I'm in a strange mental space upon finishing this book, so forgive me if that is reflected in this blog. I had intended to give a fiery denouncement of this book, and I still may, but it is less likely now. It's rather like attending a funeral of someone who had done you ill in the past. Death puts this weird perspective on things. Even the prospect of someone dying makes so much forgivable and we see that person in a rosier light than we did when they were healthy and seemed to have all the time in the world.
Given that, I think it would be best to section this post on Wuthering Heights into certain themes.
The End
The final third of the novel was actually more interesting than the rest of the novel. Cathy's father died and Heathcliff forced her to live under his roof and began to torture her especially after Linton died leaving everything to him rather than her...which of course was the plan all along.
There's this very subtle shift that occurs after Linton dies and Heathcliff wins. It's so subtle that I almost wonder if I'm making it up. There are moments and beats, shades of ways Heathcliff says things that seem to show that deep down he realizes how very hollow his victory is. He's fought, railed, abused, and tormented everyone his entire life. Now that everyone he could have been victorious against is dead and he's "won" there's nothing left. His life's actually without any sort of meaning. Certainly he continues to abuse Cathy and Hareton, but there are moments where he stops himself in the middle because he sees the dead looking right back at him through the eyes of the children. He's won...and nobody could care less. Indeed, the children have gotten to the point where they are just waiting him out. They don't say as much, but it's clear they can see an end to their torture, and so are less fearful of him.
Cathy's situation is particularly interesting to me. Here she was an intelligent and empathetic creature always trying to do right even if she got confused by romance, and once under Heathcliff's thumb she began to shift into this terrible creature. She causes discord for fun, delights in mocking Hareton for bettering himself by learning to read, and is generally spiteful to all. Here we go again, I thought, the apple isn't falling far from the tree. I was genuinely surprised to find what resistance there was in both of their hearts to this darkening. There were a few genuinely hopeful moments in the last third that indicated that these children (well, I say children but they were 23 and 18 years of age) would not make the same mistakes as their parents.
Heathcliff tells her that he will torment her as payment for living under her roof. She boldly looks at him with the eyes of her namesake and says "Mr. Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you; and however miserable you makes us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You are miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? Nobody loves you - nobody will cry for you when you die! I wouldn't be you!"
Right next to that piece is my notation in black ink, "Daaaang, sister!"
Later Hareton and Cathy start to fall in love when both realize their toxic ways are less than beneficial and apologize to each other. They begin to show kindness and tenderness in a house of abuse and naturally they are drawn to it. They decide to make a little flower garden to please each other. Unfortunately Hareton digs up the wrong bushes. They explain and Heathcliff turns on Cathy.
'"And who the devil gave you leave to touch a stick about the place?...And who ordered you to obey her?" he added, turning to Hareton.
The Latter was speechless; his cousin replied - "You shouldn't grudge a few yards of earth for me to ornaments, when you have taken all my land!" (Oh, snap!)
"Your land, insolent slut! You never had any," said Heathcliff.'
He goes to hit her, Hareton stands by her side and he pales. It's as if they're saying, "We're just waiting you out old man. You won't be able to torment us forever".
For Earnshaw, Catherine, Edgar, Isabella, and even Linton, to a lesser degree, Heathcliff was something they had to endure in one form or another for the rest of their lives. His obsession and abuse shaped them and there was little hope of a reprieve. For the kids, they can swallow it down and not be permanently shaped by it. With Linton dead, he realizes, he leaves nothing of his own behind. Neither of the titles or lands were ever truly his. He was a foundling replacement in the stead of a child who died at birth.
Any remorse he may have had fades quickly at the prospect of being reunited in death with Catherine...which was pretty weak in my estimation.
The book does end happily and I was quite pleased with the ending, but it is not even remotely a book I would read through again just for that ending. I'll but the book on my "100 Books" bookcase and it will travel with me wherever I go, but it will never be opened again. It's too infuriating and it's main characters too vile. Most of my favorite books I return to in order to welcome my "friends" with open arms. This book I'd only be capable of returning to with a clenched fist.
Love and Obsession/Passion
Much is made of the "Love Story" supposedly found within these pages. I've looked at so many reviews that say "Oh, how I wish I had a man who loved me like Heathcliff" and I can't help but wonder what they mean by that. He was abusive to every woman in his life including Catherine and terrible in general to every one else. If you want a man to beat you about the face and neck, threaten your relatives, and attempt to murder your pets then I'm pretty sure that your average psych ward could grant you some prospects.
