Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is reputed to be one of the ten great novels in the world by W. Somerset Maugham in 1948 .The story of doomed passions is set against the gloomy background of the bleak, windswept Yorkshire moorland at the end of eighteenth century. This thesis is composed of three parts. It analyzes Heathcliff’s tragic fate from the perspectives of the hero’s living environment and his character. The first part profiles the author’s life, writing background and this paper’s study motive. The second and the third parts analyze the causes of Heathcliff's tragic fate. The paper concludes that specific living environment shapes specific character and specific character determines specific fate. One’s fate is formed under the dual influence of the society, family, and personality. Heathcliff’s tragedy, as a result of revenge, is not one that happens coincidently and individually to him, but it has its objective and subjective causes. The analysis of the above-mentioned causes can reveal the impact of the British social hierarchy upon people’s lives and the tragedy brought by human selfishness.

Key words: Wuthering Heights; Heathcliff ; tragedy; cause

摘要：十九世纪英国女作家艾米莉•勃朗特穷其毕生精力所完成之伟大巨作《呼啸山庄》系以十八世纪末狂风呼啸的英国约克夏荒野为其沉郁背景，次第开展出具毁灭爱恨情仇的动人故事. 论文从环境、性格的角度，对小说的主人公希斯克利夫的悲剧命运进行分析. 第一部分简介作者生平、写作背景及研究动机．第二、三部分分析希斯克利夫的悲剧命运成因，说明特定的环境塑造特定的性格，特定的性格决定特定的命运，以及特定的命运是在社会、家庭环境和性格因素双重影响下形成的，复仇产生的悲剧并不是孤立存在的，更不是在某个人身上的巧合，它有导致其发生的社会原因和个体原因。对这些原因的分析可以揭露当时的英国社会等级制度对人们生活的影响，以及人性自私所带来的悲剧。

关键词：《呼啸山庄》；希斯克利夫；悲剧；成因

1. Introduction
Wuthering Heights is the work of one of the British writer sisters, Emily Bronte. The novel’s hero is a gipsy moth outcast, Heathcliff. His girlfriend marries Catherine landlord Linton, he, humiliated, begins a series of revenge. Wuthering Heights is first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition is edited by her sister Charlotte. The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centers. (As an adjective, Wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather.) The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys both themselves and many around them.