5 Stars
GET READY FOR MY FAVORITE CLASSIC
Rating: PG
Language: G
Sex: G (Pretty blase. There are stolen kisses but it's all innocent)
Violence: PG (I wouldn't say it's necessarily violent, I would say it's more intense than anything else. It deals with dark themes and has instances of physical and emotional abuse).
Drugs/Alcohol: G
Wuthering
Heights has been my favorite classic for years so it’s very
strange that I haven’t been able to sit down and write a review detailing
everything I love about it.
It surprises me that when the novel was first released it
was ravaged by unconstructive criticism. For instance, in a review for the
newspaper Atlas, an anonymous
reviewer stated that it “casts a gloom over the mind not easily to be
dispelled. It does not soften; it harasses, it extenerates….” (Extenerate, I
just learned, is a term that means to eviscerate—which is also a term for
disembowelment. This reviewer was ruthless). My only explanation as to why the
book received so much hate in its early years was because the novel explored
themes of darkness that they were not used to. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë’s novel, received praise upon praise.
Though it still dealt with a serious subject matter and had its good dose of
darkness, it was a book the people could still relate to. Wuthering Heights seemed to drip with darkness and despair and the
people of the mid-1800s did not appreciate it in the slightest.
See, I fell in love with this book because of its dark
intonations. I loved Heathcliff as the dark, brooding, anti-hero; I loved the
setting on the British moors with the wind and the rain; I loved Cathy for how
much I despised her. Mostly I loved the forbidden, yet toxic, love between
Heathcliff and Cathy. It was a consuming love that drove them both to madness.
Logically, they could never be together. Cathy decided to marry for status and
Heathcliff married for revenge, but their tragic love attempted to transcend these
borders.
This book is not nice. It does not detail the lives of
the upper class living in nice sunshiny homes with servants at their beck and
call. The Earnshaws have money, yes, but they are separated from society. Mr.
Earnshaw adopted a young Gypsy boy and let his daughter run wild through the
moors without supervision. These people are so removed from society that they
have no real notion of how they should act. I could feel the distance by the
treks made between The Heights and the town and between Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Grange. There’s rain, grit, mud…all sorts of unpleasantries that
make the book feel so much more real. It’s not a happy story, but life isn’t
happy either.
Adding to that theme of unhappiness, I don’t quite like
the way Heathcliff is portrayed in popular culture. Oftentimes he’s depicted as
the brooding, handsome hero who just had all the wrong hands dealt to him in
life. He is not this at all. We see Heathcliff as a child, growing up in a family
where kindness was hard to come by after Mr. Earnshaw’s passing. The only
kindness he received was from Cathy, a spoiled and at times indignant child. We
see him grow into a man, in love with the girl he grew up with. We see Cathy
marry Edgar Linton because of his social status and we see Heathcliff,
heartbroken, fade into the background. In the end of the novel, we’re able to
see how Heathcliff became the abusive and angry person he is. He hated Hindley
Earnshaw who gave him nothing but years of belittlement and abuse. In the end,
Heathcliff ultimately becomes the person he hated. Heathcliff was not created
to be a person to be loved and sympathized with. Emily Brontë does something so
clever with his character because she helps her audience see a man without any
positive relationships for what he is. He’s broken, abused, and has no outlet
for his repressed feelings that have only grown over the years. It’s
heartbreaking, but did Heathcliff actually stand a chance growing up with
Hindley and Cathy?
Cathy and Heathcliff were interesting choices
for main characters. They practically have no redeeming qualities, but I’m
drawn to them nonetheless because of their horridness. It makes me wonder how
two people, so entirely terrible, can find a love in each other. It kept me
reading because despite not actually liking Heathcliff or Cathy all that much,
I still loved them. It’s such a dichotomy. I hate them because they are both
self-absorbed, vengeful, and completely disillusioned, but at the same time, I
want to read their story because they’re interesting.
They’re captivating characters.
The contrast in this book is what makes it so entirely
enchanting. There’s the contrast between the unpredictable moors and tumultuous
Cathy (I still believe the moors are in direct relation to Cathy’s character.
It’s as if she is the moors). There’s
the contrast between Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship that offers no hope in
the end and Hareton and Catherine’s relationship which offers recompense for
the tragedy that is Cathy and Heathcliff. There’s always hope in the end that
the next generation will do better than their parents. Catherine and Hareton
are that hope.
*Find the old reviews for Wuthering Heights here
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adjö,
lauren
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