Book #15: Wuthering Heights

Book #15: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

March 14, 2013


After reading up a bit (via Wikipedia, mainly) about the Brontë sisters, I have found that Wuthering Heights was Emily's only novel. She, like her siblings, died fairly young. Well, I'd say that she made her one book count, because she really told one hell of a story. It's clear to me why it's a classic of English literature. I found the story to be entertaining, and the characters to be complex and interesting, if not altogether likable.

The story centers around Heathcliff (that is his given name, and he goes by only this), who was found as an abandoned orphan in Liverpool by Mr. Earnshaw, a country gentleman who takes the boy home and raises him alongside his own children, Hindley and Catherine. This is not uncharacteristic of the man, as he had also taken the young Ellen Dean (known as Nelly or Mrs. Dean, though I have no idea who the hell Mr. Dean is supposed to be...am I missing something here?) under his wing. She is the main narrator of the story, as she tells Heathcliff and the Earnshaw and Linton's story to Mr. Lockwood, the first narrator of the story. The story isn't really about him at all; all that's really known of him is that he is a young gentleman, who, on a whim, rented out Thrushcross Grange from Mr. Heathcliff, in order to get away from his hard-partying lifestyle, I think. Or maybe to escape a heartbreak...I was still kind of getting used to Brontë's writing style at that point, so I may have missed some details that were mentioned in passing. It doesn't really matter.

Anyway, Lockwood makes his way up to Wuthering Heights, the old country house at which Heathcliff resides with his widowed daughter-in-law, a very lovely but cold young woman, and a young farmhand named Hareton Earnshaw, who is not entirely friendly himself. Heathcliff is an imposing and unwelcoming man, and Lockwood, though not desiring to spend much time with his landlord, becomes fascinated by the unhappy household, especially after finding a few scrawled diary entries from a young woman named Catherine Earnshaw.

As Lockwood is laid up from an illness (I've commented on this before, but I'll say it again: English people of certain means really spent a lot of time on their asses back in the day), Nelly entertains him with the story of Heathcliff and the others. Though Heathcliff was raised beside the Earnshaw children, and was close with young Catherine, he was ill-treated by an older Hindley, and to some extent by Nelly herself (though it seems, throughout the book, that she is the only person in whom Heathcliff feels comfortable confiding). Catherine herself is a brat, as described by Nelly, though it would seem by my point-of-view that she was merely high-spirited, but over-indulged by her widower father. Hindley, home from school and newly wed, takes over Wuthering Heights, and proceeds to treat Heathcliff like a servant, keeping him separated from Catherine as much as possible.

Catherine, though "wild" and willful, eventually comes under the influence of the Linton family, who live at Thrushcross Grange. She never quite loses her ill manners, but when she is around Edgar Linton, she is better behaved. Even after he gets a glimpse at her temper (after she'd had an argument with Heathcliff; their sexual and emotional tension was to the breaking point, as  he was very jealous of her relationship with Linton and she certainly knew it), he desires to marry her. Now, as told from Nelly's perspective, it's clear that Catherine shares Heathcliff's feelings. Their feelings for each other are passionate; if they lived in more contemporary times, they would have run away together. But Catherine was from a respectable (if isolated...they were painfully isolated in their country manors) family, and Heathcliff literally had no name, nothing. To her, the only practical thing to do was to marry Linton.

At some point, Heathcliff goes off and makes a bunch of money. Nelly can never explain how this happened, and it is disappointing not to have found that part out. But he comes back and takes up residence at Wuthering Heights with the now-widower Hindley, who has gambled and drank away all of his money, and Hindley's neglected young son Hareton. As Heathcliff haunts Catherine's home, to the chagrin of her husband, Isabella Linton falls in love with him. You see, she interprets his brooding manner and devotion to Catherine to speak of his romantic heart (Catherine, who knows what a scoundrel he is, and perhaps this is the reason why she could not be with him, laughs at this and warns her off). I bet there are some fans of this book who might even take the same view...I can only imagine the plethora of fan fiction stories out there, written about some lady or another, from the story or imagined anew, who warms Heathcliff's icy heart.

I call bullshit on that one. Heathcliff comes from a strange, somewhat tragic, background, to be sure, but he's an asshole. Certainly, he had his pride abused by a child...so the bullied kid grows up to be a bully of children, it would seem. Though he does attack Hindley  while he's still  living (through his dirty dealings and financing the mortgage on Wuthering Heights and the land surrounding), he doesn't dare go after Edgar Linton until he's lying on his death bed (years after Catherine died in childbirth, bearing her namesake). He exacts his revenge against his enemies on the children, Hareton and Catherine themselves, and to some extent his own children through Isabella, the weakling Linton. He tricks young Catherine into marrying his spoiled, sickly son in order to have access to Thrushcross Grange, a finer property than Wuthering Heights. And once Edgar Linton is dead, what does Heathcliff do? He rents it out, rather than lording over his triumph.

Some triumph. It's more like misery loves company. Heathcliff is a miserable man, and he creates a miserable household. Poor young Catherine, who had been isolated herself but fairly happy as a child, is miserable in her new home, and is physically abused by Heathcliff (and to some extent by Hareton, her own cousin, though they become very friendly later on). Yeah, Catherine keeps it on both sides of the family, as she goes from marrying one cousin to the other (an improved Hareton and she are engaged at the end of the book). But they're much better suited for each other, as Hareton grows more gentle under her influence and education, and he can check her brief but violent tempers. 

Hareton was the most tragic character through much of the book. He came to love and trust Heathcliff, his guardian, though he was emotionally neglected, and was left uneducated and made to work on the farm. Heathcliff revealed to Nelly, in one of his wicked monologues, that he'd planned it this way on purpose, giving Hareton the same treatment that the boy's father had given to him. Really spiteful, especially considering that Hareton was his own beloved's flesh and blood. Bullying his own son and his daughter-in-law as well...but none of it brought him any joy. 

So really, I see Heathcliff as nothing more than a villian in this book, and I was glad when he died at the end. At the very least, he was finally happy, to be laid to rest beside his Catherine (even as her husband lay on the other side of her). The people around Wuthering Heights claimed that Heathcliff and Catherine's spirits haunted the area, and even the level-headed Nelly somewhat believed it. The household was happier after this, when Lockwood came to visit them briefly after some time away, and the couple were planning to move to Thrushcross Grange, leaving the bitter old servant Joseph, a classic Christian hypocrite) behind to tend to the abandoned (haunted?) Wuthering Heights.

I had heard this book described as being "violent," but I was surprised by the uncouth conduct of the characters. People nowadays often think back on those Victorian-era English times as being a time of proper society and manners and social hierarchies and all that stuff. But the characters in this book were basically English country bumpkins (with some money). I think I was expecting something more like a Jane Austen novel, but this story was much darker, though there was some glimmer of hope at the end. This book was surprising, in a good way.

Heath Ledger (RIP). I read once that he was named after the character Heathcliff. Uh, seriously? I take that to mean that his parents took the view that the character was some sort of brooding romantic hero. Once again, bullshit IMO.

A drawing of Emily Brontë, done by her sister Charlotte, who was also a writer (I've read Jane Eyre, which is pretty dark like Wuthering Heights). All of the family had artistic inclinations; the brother was an artist, too, and sister Anne published a couple of novels, in addition to the book of poems that the sisters had published together under their (male) pen names.