Now, naturally, no one wants those terrible things. So, what could they possibly mean by that?
To my mind what they are saying is that they want someone who feels strongly, passionately, about them, and I get that. I know so many people who say, "Man, if the fireworks aren't there then there's no point at all." The problem with that is that fireworks inevitably fade. They HAVE to. The proverbial "fireworks" are nothing more than chemicals in the brain. "Love" shoots us up with a crazy cocktail of hormones that are not unlike a drug. It is AMAZING to feel that way for weeks or even months. We easily become addicted to it. Just like any drug our bodies necessarily acclimate to it and need more in order to just feel buzzed. Instead of taking more hits we escalate situations in order to get the high. This leads to fighting, and abuse. As someone who was once the victim in an abusive relationship I can tell you that this happened to me and I stayed. Why? The mental and physical abuse was hell, but the makeup time was just the dose I needed to get high. One of my friends at the time described it perfectly. He said, "Imagine being in a cold, black box. You're in there for weeks at a time and then she opens the lid letting in the warm sunshine. You hope she'll take you out of the box, and she swears she will. You believe it every time because it feels so good." When you are addicted to passion you make the other person your "dealer" and you'll bow to nearly any whim for another high.
What Heathcliff and Catherine have is not love in any way shape or form. It can be loosely described as "passion". It is a wind storm devastating everything in its path leading to nothing in the end. There's nothing tangible or real about their "love". It's abusive to one another and everyone around them.
The real tragedy is that Catherine had love and didn't want it. Edgar Linton treated Catherine with dignity, respect, and doted on her in every way he could. Even to the end he was at her bedside refusing to leave or even sleep. It wasn't loud, it wasn't exciting, but it was healthy, wholesome and, if she had let it, it would have nurtured her. Genuine love is recognized not by how it feels but, rather, by what it does. Passion will get you high, but love will sustain you when you are in the depths. The fireworks do not last, and I thank God that they don't. When you're high on endorphins you can be the blindest you've ever been. You'll drink poison and swear it tastes like champagne. When the passion fades you can see things rightly. You can see what the two of you need to work on and how best to be each other's helpmate. Getting high on passion is always self centered and genuine love is other centered. Without some sort of morality healthy love cannot exist. It's merely passionate, self centered obsession.
Why, Emily? Why?
I've scanned a few articles on the net as to why Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights and have discovered that there is nothing on the subject directly from Emily or any of her sisters. We are left with, as I declared in the first place, a terrible story about terrible people who do terrible things to each other. Now I am compelled to add, "with a little hope at the end."
I do not believe that Emily Bronte wrote this book in order to celebrate this abusive "love". It's much in the same way that Trainspotting was not, as many moral people believed and declared loudly, a book/movie that glorifies heroine usage. Seriously, all you have to do is watch the first fifteen minutes of the movie to get that it's about the horrors of heroine usage.
All we need do is to look at who the "hero" of the book actually is; Nelly. She is our perspective through 90% of the novel (the other 10% being made up of the unnecessary Mr. Lockwood). Nelly endures the sufferings, celebrates the joys, and accurately predicts the demise of every character. She's the only one throughout who cares about the others. She's the only one who holds any hope of redemption for anyone. Even Heathcliff she calls a Goblin or a Devil from the moment she sees him as a child and still keeps hoping she can nudge him into some sort of morality.
Charlotte Bronte, in speaking of the novel after it was published...sadly after the death of Emily, stated that it was the most accurate portrayal of life in those obscure manors that were such a distance from town. Isolation from the rest of the "herd" produces these strange abuses and odd behaviors.
Once I realized that it is a critique of such people and life then it became infinitely more tolerable. Still...not tolerable enough to read again. How this book is on the top 100 of all time is still a mystery to me, but then again so is Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials.
Thank you one and all for sticking through this lengthy process of reviewing this book. I appreciate how frustrating it must have been to wait so long between posts, but I just couldn't handle it all at once as I normally try to do them.
Next is George Orwell's 1984 which I expect will be a read that delights me. Sadly, I will only be able to get a copy sometime after the first of next month. Until then I'll be reading classic sci-fi magazines from the 60's in order to recover from this 100 Brontes on the Austen/Bronte scale...which only goes up to 10.
Pax,
W
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