Wuthering Heights
...tempts to force her way through the broken window and Lockwood screams. This event showed an implication of the fear one should or would have towards a ghost or even a spirit. Moreover, similarly, in chapter 9, the author had also used dreams and nature, in which are also supernatural, as a method to create suspense and mystery, and foreshadowing; Catherine suggests to Nelly that she wants to tell her a bad dream that she had recently. However, Nelly, someone who claims not to believe in ghosts, still has some superstitions about dreams, she refuses to hear Catherine's bad dream. Nelly was worried that the bad dream was a warning that there might be some sort of horrific tragedy; I [Nelly] was superstitious about dreams then, and am still, and Catherine had an unusual gloom in her aspect that made me dream something from which I might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe. (Bronte, p.82) Catherine begins to tell her dream and says that if she were to be heaven, she would be extremely unhappy there; weeping to come back to earth, and angels abandoning her out in the middle of Wuthering Heights. Nelly, refusing to hear more, stops her. The author had used Catherine’s dream as a tool to foreshadow that Catherine and Heathcliff would have a very sad ending. Since Heathcliff actually meant a lot to Catherine, his opinion of his heaven not being the religious kind, but an eternity with Catherine, affected Catherine to have the same opinion and, thus, her dream foretelling their sad end. These two events that occur in “Wuthering Heights” are great examples of the use of dreams and, thus, revealing the beliefs during the Victorian Age towards dreams and nightmare; good dreams foretelling something good to happen, and nightmares foretelling something horrific will occur. Ghosts also appear throughout Wuthering Heights, as they do in most other works of Gothic fiction, yet Brontë always presents them in such a way that, whether they really exist, remains obscure. Thus, the world of the novel can always be interpreted as a realistic one. One of the very important and effective use of this was mentioned in chapter 16, after Catherine’s death. After Catherine had passed away, Heathcliff was not there to see her leave, but yet, was able to guess that she had died even before Nelly tells him. He asks Nelly about her death; however, he became greatly troubled by the fact that she never regained consciousness enough to ask for him before she died. Feeling cheated and alone, Heathcliff begged and prayed that she would not be able to leave in peace. Since he cannot rest without her, he pleaded for her ghost to haunt him until the day he dies; Oh! You said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer – I repeat it till my tongue stiffens – Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living!…Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad. (Brontë, p.163) Yet, unlike Linton, who is sorrowful but accepting of his wife's death, Heathcliff selfishly hopes that Catherine will have no peace without him. This event of Heathcliff pleading Catherine to haunt him reveals a belief in the 19th Century; that the murdered always returns and haunts their murderers and the fact that there really are ghosts and spirits who wander around earth. “The murdered do haunt their murderers. I [Heathcliff] believe – I know that ghosts have wandered on earth.” (Brontë, p.163) In the end of the novel, chapter 34, two of the very last supernatural events occur just during the time that Heathcliff was approaching his death; he has been acting strangely, refusing food and company. When Nelly came inside Wuthering Heights, with a burning candle, one night, she found him leaning out the window, intent on his cherished moors. Nelly's candle revealed his face; his frightful features made her think he was a ghost. She thinks about his unknown origins, and wonders if he is human or monster; “Is he a ghoul, or a vampire?” I [Nelly] mused. I had read of such hideous, incarnate demons. And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him in infancy; and watched him grow to youth; and foll...