Being a well-known and admired work, ‘Wuthering Heights’ appealed to me long before I had any idea of its content nor its praiseworthy linguistic fashion. Though slightly dissapointed at first due to the inconceivable actions that the characters undertook, I later learned to appreciate their personalities, as well as their movements, thanks to Bronte’s most compelling writing.
Title Analysis
Wuthering Heights is the name of the house where the story takes place the majority of the time. It is found on a hilltop on the Yorkshire mours, a place of solitude, far away from the civilisation. It is important to know that there is only one other household in those desolate mours; Thrushcross Grange.
Main Characters
Though there's a wide variety of characters, almost each character seems to play an important role in the story. The main characters are not the narratives’ speaker. The story is told by the old woman servant, Mrs. Nelly Dean, whereas the main characters are the eternal lovers Heathcliff and Catherine. Mrs. Dean tells Mr. Lockwood, a weatlhy gentleman of whom Heathcliff is the landlord, the whole story of the couple and their adventures upon the mours.
A brief summary & Eileen’s perspective
Heathcliff, a Gipsy found on the streets by Mr. Earnshaw, the master of the Earnshaw family, whom lives in Thrushcross Grange, is considered a wild savage. Catherine and Hindley (Mr Earnshaw’s children ) show abusive behaviour towards the young fellow. Even the servants are uncivilized. Mrs. Dean herself, used to call Heathcliff an ‘it’ instead of a ‘he’.
Only Mr. Earnshaw likes him and he considers Heathcliff as his own son.
But time passes and Catherine changes her attitude toward the boy. Heathcliff and Catherine spend all their time together, playing on the moors and mocking with their fellow inmates. Hindley, on the other side, envies Heathcliff’s close relationship with Mr. Earnshaw. The hatred between Hindley and Heathcliff grows by day. After Mr. Earnshaw’s death, Hindley becomes the master of Wuthering Heights. He treats Heathcliff as his servant, hence the latter lives a miserable life. Catherine thus leaves Heathcliff and marries the wealthy Edgar Linton, living at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff marries Edgar’s sister, Isabella, though we know he doesn’t love her. Was it because he envied Catherine’s happiness and wanted a chance of happiness for himself as well? Or did he wanted to make Catherine jealous?
As a reader, we don’t know what is really going on in this part of the story.
Do Catherine and Heathcliff love each other or, on the contrary, abhor one another? This only becomes clear when Catherine speaks to Mrs. Dean about her doubts as to marrying Edgar, when she exclaims her passionate love for Heathcliff.
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
Nevertheless, she stays with Edgar for her entire life. Catherine dies giving birth to a daughter named Cathy. Heathcliff, though he was already terrorised by pain and grief due to Catherine’s abandonment of him, now completely loses his marbles. He grows extremely abusive towards his own wife, Isabella. The latter flees and has a baby, named Linton, whom is brought to Wuthering Heights when Isabella dies. Eventually, Cathy ( also called Catherine Linton), Edgar Linton and Catherine Earnshaw’s daughter, and Linton, Heathcliff and Isabella Linton’s son, fall in love. Edgar Linton is at his weakest and will soon die. That’s why Cathy is desperate to be with her father, but is prevented from doing so by Heathcliff. He holds her and Mrs. Dean as prisoners in Wuthering Heights, forcing Catherine to marry Linton, for Heathcliff would inherit all Cathy’s and thus Edgar Linton’s possessions when Edgar soon dies. At this point, I was convinced Heathcliff was a fiend, not capable of empathy, not even towards the innocent little Cathy, doomed by the hatred between her father and Heathcliff. Cathy’s resentment and here love for Linton, even though the latter support her being locked in Wuthering Heights and stricken by Heathcliff, to me seems both dastardly though admirable. She won’t consent to her being forced to marry the by now feeble and dying (because of a disease) Linton, though she did marry him, willingly.
