Allusions: Parallels to the Garden of Eden in Wuthering Heights Scott Christopher Graham

“Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” Genesis reads (Gen 2.9). In the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, a serpent, the Satan figure, coerces Eve to eat the fruit from the tree of “knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 2.17), which God specifically tells Adam and Eve that they “shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” The apple from this tree gives Adam and Eve “knowledge of good and evil,” and they begin their fall from innocence. In Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, there seems to be endless parallels to the story of the Garden of Eden, with recurring patterns of innocence and unity, then seduction and fall. The most definite parallels of Eden in Wuthering Heights stem from the stories of Catherine and Heathcliff and their love for one another. Catherine and Heathcliff experience the story of Adam and Eve several times, with various events representing their own blissful innocence, temptation, and fall from grace. Interestingly, the story of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve continues with Catherine’s offspring, Cathy, and her...