Transcendental Homelessness In Wuthering Heights

Based on Lukács’ s transcendental homelessness critique,this thesis argues that the characters in Emily Bront(?)’s Wuthering Heights try to construct an artificial whole driven by this homelessness,and its two utopias of the totality of two generations’ at the end of the novel have illusory qualities.In the introduction,the thesis introduces the hotspots of previous research on Wuthering Heights and the concept of transcendental homelessness.The main body is divided into three chapters.The first chapter examines the two narrators’ attempts to escape from the transcendental sense through totality construction.Their construction of totality is a call for divine recurrence,but the split between self and world cannot be bridged due to the disenchantment of modern society.The second chapter analyses the failure of the two protagonists’ totality construction.The childhood of Catherine and Heathcliff are characterised by homogeneity,and their desire to return to childhood symbolises the longing for totality.Catherine cannot balance the two opposite forms of life,while Heathcliff transforms from the most primitive form to the extreme bourgeois form.The third chapter analyses the failure of the construction of utopian totality.Whereas Catherine and Heathcliff’s supernatural utopia can only be realised in a purely natural spiritual unity,Cathy and Hareton’s social utopia is a compromise solution to the conflicts.The third chapter explores two utopias of the totality of two generations at the end of the novel.Catherine and Heathcliff’s supernatural utopia can only be realised in a purely spiritual agency with nature,and Cathy and Hareton’s social utopia is only a compromise solution to the conflict.Through the construction of two utopias of totality,Emily Bront(?) astutely reflects upon and critiques the alienating reality of capitalist society,which distorts the intricate relationship between self and world.Bront(?)’s purpose in crafting these utopian realms is to awaken the dormant utopian ideals within people’s minds,thereby inspiring them to liberate themselves from the state of transcendental homelessness and endeavour towards the integration of the individual and the world in a harmonious totality.