What Influenced Emily Bronte's Life

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Wuthering Heights was written by Emily Bronte, first under the name of Ellis Bell, and it is her only novel. Not much is known about her life, but there is speculation that her writing could have been influenced by her life, and there are many similarities. To begin with, Bronte grew up with five other siblings and their father in Yorkshire, England. Emily would sometimes walk through the moors, loving the freedom and excitement of the world. When Emily was three years old, her mother died, leaving Emily and her siblings to grow up without the care of a mother, in the presence of emotionally distant and private guardians of her father and aunt. Because of this, the children mostly spent time by themselves, and they were very creative, making imaginative kingdoms which were written about in several notebooks.
While Emily Bronte “received little formal education in her life,” she wrote many poems and reflected on her work, used her own
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Themes in Wuthering Heights such as abandonment, abuse, revenge, and cruelty are also hinted at by Emily Bronte. Hindley, who served as caretaker after the death of their father, was cruel to Catherine and Heathcliff, making Heathcliff work as a servant, as he no longer treated him as a member of the family. Due to the lack of a mother figure in their lives, the children turned to themselves to care for each other. Heathcliff and Catherine were inseparable, and went to each other for help and security, often running away to the moors to escape from trouble or chores. Catherine falling in love with Edgar because of his wealth and societal role show the emphasis on this at the time. When Nelly asked her what she loved about him, she could not think of anything to say that she really loved about him. But with Heathcliff, she tells Nelly in the book that “he is more myself than I am,” and that they are the same person, with the same soul (Bronte, 2005, p.