An Unsuccessful Power Grab:
Inheritance of Feminine Invalidism and Rebellion of “Sick” Women in Wuthering Heights
Yin Yimeng
1. Introduction
Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) highlights women’s “illness,” especially eating disorders and madness.
In this paper, “illness” refers to genuine illness and malingering. Feminine invalidism characterized by illness seems
to have two contradictory attributes. On the one hand, women’s illness suggests the innate defectiveness of women,
which is adored in patriarchal culture. On the other hand, women can take advantage of the power within illness tocoerce others into obedience. As Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English believe, a physical or mental disorderamong women was sometimes explained as “a power grab rather than a genuine illness” (85) in the Victorian era.
This paper mainly solves two problems: where does feminine invalidism come from? Is “illness” a successful strategy
for women to subvert gender roles within their families?
2. An “Inheritance” between Symbolic Stepmother and Stepdaughter
In this section, I present the “maternal inheritance” of feminine weakness in the Frances-Catherine-Isabella
succession. In The Madwoman in the Attic, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar propose that Catherine Earnshaw has
not realized the social sickness of womanhood until adolescence, when her symbolic stepparents, Hindley andFrances, become the new owners of Wuthering Heights (269). As a “stepmother,” Frances plays a critical role inawakening Catherine’s gender consciousness by casting a shadow of feminine weakness on her. As a hysterical andtimid woman, Frances becomes an incarnation of illness and sickens adolescent Catherine, thus threatening the 12year-old girl. Catherine fears but has to enter womanhood, which indicates “to be a lady is to be diseased” (Gilbertand Gubar 268). Catherine is bitten by the bulldog at Thrushcross Grange, which has a sexual connotation. It
symbolizes that physically Catherine becomes a woman. Then, after five weeks’ residence at Thrushcross Grange,
Catherine suppresses her wild nature and does not refuse to enter the sickening womanhood under the influence ofFrances. After Catherine suffers from the brain fever, a genuine illness, she becomes an heiress of Frances whorepresents the stereotypical sick woman.
Besides Frances and Catherine, the pattern of a relationship between the symbolic stepmother and stepdaughter
is repetitious between Catherine and Isabella, but in that case, Isabella subverts the stereotype of a weak lady byanother attribute of the feminine invalidism, the monstrous power of “illness.” Like Catherine, adolescent Isabella isguided by her symbolic stepparents, Catherine and Edgar, into the diseased womanhood. When Isabella is eighteen
years old, she falls in love with Heathcliff, which is opposed by Edgar and Catherine. However, ignoring Catherine’s
warning, Isabella is headstrong on her decision to love Heathcliff, who is a villain. Isabella protests against Catherine
by fasting and feigning illness. It seems like that she inherits a positive attribute of feminine invalidism which endows
women with power to rebel against authorities in the family.
Thus, the “sick” role of women is defined by patriarchal culture and feminine invalidism is passed on by women.
3. Eating disorders
In Wuthering Heights, both Catherine and Isabella show signs of eating disorders. This section analyzes different
meanings of refusal to eat in the cases of Isabella and Catherine. After Isabella has a dispute with Catherine, Isabella
refuses to eat her breakfast and she admits that she feigns illness for complaining about Catherine. In Isabella’s case,in contrast to the symptom of a genuine illness, fasting is a strategy to arouse others’ sympathy and to defy her“stepmother” who discourages her from associating with Heathcliff. Yet, in Catherine’s case, her loss of appetite is aself-punishment for her powerlessness to revolt against her elder brother Hindley, who locks Heathcliff up. Although
Catherine worries about Heathcliff, as an obedient woman, she cannot argue with Hindley aggressively before theLintons. Her refusal to eat is a compromise for her dilemma because she does not lose her decency as a lady while
suffering hunger with Heathcliff together to prove her loyalty to him.
4. Catherine’s delirium
17Catherine’s delirium suggests the monstrous power of feminine invalidism, which subverts traditional genderroles. Following the suggestions from Doctor Kenneth, Edgar is obedient to Catherine who has not recovered fromher brain fever after marriage, so that Catherine’s delirium will not recrudesce. There is a contradiction in preventing
Catherine from going mad. Edgar becomes an advocate of Catherine’s feminine power, and he uses his patriarchal
power to maintain Catherine’s autonomy. It seems like that Catherine is the dominator, and she reverses the traditional
gender roles. However, Edgar restrains Catherine’s emotion by making her suppress the passion, which explodes inanger and causes madness. Sharing his power with Catherine for a short time is Edgar’s strategy to shape a real angelin the house, but his plan fails with the return of Heathcliff.
Catherine wants to keep a friendship with Heathcliff, and she tries to pretend to be mad to threaten her husband
in order to grab power. Using the strategy of “illness,” Catherine knows that Edgar will give in to her pleading. Yet,it seems like that once Catherine becomes a diseased woman, she loses the power to bring the illness under her controlfreely. The power of illness controls her body and manipulates her emotions when she suffers from mental illness.
Although she is cared for as if she were a queen by others, her conscious mind is too weak to wield the power given
by feminine invalidism during the attack and convalescence. When Catherine is conscious of her powerlessness tomaintain equality between her and her husband forever, she slides into depression again, which causes a relapse ofmental illness. Restraining and releasing emotions repetitiously are tortures for Catherine. She wants to be an angelto satisfy her husband, but she cannot stabilize her emotions by herself, which causes her death eventually.

5. Conclusion
In Wuthering Heights, feminine invalidism can pass from symbolic stepmothers to adolescent stepdaughters.
Women inherit two attributes of feminine invalidism. Moreover, feminine invalidism not only refers to the physicaland mental weakness of women in its traditional meaning, but also suggests a possibility to reverse the traditional
gender roles in the family.
In the novel, “illness” is a strategy for women to defy the authorities in family, which subverts the stereotype ofangel in the house. However, Isabella’s refusal to eat and Catherine’s delirium show that, although women can takeadvantage of the attributes of feminine invalidism to grab power from the patriarchal authority during periods ofillness, they are overwhelmed by angelic weakness after recovery, and they return to the traditional roles defined bypatriarchy. Therefore, the failure of a power grab from male authorities within families by “illness” is determined by
the contradictory attributes of feminine invalidism and “illness” is not a successful strategy for women to promote
gender equality within the family permanently.
Works Cited
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. Complaints and Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness. The Feminist
Press, 2011.
Gilbert, Sandra M, and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century
Literary Imagination. Veritas paperback ed., Yale UP, 2020.

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