Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë, 1847
I wanted to post about this novel on my blog because it’s Wuthering Heights, for crying out loud! But, well, also, it’s probably the most “posted about” novel in academia, so nothing I can say will be of intrigue. With that, I’ll let this post be super subjective—all my own—for impressions and opinions, and how I personally interacted with the themes and characters.
Coming from Jane Eyre (well, 6 years ago), which has been canonized in as my favorite novel, I had anticipated so much for my second Brontë read. I am a SUCKER for a beautifully written and proper Victorian gothic romance; in fact, I put off reading Wuthering Heights for YEARS because I expected it would become my all time favorite novel, and I wanted the timing of my first read for it to be, well, perfect. So, here I am, 24, jobless, and out of school for the Summer, thinking what better time to read my lifetime’s new favorite. Imagine, then, my disappointment when I realized this book was nothing like Jane Eyre and is…dare I say…barely a romance?
Is that crazy or what? Does that make me a pretentious Long Island illiterate, rating arguably the most esteemed piece of literature a 4 out of freaking 5?
But, truthfully, the idea that Wuthering Heights is a romance must come from some overgeneralized conventional recognition that sort of just…took root…because, if anything, I understood it more to be an antithetical romance—it seemed to me to pose romance as an all-encompassing, dangerous entity. The novel depicts love with, although possibly some constancy, no stability. It’s a precarious, harmful thing, and the characters literally die because of it. Catherine and Heathcliff at least.
They become obsessed with each other! Or, with the drama of each other! But it doesn’t feel like “love” —at least not how I like love to be depicted—it feels immature, mostly. And though Heathcliff (arguably) does “love” her (despite it being an infatuation more than an emotional partnership), I would go so far as to argue that Catherine straight up doesn’t love him back.
She’s characterized, from the very beginning, as a spoiled, attention-seeking, theatrical young girl. She’s impudent and insolent, and then Heathcliff comes into the picture, and he falls in love with her because she’s beautiful and she can easily make a spectacle of herself. While he loves her right off the bat, it seems to me that Catherine simply enjoyed their childhood (which they spent together as kin). It was them two against a bunch of austere authorities, but as soon as they are old enough to have a little freedom, she…sort of dubs him, no?
Yes, she has the whole “he’s more myself than I” monologue, and it’s believable, sure, but I think it can easily be read as a theatrical woman who tends to speak in metaphors and oversells her sentimental emotions. Their housekeeper Nelly even says “she (Catherine) had a wondrous constancy to old attachments,” which sort of lends to show that maybe Catherine isn’t in love, she’s just…nostalgic? Why, truly, would she marry Edgar if she was truly as in love with Heathcliff as critics believe? And I don’t believe there’s any scene in which it’s intentionally established she doesn’t actually love Edgar; in fact, after her death, her memory is something Edgar thinks on fondly for the rest of his life, which also lends to the idea that she did leave him with a true impression of love.
And, after Catherine’s death, when Nelly puts Edgar’s strand of hair back in Catherine’s locket after Heathcliff took Edgar’s strand out? That’s a very clear indication that Brontë also thought Edgar’s love for her was equal to Heathcliff’s, no? She makes it so Catherine, in death, has an equal piece of Edgar and Heathcliff lay with her. (Although, I will say this is the only place where I think Brontë undermines Heathcliff against Edgar; that is to say, elsewhere, it seems even Brontë believed Catherine and Heathcliff were soulmates, but my argument is that a 2024 onlooker in their world would see them as silly lovestruck kids).
I wonder if Catherine’s life was cut too short for their love story to prove fickle, as reality tends to make it. Or—oof—if they’d consummated (you know), the way reality would have it, Heathcliff would have gotten his fix and moved on to the next. Lust is probably the largest piece of infatuation.
Let’s talk about the other characters.
Heathcliff. My reaction to the guy, genuinely, is WHAT? Guys, he’s an ABUSER! And I’m not just talking, like, he knows how to gaslight (which, yes, he does!), but…I mean…the man is giving straight-up physical violence! He slaps younger Cathy (Catherine’s daughter) on multiple occasions, no? And—plot hole possibly—if he loves Catherine so much, why does that love not extend to her daughter? In fact, he oddly abhors Cathy, which I find odd; you’d think since she’s the only living extension of his fated soulmate, he’d feel at least some sort of tenderness toward her, no?
Hareton—yeah I felt bad for Hareton, but…he’s an abuser too!! I did ship him and Cathy though, over Linton and Cathy. I also would’ve been cool with Lockwood and Cathy, but that suggestion was quickly denounced. But Linton…little Linton, I mean…that man can go eat shit. He reminded me of the boy in The Secret Garden. The little sick boy, you know? Colin. In fact, he reminded me so much of Colin that I’m convinced Frances Burnett had Linton in mind as inspiration for Colin’s character. Both were sickly kids, incredibly spoiled and bratty, who had big hearts.
And this must be intended as another negative commentary on love, no? They play together as kids, then fall in love, but literally alllll they do is argue (because the kid’s a little puss). Yet, after Cathy is kidnapped by Heathcliff and forced to marry Linton (again, ABUSER), she tells Heathcliff that he has no power over her because she and Linton truly are in love (okay, slay for argument’s sake, but WHAT? That’s not love, Cathy!). Linton is selfish and uncompromising, and although it’s his father who is the aggressor, he’s quite complacent in it!
I also just want to ask why Nelly has no love? Or, well, as a servant, sure, I guess that’s often the reality, but if Nelly is the utmost observer of this epic love tragedy, does she ever feel lonely herself? Does she feel like she’s missing out? Does she ever wonder? Cause, of course we don’t know her story, but it doesn’t seem like she’s ever had a suitor. And, as the narrator, her perspective is the one I’m probably most invested in!
I liked Isabella. She’s like me. We’re both literally delusional (Heathcliff has a cool speech about how delusional she is). HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean Heathcliff can just usurp her and abuse her! They do enough to make a child together, and that fact disturbs me because Heathcliff did not say a single kind thing to her the entire book—in fact, he made it very clear he didn’t care if she died a violent death—and you’re going to tell me they had a nice consensual child-making session? Absolutely not. So Heathcliff, once more, is disgusting. Also an awful father—Linton had a chance to grow up with his Uncle Edgar and Heathcliff said no I’ll raise him because I want you to suffer. And as Linton was dying, Heathcliff was like, no, can’t call a doctor, don’t care to spend the time or money.
Overall, I don’t think I enjoyed Wuthering Heights very much.I do wonder if my experience with it would have been different had I read it for school, with the scaffolding of other’s thoughts and opinions, and alongside intriguing critical works. Though, even if I had, I do believe Jane Eyre takes the cake for me, as a novel I read on my own AND in a class (Decolonizing Gender through Literature) and loved it both times.
Also, can we talk about Charlotte Brontë’s preface to the edition she edited right after Emily’s death in which she essentially says yeah my sister was like, a real bad writer and knew nothing about formatting, so I edited it here, also she was quite an impudent loner, apologies on her behalf!
That was so funny to me.
Trigger Warnings: Abuse (physical and indicative of sexual); violence; death
Quotes: (quotes are really strong)
I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
…because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…
If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger.
…my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath—a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff—he’s always, always in my mind—not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself—but, as my own being.
‘She abandoned them under a delusion,’ he answered, ‘picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character, and acting on the false impressions she cherished.
That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me—he’s in my soul.
You loved me—then what right had you to leave me? What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart—you have broken it—and in breaking it, you have broken mine.
Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe—I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!
She’s a beauty, it is true; but not an angel.
The most ordinary faces of men, and women—my own features—mock with me a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!
