Annotated Bibliography: Newman on Gender, Gaze in Wuthering Heights

This annotated bibliography entry focuses on Beth Newman's analysis of Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights," exploring the relationship between novelistic narrative and visual acts, particularly the concept of the gaze. Newman argues that visual metaphors are central to understanding the novel's themes and that the gaze raises important issues for feminist criticism. The analysis highlights how characters like Lockwood contribute to the visual narrative through their perceptions and interactions, emphasizing the interplay between gender, narration, and the act of looking. Newman also suggests that Bronte anticipated later preoccupations with visual terminology, linking the novel's feminist poetics to its visual elements. The essay further discusses how the gaze functions as a source of pleasure and a mode of storytelling, ultimately revealing the complex dynamics of power and desire within the novel. This assignment was for the course English Literature after 1830 – Spring, 2017.

Wuthering Heights
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From the novel Withering Heights written by Emily Bronte, Newman Beth explores the idea that
metaphors and visual acts can be clearly shown. The essay starts by an argument on the
importance of gaze and visual metaphors against the reader (Flood, Heath and Lapp). Newman
repeatedly links visual acts and narrations, for example when Emily uses visuals by presenting
diary entries that references fully folk ballads. The author has anticipated the post Jamesian pre
occupation with visual terminology. Newman argues further that the gaze raises the importance
of feminism critism (Brontë 2012) . Another way that visual acts are used in the novel is when
Lockwood ( a character in the novel) narrates of him meeting a woman who is very flirtatious
and the womans look filled him with fear and that she was a real goddess. Another scene that
illustrates a visual acts is when the Author describes Lockwoods fear of the return of the gaze
from the woman who she describes as a real goddess. Lockwood narrates that if looks had
language the merest idiot would tell that he was head over ears(p.15). Newman argues that in the
subject of the look , the woman is absent except when she sees herself seeing herself (Brontë,
Donnelly and Plaisted 2007).
According to Newman, a sense of fascination is created when Lockwood uses words of like
goddess to describe the woman he met. The look acts as a source of pleasure from Lockwood
according to Newman (Brontë, Donnelly and Plaisted 2007) . She also maintains that the novel
responds to the woman’s gaze creating a theme of visual in the novel. Newman also suggests
that the author has anticipated the post Jamesian pre occupation with visual terminology. She
also maintains that with regards to Lockwood, looking is a source of pleasure and a mode of
telling. Jacques Lacans seminars in regards to gaze may show the connection between castration
anxiety and the returning female gaze not only to Lockwood’s response to his goddess. Jacquez
assertions are that the scopic drive is what eludes the term castration. There is an onlooker , in

the wuthering heights novel and her name is Nelly Deen who watches on mens behalf while
seeking to stay outside of the circles of desire (Brontë ). Newman also makes emphasis that the
novel gender gaze in which female characters are viewed as subjects.
The natural abilities if Heathcliff, love for Catherine and strength of character is what enables
him to rise from a humble beginnings to a man of influence, this is one of the analysis in which
Newman captures the theoretical plot of the novel. He also argues that the urge to revenge
himself for catherines betrayal is what made him lead a crooked life of hatred and cruelty.
Newman also describes another visual act in Wuthering heights as when Catherine has put on a
locket that contains Edgars hair and after seeing the dead Catherine, Heathcliff removes it and
tosses it on the ground and replaces it with his hair(Brontë, Donnelly and Plaisted 2007) .. This
seeks to visualize to the reader that Edgar believes that Catherine is his. Nelly takes Edgars hair
lock, and intertwines it with a lock of hair from Heathcliffs and puts it into the locket. This
shows that the lives of the two nemesis are intertwined. Newman states that that visual
metaphors are very important, the visual metaphors represent the psychosexual relations index
that constitute the bourgeois family(Brontë, Donnelly and Plaisted 2007) . She also alludes to the
fact that the visual underpinnings of the novel duplicate gazing structures that work mostly at the
expense of women.
References

Brontë, Emily. 2012. Wuthering Heights. New York: Penguin Books.
Brontë , Emily. Wuthering Heights.
Brontë, Emily, Jennifer Donnelly, and Caroline Plaisted. 2007. Wuthering Heights. London:
Bloomsbury Classics.
Flood, James, Shirley Brice Heath, and Diane Lapp. Handbook Of Research On Teaching
Literacy Through The Communicative And Visual Arts.