TITLE:
On the Illness Narratives in Wuthering Heights
AUTHORS:
Jie Shan
KEYWORDS:
Emily Bront?, Wuthering Heights, Illness Narratives
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.13 No.7,
July
27,
2026
ABSTRACT: The illness narratives in Wuthering Heights are deeply rooted in Emily Brontë’s life experiences and her insight into society. This paper analyzes it from three dimensions: physical, psychological, and social illnesses. Physiologically, through pathological descriptions such as Catherine’s delirium and anorexia, and Linton family’s tuberculosis, the paper demonstrates how illnesses drive characters’ fates. Psychologically, it focuses on Catherine’s desire for control, Heathcliff’s paranoid revenge, and Lockwood’s misanthropy, revealing the alienation of individual spirits. Socially, it dissects racism’s exclusion of “the other” and patriarchy’s monopoly on gender power, arguing that these social illnesses are the fundamental causes of the characters’ tragedies. This paper offers a new perspective on “illness metaphors” for interpreting the novel, revealing the struggle of human nature and social maladies.