中文摘要 |
Choosing a wind-inflected title for her novel Wuthering Heights (1847), Emily Brontё apparently wishes to demonstrate the crucial role this weather element plays in shaping her text. However, Brontё scholars investigating the importance of weather in this novel have yet to grasp the full complexity of the wind, because they see weather as essentially an outdoor event and presume an indoor/outdoor dichotomy. This essay argues that Brontё's representations of the wind in her novel serve to undermine this artificial distinction. This essay comprises two parts. In the first section, I examine Brontё's representations of the wind raging outdoors. Whether or not the impact of the wind can reach the interior space of houses is a major concern for both Lockwood and the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights. The wind blustering outdoors and its impact on humans become a primary medium through which Brontё explores the interconnection between the inside(r) and the outside(r), natural phenomena and social structures. In the second section, I analyze how and why the wind manages to infiltrate the interior spaces of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The ability of the wind to cross the indoor/outdoor boundary, I argue, unleashes the representational possibility of this weather element. Through the literal/metaphorical presence of the wind inside a house, Brontё shows that this weather element not only is a natural phenomenon but also closely relates to various social issues, from marriage to sympathy, from folk beliefs to local customs. Brontё relies on the indoor wind to weave those social issues into her novel. Brontё's familiarity with and attachment to the natural environment in Northern England have long been regarded as a sign of her social isolation. The wind in Wuthering Heights challenges this myth, not least by showing that Brontё heavily draws on a particular weather element characteristic of her native land to articulate her social visions. |