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| Painting of the Brontë Sisters by their brother Branwell Brontë |
Their brother, Branwell Brontë, painted his three sisters who are, from left to right: Anne, Emily and Charlotte Brontë. Branwell did not paint himself in this portrait. The National Portrait Gallery, London.
References
- Wuthering Heights - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights
- Jane Eyre - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre
No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven’s glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life - that in me has rest,
As I - undying Life - have power in Thee!
*The poem, written shortly before Emily’s death, is an astonishing assertion of raw, defiant inner strength - the same elemental forces which animates her fierce novel, Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff and Catherine are not sentimental lovers; they are cosmically eternal presences forcefully speaking of “undying life” entwined beyond mortality forever and ever. The exceedingly jealous God within her breast mirrors the novel’s wild spirituality, its refusal to be tamed.
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time’s all-severing wave?
No later light has lightened up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given -
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.
*This is the emotional shadow of Catherine and Heathcliff. The imagery of snow, distance, eternal grief, and undying love which perfectly embodies Heathcliff’s obsessive mourning. Wuthering Heights is less about romantic fulfillment than it is about eternal, haunted attachment. “Remembrance” is to Wuthering Heights what a cold wind is to the moors - eternal, echoing, unrelenting.
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day.
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
O why lament its fall?
*Unlike Emily’s tempest, Charlotte’s verse carries hope through suffering. Her novel, Jane Eyre, is marked by a myriad of personal sufferings and trials - orphanhood, betrayal, and loss - yet Jane chooses moral resilience over despair. “The shower will make the roses bloom” captures her inner steadfastness and capacity for growth through hardship.
I dreamed once more - for I had dreamed in youth,
Of something which a word of mine might do;
Of hopes which, being once my own, had fled,
But, lingering, left behind them joy or pain -
The fevered pulse of a too burning brain.
And yet it was a soft one…
*This lesser-known poem mirrors Jane’s inner longing - restrained, intelligent, and moral, yet deeply passionate. Charlotte writes of love as a private fire, not an inner, violent storm: something deeply felt within, yet never allowed to consume the self entirely. This quiet, steady burn is exactly the energy of Jane’s expressed voice - self-respecting, yearning, resilient.
- "For me, Wuthering Heights is by far the best. I expected Jane Eyre to be better since it's so well known, but to be honest I found it quite boring. On the contrary, I expected Wuthering Heights to be a regular love story, but it absolutely amazed me. I definitely did not expect what I read. It is now my favourite book. It is incomparable to Jane Eyre for me." - Anon (found on Reddit)
- "I don't know why but I have a feeling that people get turned off by depressing books and that is the reason that Wuthering Heights is under-appreciated by so many people. The story is compelling because of its negativities. The evil that floats in the book actually resembles the evil in all of us. It is there and we ignore it. But when we have to read something that tells us more about it, we don't like it. The characters in Wuthering Heights are original because Emily has portrayed them in such a way that they have nothing to hide from the audience. She has bared the truth of humanity in every single of them. These characters, if looked closely can be related to so many people in our lives that it's not funny. By no means am I implying that Jane Eyre doesn't do the same or is not worthy. It is a very good read and has it's own redeeming qualities. However, Wuthering Heights is the one that is out for my heart." - Yukti (Goodreads)
Opening Statement
1. Rawness of Emotion
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Wuthering Heights is the wilder, more feral of the two.Emily Brontë writes as though ripping open the human heart - no filters, no moral comfort. The passions between Heathcliff and Catherine burn with cruelty, obsession, longing, and revenge. It is as elemental as the wind, moors, and storms Emily experienced at her homeland. For Emily, love is destructive, not redemptive.
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
-
Jane Eyre, by contrast, is deeply emotional but much more contained.Jane’s love for Rochester is deeply passionate, but it’s mediated by her (father's) constant moral conscience, self-respect, and spiritual vision. Her inner turmoil is expressed through a keen self-awareness and an intense, internal moral struggle rather than raw, unmediated passion as expressed by Charlotte's sister Emily in Wuthering Heights.
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
✅ Verdict: Wuthering Heights is the more raw in emotional expression.
