Incest, violence, gambling and the north of England: just some of the central topics of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights that were repugnant to the polite Victorian elites who originally conceived the principle of the "Canon". The Western Literary Canon was conceived as a collection of texts deemed "worthy of study" by the establishment, by virtue of what were defined as "universal themes" and "aesthetic" qualities. It is rare for texts to enter the canon, especially texts that deviate from this set of "qualities" believed to be fixed, while remaining covered in ambiguity. The canon is intended to classify a distinct and timeless literature due to the above qualities, yet the selected works still exude a complexity that can be seen as "unified" with those of other canonical works. For this reason, the canon appears to be a contradictory and arbitrary category for which the different contexts of reception and production ultimately make the merit and meaning of each entirely subject to the individual, and should not be classified according to the "dominant ideology ".Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights falls within the number of works often considered canonical, due to its transcendence among some readers, which defies the expectation that such a text must be "non-offensive." This was a sentiment shared by Charlotte Brontë, who wrote that she did not think it "right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff", the cruel Byronic anti-hero whose controversial behaviors reveal why Wuthering Heights embodies the contradictions of the Canon itself. Often, what many despise in Wuthering Heights is what others find valuable. Let us examine, however, the notoriously catastrophic (and therefore accessible) creation of Brontë's youngest novelist, in relation to the canon. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë approaches the plight of women of her time in a more stark way than in most other related canonical works. This overt politicization is in part a commentary on the eternal clashes of nature, such as those that the greats of the Canon so often reflected on, but it proved too involved in the reality of emerging feminism to merit the text any recognition from the establishment. many years to come. Brontë shapes the story around the brutality of the "senseless and wicked" Cathy, who nevertheless manages to put Linton and Heathcliff under her spell, a woman wholly unconventional for the time. It could be argued that Brontë uses the suppression of her time naturally and that elements of her novel are subsequently perceived as "universal themes" of generic canonical texts, for the ruling classes of society. The statement "I am Heathcliff! He is always, always on my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure" is in fact not the opening of the romantic manifesto. This is Brontë's synopsis of her character's complex co-dependency with her adoptive brother, which is a means of foreshadowing the dual fate of the characters, whose downfall would never be revered as having objectively great aesthetic qualities. The shocking example immediately set by Brontë's dysfunctional creatures alienates most of the potential audience, which mirrored the "pious, old" mentality of the Victorian Joseph, or the "gossipy neighbors" who feel violated by the activities of the Earnshaw family. The idea that works of art can embody universal values ​​for all humanity is a dangerous myth. The minds holding this view should at least acknowledgethat Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights' rarely does. The novel will never please the masses; his wild characters are a construction of contradictory human beings whose examples should not be encouraged to transcend social groups. However, the appeal of Brontë's characters is that they are imperfect and therefore cannot be part of a canon that claims to be the guardian of universally divine values. The typical language of the canon often proves complex and ambiguous. The writer is a craftsman whose control is appreciated by critics. In "Wuthering Heights" Brontë is deliberately inelegant and uncontrolled: "Oh, damn it! I'll have him back; and I'll have his gold too; and then his blood." The images are banal but dramatic, evoking images of "hell" and "blood" that shape the novel as crude and gory in the minds of its critics, and "readable" against its fans, unlike the typical clichés of the canon. Brontë structures the novel's narrative in a deliberately repetitive manner. Impactful words and phrases are repeated throughout the novel and the plot, narrators and characters probably contain "doubles", with the exception of the hopeful ending for Catherine and Hareton, once Brontë has withdrawn the vicious circle between the dead. This makes the novel accessible in a way that many canonical texts are not, as it mirrors the less-than-aesthetic social downfalls of readers' reality. Brontë's language throughout the novel's parallel arcs is varied, vivid, and therefore enchanting. Lockwood's bourgeois opening prose, compared to Joseph's regional code, to Cathy's poetic pleas are ultimately too indulgent and varied to embody universal prestige. Consider the techniques of Tolstoy, a writer whose works undoubtedly and repeatedly fall within the realm of the canon. . His masterpiece Anna Karenina is the ultimate realization of transcendent fantasy, with its pursuit of a forbidden relationship that ultimately leads to tragedy, and its jokes about the hypocrisy and therefore humanity of those in high society. While scandalous, Tolstoy's undeniable skill lies in creating a novel that strikes at the heart of human emotions and the desire for rebellion, revealing the immorality of the upper classes and assuming that such falls are true for us all. Although the politics of "Wuthering Heights" are open to many similar interpretations, its vulgarity and focus on the powerless prevents them from being equated with the non-offensive or "universal" themes with which canonical texts such as Tolstoy's are more regularly associated. Heights is, however, more than worthy reading material. The novel is precious for the shock it generates, describing brutal divisions of class, gender and ethnicity in its characters. The novel has no objectively artistic value in presenting ambitious situations, if the novel were published in a society of equality, freedom and fraternity, its reflections could be dismissed as dramatic images of bizarre personal circumstances. The value of the novel is inseparable from the culture that sees it and the fortunes of the readers, not from any concrete sacredness of the writer's work, and the affirmation that any art can achieve "eternal charm" is linked to the subjective concept of the "Canon ” itself which can be increasingly dismissed on the basis of the relativism of artistic merit. Eagleton and others have attributed this flaw to each "Canon", derived from its construction by the ruling elite, in an attempt to culturally oppress the lower classes. One of the most worthwhile aspects of the novel is largely its utility rather than its aesthetics. attributes. Brontë revolves the novel around the repercussions of Mr. Earnshaw's charity in adopting Heathcliff, the "skinned gypsy.