Wuthering Heights

By Emily Bronte

Date Read

21/4/16 - 4/5/16

Age Group

16+

General Thoughts

It seems silly and, frankly, rather self indulgent, to consider rating a novel that has already proved itself by transending time and become a classic, a symbol for the passionate, intense grief of separation, be it a product of cruelties, mortal nature or, if you please, fate.

Wuthering Heights is a masterpiece of English literature from prose to writing to narrating.

And love it or hate it, that much is broadly accepted.

Everyone not living under a rock has heard, in one way or another, that Emily Bronte's only novel is about the love of Catherine and Heathclife. If you pick up the paperback, however, Ms. Bronte  you'll be surprised by the first few chapters, where a stranger, one Mr Lockwood, shares in first person narrating his experience concerning his visit to a mansion, Wuthering Heights, and his thoughts on its uncanny occupants.

The story of the cruel misanthropist and his long departed childhood love is promptly narrated to Mr Lockwood, who turns out to be Heathclife's tenant, by an old housekeeper, who has nursed two generations of Lintons and Earnshaws into adulthood.

Heathclife and Catherine's lost love, however, is only half the story as it sets into motion events and determines the course of life of all those closest to them, affecting the lives of their children almost two decades after Catherine's departure.

All the characters in the book, with the exception maybe of Edgar Linton and Nelly, are conceited, cruel and detestable. They are not meant to be liked, but coming to sympathise with their misfortunes puts their lives into perspective.

Main Characters

Catherine Earnshaw

Catherine Earnshaw may have the capacity to form intense attachements, but she is also self-centered and manipulative and what starts as childish mischievousness is quickly rearranged into an outright cruel nature. She is as wild as she is stunning, too spirited for her body to bear, too bright to burn long in this world, but maybe bright enough to burn and scorch those who stood too close as her flame was extinquished.

"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath a source of little visible delight, but necessary."

Heathclife

Heathclife is an orphan that luck smiles upon just once in his miserable life, that fateful night that Mr Earnshaw, Catherine's father, happened upon him and thus brought him into his own home to meet a six-year-old girl that would soon become his accomplish in mischief, his childhood best and only friend, and the object of obsession the years after that, the only person in the whole wide world to see his true colours, know his every dark thought and still not shy way from him. Maybe it was not luck after all... Heathclife only ever loves one person, and is thereby simultaneously fascinated, infatuated, obsessed and in love with someone he can never have. And he swears to avenge those who kept them apart, denying him her until she was lost to him.

Frankly, these two are equally cruel and deserve each other but fate had other plans...

"I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad!"

-Heathclife, shortly after her death

Edgar Linton

Graceful, attentive and kind, Edgar Linton's only fault, if there is one to be found, is that of weak character, easily manipulated by one extraordinary woman. Falling for and marrying Catherine Earnshaw was definitely not the best choice for his well being, although it did ultimately lead to his being relatively happy. Catherine had him wrapped around her little finger, what with the looming danger of her frail health, a goodbye present from Heathclife as he is the one that distressed her into sickness the first time around (and, coming to consider it, the second time around as well). And frail her health was until upset and passion led to her untimely death, leaving him a brideless father.

Catherine Linton

Intelligent and sensitive, Catherine Linton probably resembles her father's quite grace more than her mother's mischievous nature, and although maybe she did inherit the fire in her eyes and her annoying stubborness. I still think her snobbishness has more to do with being spoiled as an only child than with her genes. Of course, in that way, elder Catherine's desicion to marry Edgar instead of Heathclife was a wise one, since after her death there was little chance of Heathclife taking care to educate, let alone spoil, a child that reminded him so of all he had lost. Then again maybe tending to a mini Catherine would have helped him cope better with the loss of the original one, at least considerably better than tending to Linton, a sickly, pathetic version of the man who stole her from him.

Hareton Earnshaw

Hareton Earnshaw is kind of born into ongoing conflict, more so, at least, than any of his peers. Young Linton lives the first part of his life nurtured by a loving mother that had escaped Heathclife's evil claws, and Cathy has an upbringing fit for a princess, having taken her first breath as her mother drew her last, with her death promptly ending the all-out war that plagued the two houses. 

Little Hareton, on the other hand, the oldest of the three, has the privilege to grow up when the war is still brewing. His father, Hindley Earnshaw, damnably drowning in his drink ever since his wife died, and gambling his son's legacy away, has fits of passion when he hardly recognises Hareton as his kin, and his violent episodes quickly scare any kind of love the kid holds for his father away. The devoted nurse, Nelly, keen to protect him and keep him from harm's way, is soon sent away to serve in the bride's new home when elder Cathrine gets married, thus leaving the four-year-old child alone. The impending death of his father brings no tears to his eyes, for he never knew Hindley as one. 

And so Hareton is left to grow up with Heathclife, who now owns the diseased Hindley's estate and money -since he won it from him on the gambling tables- relying on the good heart of a heathen to keep him, a fortuneless child, from the cold streets and the life of a beggar. And Heathclife, seeing the strong, intelligent boy and remembering the revenge he doesn't believe to have yet exacted from his father (for Hindley was the one that kept him from Catherine and as previously mentioned he was dead set on avenging their seperation) he contrives to leave Hareton uneducated and unrefined, making him into a brute and extinquishing his potential, encouraging bad habits and cruel manners so that he might grow into an uncivilized young man, his wasted life serving as his revenge.

Linton Heathclife

Immature, cruel, conceited, sickly, and self-centered. His sense self-perseverance far outweighs everything else, be it his dignity or his conscience. At first moaning and groaning, demanding to be soothed, then expressing the maddening indifference of an invalid who wishes everyone to suffer as he does, his strength character is as nonexistent as his physical one. Although his upbringing has obviously played a role in forming his character, much like all the characters were forged through their hardships, his egotistical weakness is the one I have the most difficulty justifying.

Nelly

The old, stoic housekeeper proves an excellent narrator to a decades old story, lending personal insight into her musings without holding too much power over the characters themselves, thereby serving as an objective teller. Nelly is the perfect woman to tell a story that's trying to be 3rd person narrating without actually being faceless.

All in all

A classic.

PS. Find out more about the allegories here 

XOXO

Aggie Pearson