convergence occur in relation to the mind and will discuss how Brontë depicts these moments utilizing narrative devices that intentionally

complicate point of view, perspective, and narrative authority. I will conduct a close reading of Isabella’s letter, a significant narrative moment in which Brontë engages with ideas of emotional transference and translation while also introducing the question of narrative authority. I will then examine the role of dreams in the novel, suggesting dreams operate as a liminal space between fantasy and reality, helping to identify the ways in which the

immaterial and material relate. Dreams obscure these boundaries and inhibit a precise identification of narrative control and authority. Finally, this chapter will suggest that Brontë employs this dream imagery to provide a conceptual

framework to discuss her identity and authority as writer, storyteller, and arbiter of her artistic legacy.

Chapter XIV opens with Nelly’s deliberation over what to do with Isabella’s letter. Nelly’s narrative function here is noteworthy. She is in possession of Isabella’s letter and is responsible for the transmission of Isabella’s writing to its desired recipient, her brother Edgar. Nelly operates as a narrative conduit, helping to facilitate a moment of connection between physically isolated characters. Brontë presents an exchange of materialistic and idealistic forces. The letter and Nelly come to represent a hybridity between these two ideologies, a material object that possesses the potential to incite emotional change. Nelly attempts to provide a point of access for Isabella, an opportunity for Isabella to explain her situation to her brother with the hope of connecting the estranged siblings. The letter’s duality is perhaps best illustrated by the language Nelly employs to describe its contents. Nelly comments that the letter expresses Isabella’s “wish that [Edgar] would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of

forgiveness by me (Italics mine.)” The phrase “token of forgiveness” expresses the entirety of both Nelly and the letter’s liminal state.

Forgiveness, an immaterial and intangible force becomes concentrated into substance through the image of a “token.” This concentration of the

indefinite into the definite occurs in both the letter and Nelly’s possession and transfer of it. For both Nelly and the letter come to represent a physical, material expression of human emotion and desire. Language becomes the

medium of internal expression, the tool through which Isabella may channel her emotions and share them with her recipient. Nelly and the letter are incremental steps along that path, mirroring the process of translation and the inevitable changes that occur as meaning is transferred from one state to another.

However, Edgar’s response offers no reconciliation. He declares, “we are eternally divided […] let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country.”99 _{The language of Edgar’s dismissal continues this spatial} dimension. He claims they are “eternally divided,” a phrase that illuminates this synthesis of the immaterial and material. Their sibling bond, something that is based upon ideas, thoughts, emotions, and feelings, transcends its immaterial nature to become a force capable of division and separation. The emotional aligns with the physical, and in both cases, Isabella and Edgar are removed from one another. Brontë utilizes the dissolution of Edgar and Isabella’s relationship to highlight the dynamics of immaterial forces like emotions, thoughts, and relationships. However, Brontë presents this

contradiction to invite her audience to consider the various manifestations of feeling that exist in the universe, and whether or not their potential for understanding is achieved. For Edgar does not seek to fully understand his sister, causing their relationship to further disintegrate, and the failure of Isabella’s feelings to be received and understood.

Nelly struggles to determine how to “put more heart” into Edgar’s words, a vivid line of imagery in which one of the body’s most prominent organs becomes infused with the immaterial. What Nelly is really seeking to do is to discover a kind way to give Isabella unkind news. Yet Brontë

presents Nelly’s language in sensuous language to demonstrate how immaterial and material forces coalesce. Consider also Nelly’s comment, “how to soften his refusal.” Here again we see the material and immaterial converging in Brontë’s language. Nelly is searching for a way to “soften” Edgar’s harsh language. In describing Edgar’s words, Nelly prescribes a material identity to them. Edgar’s words are unkind, so they become coarse, as if the potentially harmful emotional impact of the words has transformed into a rough object that is difficult, potentially painful, to touch. Nelly yearns to “soften” his language so as to help Isabella process and accept the

information. Brontë imbues language with a materiality to help characterize the processing of information — a phenomenon that is internal and

immaterial. Through employing material, tactile language Brontë is able to describe and convey the actions of the mind.

Cathy’s infamous declaration of sameness with Heathcliff is one of the novel’s most oft-cited passages, and it demonstrates this phenomenon of the immaterial and the material meeting. We can consider the connection

between Cathy and Heathcliff as a mirror to the connection between the immaterial and the material. In this passage, Cathy explains how her love for

Edgar and her love for Heathcliff are different, a distinction that engenders important theoretical questions.

