MOCKS WH and MD context in depth

moment of being

defined by Woolf as the moment when the ‘cotton wool’ that limits perception and dulls strong emotional moments from being experienced is removed, in moments of being characters glimpse a wordless connection to the universe 

* ‘a match burning in a crocus’

woolf’s own experience with mental illness

during her lifetime, Woolf experienced several depressive and manic episodes leading to her eventual suicide by drowning, she was often ‘institutionalised at home’ and cared for by one or more nurses or offered a balanced diet as a cure leading her to develop a great critique of the stigma around mental health and how it is treated in society

* ‘the repulsive brute, with the blood-red nostrils’ - clear dislike of medical professionals
* ‘Dr Homes had told her to make him notice real things, go to a music theatre, play cricket’ - mocking tone

the wills act 1837

the events of *Wuthering Heights* take place in the 1770s, much before the Wills Act came into force in 1837; this act allowed people the right to decide to whom their property was left, however before this property would come under the control of the mortgage - therefore allowing Heathcliff to usurp Wuthering Heights from the Earnshaws

* ‘if you are called upon in a court of law’
* ‘I, being your legal protector’ - obsessive use of legal language 

modernist vs gothic interpretation of the endings of both novels

Bronte is influenced by the gothic style, one which features the explained supernatural (popularised by Ann Radcliffe in ‘The Mystery of Udolpho’) allowing Lockwood to explain the ending of *Wuthering Heights* to himself; however, Bronte writes in a modernist style which does not attempt to explain events, simply understand individual moments as they happen - therefore transcendence is treated differently 

* ‘moths fluttering among the heath’ ‘soft wind breathing through the grass’
* ‘wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth’
* ‘the unseen part of us, that spreads wide, the unseen might survive’
* ‘for there she was’

the matrimonial causes act 1857

this act gave women the ability to divorce their husbands, at the time of *Wuthering Heights* this act had not yet come into effect, meaning Isabella is stuck in her marriage to Heathcliff and Cathy in hers to Linton (similarly, in *Mrs Dalloway* Clarissa is stuck in her marriage due to the security it provides for her in ever changing London)

* ‘an exile, an outcast’ ‘I wish I were a girl again’
* ‘not even Clarissa anymore, this being Mrs Richard Dalloway’ ‘like a nun’

the decline of the British Empire (and other things)

during the period *Mrs Dalloway* was written, a number of important changes were impacting 1920s London including; the British Empire was sinking and causing thousands of deaths, poverty and social unrest were prominent, Queen Victoria died in 1901 and even religion was beginning to be questioned subsequent to the publication of Darwin’s *The Origin of Species* - effectively an English identity crisis took hold

* ‘as dear to him as a personal possession, moments of pride in England’
* ‘men of business’ ‘closing his knife with a snap’

social commentary on homelessness

during the period in which Woolf wrote, homelessness and vagrancy formed a very prominent issue for 1920s London; the numbers has risen to over 820,000 families homeless as cities could not accommodate for the post-war population

* ‘impudent, loose-lipped, humorous’ 

the decline of the yeomanry

during the time in which Bronte dates her novel, the yeoman class and traditional family farming practices that had sustained many began to decline; in the late 18th century a new capitalist class began to emerge and industry took over from agriculture

* ‘bleak, hilly, coal country’

the cult of sensibility

a movement that emerged in the middle of the 18th century that encouraged exploration of emotions and intense romantic feeling; this is characterised in novels such as Henry Mackenzie’s *Man of Feeling* to which Lockwood clings, it is this influence that allows him to look past the complex tumult of Wuthering Heights and set him apart from the characters 

* ‘in dress and manners a gentleman’
* ‘your wife, I mean’ ‘Mrs Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law’

calvinism

a branch of protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century; it is characterised by asceticism and a belief in predestination, leading its followers live an austere life dedicated to work and void of pleasure in order to live out eternity in Heaven - it is this that Joseph finds power in 

* ‘now’t’ ‘gut fur now’t’