4. Conclusion 12

References 14

1. Introduction 

Revenge, as one of the most typical and classic themes, receives great welcome in several literature works and is popular among readers as well as writers. Most of novels involving in revenge are still popular and worth reading. Among all these novels, Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo can be the typical ones which own great amount of similarities and differences. Above all, the contrast and comparison of revenge in these two novels is worth trying. Brief introduction will be given in the following part.

Wuthering Heights written by the English writer Emily Bronte who was inspired by the great movement to Luddism is one of the most powerful novels which are full of tragedy and love. In other words, the novel is full of the rebellion which is mainly about the main hero Heathcliff. In the novel, Heathcliff suffered from the torture and bias from his brother Hindley and the neighbor Linton. Besides, betrayals for love from Catherine make him a total demon for revenge. It is popular not only because the story itself is so charming and impressive, but also because of the revenge of Heathcliff. That is to say, revenge, as the main theme of the novel, attracts so many scholars to do researches on and attracts so many readers to read it.

Similarly, The Count of Monte Cristo written by the French writer Alexandre Dumas gains much attention because of its story and the main theme revenge which works as a clue of the whole novel. This novel is mainly about the revenge from Edmond the main hero to his best friend Fernand for his betrayal for accusing Edmond of betraying to his country as well as the judge Villefort being scared that Edmond will speak out the secret of him that the father of Vilefort used to be a betrayer of his country. 

Surprisingly, these two main heroes own many similarities in revenge while there seems to be few scholars choosing to make contrast and comparison between the main themes—revenge. And these two novels both reveal the unfairness of the two main heroes having suffered and there are many details worth having further researches. Scholars have comments on the two heroes as a representative figure of great rebellion to the ill society and they are pitiable people who lost their true love in their lives.

Though the revenge is quite a popular topic in thesis researches and analysis, there seems to be few scholars choosing to make contrast and comparison of the main theme revenge in the two novels, Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo. More scholars prefer to take only one of the novels to do the researches which are seen as an old-fashioned topic in literature.

Revenge in a specific novel as a thesis topic, has been discovered and discussed for a long time. But in these researches, nearly few of them choose to make a comparison. Therefore, the thesis topic, the contrast and comparison of the revenge in Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo, is worth discussing.

2. Literature Review

In this part, the following aspects will be taken into consideration in order to demonstrate the reason why this thesis is released and scholars’ opinion towards the revenge theme in each of their thesis.

2.1 Researches Focusing on Revenge in Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo

As mentioned above, scholars from aboard and home have been focusing on the topic of revenge of the Wuthering Heights or the topic of revenge of The Count of Monte Cristo, and there are many relative papers involving one of the two books which means that scholars only focus on one particular aspect of the books.

However, there seems to be few scholars choosing to research in the comparison of the revenge of the two books. Revenge as the typical theme of Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo, deserves to have a research on it.