My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I AM Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is

impracticable; and - '

She paused, and hid her face in the folds of my gown; but I jerked it forcibly away. I was out of patience with her folly!

'If I can make any sense of your nonsense, Miss,' I said, 'it only goes to convince me that you are ignorant of the duties you undertake in marrying; or else that you are a wicked, unprincipled girl. But trouble me with no more secrets: I'll not promise to keep them.'100

In confessing her love for both Linton and Heathcliff, Cathy inadvertently constructs a psychic apparatus in which her expressed and sublimated

desires are in conversation, or perhaps more aptly in battle, with each other. The passage’s language reflects the tension between what Cathy expresses and what she represses. Cathy’s love for Linton, which is a desire she

expresses, is characterized as “the foliage in the woods: time will change it.” Such description implies the conscious is subject to time and easily

expressed in nature through the superficial and visual characteristics of color and height, as Cathy suggests in referencing the evolving appearance of trees through the seasons. In contrast, Cathy’s love for Heathcliff is defined as “the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but

necessary.” Cathy continues with her infamous declaration that she is

Heathcliff, suggesting a oneness in identity and mutuality of understanding between the two that defies conventional standards of selfhood. The

description of Cathy’s love for Heathcliff is significant in how its corresponding natural imagery counteracts the highly visible natural

elements associated with Linton. Cathy’s love for Heathcliff exists below the surface, it is entirely internal and thus not perceptible through the traditional sensory experiences of sight and sound. Cathy highlights this difficulty in perception, mentioning how this form of love is “a source of little visible delight but necessary.” In referencing this diminished visibility, Cathy makes room for the inaccessibility of her own mind, and thus describes the

immateriality

of her feelings. Cathy’s language is an elaborate metaphor in which the material is used to describe the immaterial. Cathy’s dependence upon the material to express her feelings is perhaps best explained by her own

confusion: she knows not why she feels the way she does, only how she feels it.

Through the repetition of specific words, Brontë identifies materiality’s limitations in describing and explaining the immaterial. Notice how Cathy’s language folds in on itself; her attempts to explain the conditions of her mind only result in an increasingly knotted mess. Cathy states: “He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.” Notable here is the repetition of “pleasure.” The repeated use of this term results in the confusion of its exact meaning.

In employing it twice within the confined space of a sentence, Brontë showcases its degeneration with each successive use. The term becomes defined by its relation to different contexts, rather than inhering a single, fixed meaning. The effort to situate Cathy and Heathcliff as parts of a greater whole compounds with the semantic degeneration of “pleasure.” Brontë accomplishes this with Cathy’s declaration that Heathcliff is “always, always in [Cathy’s] mind.” We must consider both the literal and figurative

meanings of such an expression. For, what does it mean to be in one’s mind? Strikingly, this expression underlines Brontë’s desire to map a spatial

dimension onto language. To state someone is in another’s mind is to create boundaries and limits of the mind, to ascribe a spatial plane from which the mind can operate. This sense of the mind’s spatial qualities enables the defiant action Cathy describes — Heathcliff’s transgression and insertion of himself into Cathy’s mind. Heathcliff occupies space in Cathy’s mind, proving to be an immovable yet invisible force that travels with her, as if he were a parasite feeding from its host. This parasitical imagery is what links the fracturing of the term “pleasure” with Cathy’s assertion of her “oneness” with Heathcliff. Both processes utilize the mapping of a spatial reality unto language, and the construction of language, to highlight the limitations of material language in describing immateriality.

Cathy’s pleas to Nelly reinforce the inability for language to completely explain the immaterial. Cathy insists they must “not talk of our separation again: it is impracticable” before cutting herself off by hiding her face in the

folds of Nelly’s gown. Again, we see language and movement interacting. Not only in content — Cathy is discussing the possibility that she and

Heathcliff will be separated — but also in form, we observe these two forces coalesce. Notice how the act of Cathy burying her face into Nelly’s gown is what stops her speech, and thus ruptures the flow of language. The spatially transgressive act of Cathy inserting her head into Nelly’s lap demonstrates how language bleeds into movement. When Cathy’s words fail, she relies upon movement to connect with Nelly. Cathy’s inability to adequately explain herself compels her to insert her head, the site of her duress and psychic pain, into Nelly’s lap, an act motivated by a sincere yearning and longing to communicate her feelings and have them be understood.

However, Cathy’s attempts to verbally and physically communicate are met with contempt. Nelly “jerk[s]” Cathy’s head away and claims to have lost “patience” with Cathy and her “follies.” Nelly’s actions further emphasize the