This to me, was so strange. Cathy, once a lively, joyful woman wanted to marry a dying man, that does not feel the slightest compassion for his lover being stricken by his father (Heathcliff) and left in solitude, locked up in a chamber. How is Cathy even capable of withstanding Linton? Fortunately, Cathy manages to escape and flees to Thrushcross Grange, where her father breads his final breads in the company of his daughter. Mr. Earnshaw is buried, and so is Cathy’s hope for a happy further life. Heathcliff forces her to come and live with him and Linton, but soon Linton dies of his disease. There is, however, one more descendant from the Earnshaw family, Hareton Earnshaw, the son of the deceased Hindley. He, having lived at Wuthering Heights for most of his life, receiving no education whatsoever, spending his time scolding at his inmates and working in the stable, still had his residence in the house. The three, Cathy, Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw, obviously accompanied by a servant, Mrs. Nelly Dean (the narrator of the story), lived in the house for some more years. Heathcliff, having always been tortured by his memories of Catherine, harshened and grew weary. He often went strolling around at Catherine’s grave at night. During the day, he refused to eat nor drink and spend his hours looking at an empty space, talking to Catherine’s ghost and scolding himself for giving way his only chance at love.
Eventually, he died in the worst possible circumstances: in solitude, grieving and starving, longing for his soul and hearth that withdrew from his body a long time ago.
Hareton’s behavior changes entirely, now that his abusive master passed away.
He softened and learned to read thanks to Catherine. The two infatuated. So much even, that they married and truly, lived happily ever after.
Book Review
A most confounding narrative, it is. I found myself utterly seized by the compelling events that took place upon those Yorkshire moors. Did Emily Bronte ever experienced these affairs herself? We will never now, since it is only known after her death, that she was the writer. She published ‘Wuthering Heights’ (her only novel) in 1847, when women weren’t allowed to write, let alone publish books. That’s why she took the pseudonym ‘Ellis Bell’.
Her sister, Charlotte Brontë, famous for her novel ‘Jane Eyre’, added some corrections to the book. It is thanks to Charlotte that we are able to read the work today, which I am, to be honest, very thankful for. Though perhaps the novel has been so much renowned that is almost impossible to meet the great expectations I cherished, I thought this a great reading experience. I was baffled at the curious, completely different attitude the characters exhibited. We must not forget the time in which the story took place, the Victorian Era, beginning in the 1770s. It is no wonder then, that the characters’ behavior is different from what we are used to nowadays. From the moment I realised that, I looked with a more open minded view at their actions and feelings of the characters, and I could truly find myself in their footsteps, even in Heathcliffs’. When you thus read ‘Wuthering Heights’, try to remember that this novel is written in a whole other Era. Don’t look down on the story nor the characters, knowing people were perhaps less evolved, or had less resources to fulfil their expectations of life. Instead, empathise, though not pity, Heathcliff, Cathy and all the others.
Try your hardest to feel what they feel and to be absorbed by this brilliant work of art.
Quotes & Eileen’s interpretation
“What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here?”
• Catherine defining her love for Heathcliff.
“It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.”
• Catherine comes to live with the Earnshaw family for a while. Her fiery personality didn’t adapt to the Earnshaws' way of tranquil living. Instead, the Earnshaws excepted her for who she was because of their admiration of her beauty and knowledge.
“Treachery, and violence are spears pointed at both ends - they wound those who resort them, worse than their enemies.”
• Heathcliff can be considered rather a victim of violence, though he shows villainous behavior, he is so used to the violence that he sees no other way but to exhibit it himself. He also gets tormented by his violence, perhaps even worse then the people to whom he exhibits it, especially since deep in his hearth, I believe him to be a good-hearted man.
“I have a single wish, and my whole being, and faculties are yearning to attain it... I am swallowed in the anticipation of its fulfilment.”
• Heathcliff is determined to join Catherine in, wherever she may be, hell or heaven.
“... and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”
• At the end, Mr. Lockwood (who wanted to know more about the story of Wuthering Heights and to whom Mrs. Dean explained all) visits the graves of Edgar Linton, Catherine and Heathcliff, all lying next to each other, Catherine’s in the middle. People believe their spirits still walk on earth in the shape of ghosts, but Mr. Lockwood can’t understand why people would believe such foolishness, since the graves looked so peaceful and quiet.
“She could free life from its dependence on facts, with a few touches that indicate the spirit of a soul so that it needs no body.”
• Virginia Woolf praises Emily Bronte’s writing style. Bronte can describe the characters’ emotions so vividly, so that one can live, think and empathise them without having the need to really see them nor their bodies in reality.
See you next time my dear reading friends :-)
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