2. Psychological Depth and Inner Tornness
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Wuthering Heights externalizes deep, personal pain - its characters enact their torment through vengeance, cruelty, and wild, forbidden love. Heathcliff’s interiority is volcanic but often displayed by his destructive acts. The book feels like an open wound.
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Jane Eyre internalizes Jane’s psychological journey. Her broad interior conflicts between desire, conscience, dignity, and faith, make her personal story more of a moral and psychological Bildungsroman.(eg, a novel depicting one's significant formative years or spiritual education). She bleeds more quietly - but all the more deeply.
✅ Verdict: Jane Eyre is more introspectively torn, while Wuthering Heights is more explosively torn.
3. Tone and Emotional Texture
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Wuthering Heights: gothic storm, elemental, bitter winds, seething, unredeemed pain. The world is harsh, unyielding, and soaked in passion and death.
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Jane Eyre: gothic as well, but tempered by reason, hope, and eventual redemption. Its pain is purposeful, shaping the self.
✅ Verdict: Wuthering Heights feels more emotive in texture - it does not offer comfort or resolution in the way Jane Eyre eventually does.
4. Moral and Emotional Resolution
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Wuthering Heights ends with a haunting ambiguity - death may or may not bring peace, but love remains wild and untamed.
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Jane Eyre ends with reconciliation and balance: love and dignity united, passion redeemed.
✅ Verdict: If we measure “tornness” by unresolved wounds, Wuthering Heights wins. If we measure it by the depth of the struggle toward selfhood, Jane Eyre has its own quiet power.
Comparative Table
| Feature | Wuthering Heights | Jane Eyre |
|---|---|---|
| Emotional expression | Ferocious, unmediated, destructive | Controlled, moral, reflective |
| Psychological tornness | Explosive, externalized | Internalized, morally complex |
| Tone | Dark, stormy, tragic | Gothic but redemptive |
| Resolution | Ambiguous, unresolved | Harmonious, earned |
| Overall feel | Raw, wild, elemental | Measured, introspective, resilient |
Observation
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If you’re seeking the most raw, emotive, and torn in a visceral sense - the kind that rips apart the soul rather than heals - Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is the more brutal and emotionally feral novel.
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If you’re drawn to a quieter but emotively profound inner tornness - such as the battle of a broken heart and conflicted conscience - Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre has the greater interior depth.
Emily Brontë - Wuthering Heights (1847)
A wild, tempestuous, and haunting love.
1. Love as Obsession
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
- Catherine Earnshaw
“I cannot live without my soul.”
- Heathcliff
“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
- Catherine Earnshaw
2. Rage and Torment
“I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”
- Heathcliff
“I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you.”
- Heathcliff
“I have to remind myself to breathe - almost to remind my heart to beat!”
- Heathcliff
3. Gothic Wilderness
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
- Catherine Earnshaw
“Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself - but as my own being.”
- Catherine Earnshaw
“I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped in the flags! In every cloud, in every tree - filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day - I am surrounded with her image!”
- Heathcliff
🌀 The language of Wuthering Heights is wild and feverish - love as an elemental force that consumes rather than heals.
Charlotte Brontë - Jane Eyre (1847)
A fierce, moral, and interior love.
1. Love as Freedom
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
- Jane Eyre
“Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton? - a machine without feelings? Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!”
- Jane Eyre
“I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you.”
- Jane Eyre
2. Passion with Conscience
“I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.”
- Jane Eyre
“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
- Jane Eyre
“I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself.”
- Jane Eyre
3. Gothic Interior
“Reader, I married him.”
- Jane Eyre
“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”
- Jane Eyre
“I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal - as we are!”
- Jane Eyre
🔥 The language of Jane Eyre burns inwardly - love as moral courage, freedom, and spiritual equality rather than annihilation.
Final Summary Contrast
| Theme | Wuthering Heights | Jane Eyre |
|---|---|---|
| Love | Consuming, destructive, obsessive | Liberating, moral, self-respecting |
| Voice | Fevered, stormy, Gothic wilderness | Fierce but measured, interior monologue |
| Characters | Heathcliff & Catherine - entwined & damned | Jane & Rochester - torn but redemptive |
| Emotional Tone | A Wild tempest | A Steady flame |
| Signature quote | “I cannot live without my soul.” | “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me.” |
