Tabitha Adams - English
Contents
Introduction 8
Main Body
9
Conclusion 16
Bibliography 17
Abstract
This essay explores the research question; “In what ways and to what
effect do Emily Brontë and Homer portray their protagonists, Heathcliff
and Odysseus, in Wuthering Heights and The Odyssey?”. The essay
focuses on the unconventional nature of the protagonists Heathcliff
and Odysseus, touching on the nature of Achilles in The Iliad as a
comparatively conventional Homeric hero to Odysseus. Odysseus is
portrayed by Homer as guileful, cunning and able to exert great self-
restraint, which separates him from other Greek heroes. Heathcliff is
portrayed by Brontë as a morally abstruse and unrepentant character
who nonetheless gains sympathy from the reader and defies both
Victorian and Romantic literary conventions.
Both protagonists are depicted as outsiders and their status as an
outsider is one of the main influential factors behind their unconventional
characters.
Odysseus and Heathcliff are used by Homer and Brontë as literary
devices to challenge the conventional social and moral values of their
respective societies. They are also used as a challenge to literary
convention in order to influence change and development of the concept
of the hero. One point I am aware of, but was not able to cover in
this essay, is that Homer wrote The Odyssey in verse and it might be
interesting to look at whether the comparative genres of verse and novel
reveal something else; Homer was using conventional heroic verse
despite Odysseus not being a conventional hero, whereas Brontë uses
the innovative technique of multiple narrators and moves back and forth
in time which was unconventional for a Victorian novel.
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