Wuthering Heights - 1847
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847 under her pseudonym "Ellis Bell". Brontë's only finished novel, it was written between October 1845 and June 1846.Wuthering Heights and Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey were accepted by publisher Thomas Newby before the success of their sister Charlotte's novel Jane Eyre. After Emily's death, Charlotte edited the manuscript of Wuthering Heights and arranged for the edited version to be published as a posthumous second edition in 1850.
Although Wuthering Heights is now a classic of English literature, contemporaneous reviews were deeply polarized; it was controversial because of its unusually stark depiction of mental and physical cruelty, and it challenged strict Victorian ideals regarding religious hypocrisy, morality, social classes, and gender inequality. The novel also explores the effects of envy, nostalgia, pessimism and resentment.
I find it hard to write coherently about this novel because it itself lacks structure. My reading was choppy as I was at times intrigued but other times I was tired by Nell’s long flowery narration, done in the voice of the upper class although she was a servant housekeeper. On the other hand, she is the constant link among all the characters. Though they abuse her, they also rely on her. I guess Lockwood was only a means of beginning and ending the story
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if they still use Wuthering Heights in high school AP English classes and I know I didn’t read it in my own. It has all the trappings of a book linked to that type of environment though and somehow I have always had the image of tortured teenagers trying to get through this book. It is my first time reading it but I do recall numerous references to it growing up including such curious places as the children’s cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures.
DeleteI can’t say I was floored by this book. It is partly for the reasoning you mentioned in that none of the characters were likeable. Some like Catherine the younger and Haretone redeemed themselves perhaps. The ugliness and wild emotion, the anger and abuse all made for less than ideal read. I feel like I got the point and plot as far as I understand it but even books with this type of conflict can be appealing because of the severity of that conflict. Car-wreck reading if you will. I didn’t get that. Just a general sense of unpleasantness.
The moors made a proper setting for a Gothic horror story, populated with human demons who were driven by jealousy, bitterness, revenge, cruelty, savagery, selfishness, & vulgarity all leading to illness, loss, and death. There was no one to like or root for in the novel. I suppose they all got their just desserts. Even love was distorted. Social status figured heavily, both class and gender, as expected in its time but enabling the vile behavior of the characters. Looking for balance from evil & disgust, description of the land was the only respite.
ReplyDeleteThe book is both a product of its times and timeless in a way. It has overtones of Victorian oeuvre but undertones which are subversive of the same. It is more forceful, more bestial at times but costumed and perfumed like a Victorian gentry. Overt obsession or even such emotional explosiveness is not something commonly associated with this time period. The conflict of class and position versus romantic desire is certainly not foreign to this or most time periods of fiction writing but the vicious enactment of desire within the bounds of societal bounds is unique in my experience. The idea of family and bonds formed through exposure, blood, and marriage are also different from much of the writing of this period. The household staff at Wuthering Heights, Nelly, step-family relationships, the Lintons and the Earnshaws, all seem to be at once family and complete strangers at the same time.
DeleteThe cast of lineage was difficult for me to follow. As Bronte used either first or last name for some at various times, I kept going back to see who begat whom. This was magnified by having 3 Catherines/Cathys.
ReplyDeleteWhen the ending comes with soft promise of a corrected cycle, it left a puzzle of the ugly preceding chapters as a bad dream made right when passing time permits glimmer of hope. Maybe that’s why it’s still read today. That & attraction for bad boys and passion for young girls! Rock on, Nora Roberts.
One of the strengths of the story, even if it reinforces less than placement themes, is the use of repetition. Much of the misery that traps those around Wuthering Heights repeats itself. Even Heathcliff's attempt to better himself does not correct history but rather seems to put him even more inline with his own past as he grinds Hareton under his heel. Catherine coming back as Catherine but having the same reaction at encountering Joseph not only binds them together but shows the strength of the cycle of misery all are stuck in.
DeleteWuthering is the perfect way to describe the bulk of the interactions and relationships throughout the book but certainly more so after Catherine moves in with the Lintons. The love between Catherine and Heathcliff is both adamant in its ability to endure the early years and Hindley’s tyranny as well as each characters own emotional burden but also serves as a meat grinder for the rest of the cast. Edgar and Isabella are worn down and destroyed from proximity along. I wonder if the harsh, dark, decrepit home is the cause of Heathcliff and Catherine’s entangled emotional brutality or a reflection or both. It does seem to represent wildness, emotion, and nature all consuming the civilization before it.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of both, the book and all of its elements are very symmetrical. Each character has a partner that sets them off through distances but not so much as a polar opposite. Many of the characters, such as Catherine (older) has two personalities and two loves. The perspectives of Lockwood and Nelly provide two different interpretations of events and character. It feels like these pairs start on either side of a whirlpool, slowing being sucked to a common center with points of conflict whenever they pass.
ReplyDeleteGiven the Victorian era’s conservative reputation, I wonder if the passion between Catherine and Heathcliff, the core force behind the book, was a celebration or condemnation. Given my feelings about Bronte’s work be more subversive and reactionary than it is given credit, I tend toward the former. Nelly might condemn it as the voice of society for the emotion and human element embodied by the main characters transcends it, thumbing a nose at the laced-up, stifled emotion state of the gentry of the Victorian Age. To a lesser but still important extend, Catherine the younger's and Hareton's passion is actually healing instead of destructive so again we get a pairing of themes.
ReplyDelete