Release the Bats! Vampire Figures in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

Abstract

This paper reflects briefly on Emily Brontës Wuthering Heights in the context of Donna J. Haraway's metaphor of the vampire. Haraway's theory enables us to look at the well-described conflicts and tensions of the novel from a new angle, making us rethink our attitude to the Other, while preserving the text's infamous opacity of meaning. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore briefly the motif of the vampire, which is already there in Brontes text; and to comment on how the metaphor of the vampire - passing through Haraway's reformulation - affects the novel's message. As a result, this new analytical and interpretative perspective allows us to take a fresh look at one of the Victorian classics when teaching it at history of English literature course at the university level.