Liminality: Symbols, Motifs and Themes
Liminal: of pertaining to, or situated at the limen (threshold); the unfixed position between any two oppositional terms; the experience of being on a threshold or a boundary; marginal
Heathcliff is liminal in the following ways:
- He is an outsider, there is a barrier between the classes
- His name, named after the dead- marginal position between the living and the dead
- Borderline between a supernatural creature and a man “imp of Satan”, “dark almost as if it came from the devil”
There is Liminality between Life and Death:
- Cathy is haunted by her own face in the mirror when she is about to die, she is already able to see her own ghost even though she is not yet dead
- When Lockwood struggles with the ghost, the windowpane acts as a barrier between the real world and the supernatural
- Eyes are also used within the novel as a portal into the other world. Heathcliff’s eyes always seem supernatural and connected with the underworld
Ghosts- a liminal state:
- The borders between life and death are broken down
- The ghosts of Heathcliff and Cathy hover together in a liminal state
- Strength and passion can transcend this world into a spiritual world beyond
- Brontë uses the gothic idea of the supernatural and the transgressed ‘limen’ to demonstrate the importance of passion to her and that it is able to last beyond death
Liminality between Nature and Culture:
- When Cathy and Heathcliff visit Thrushcross Grange, the look into the Grange through the barrier of a window. The window can be seen to symbolise the border between the nature outside and the culture within
- Brontë uses liminality to show that society’s borders and barriers are too confining. There had to be room in life for nature and strong feelings to break through