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Title: Wuthering Heights
Series:
----------
Author: Emily Bronte
Rating:
5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Classic
Pages:
339
Words: 119.5K
From Wikipedia
In
1801, Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire,
pays a visit to his landlord, Heathcliff, at his remote moorland
farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. There he meets a reserved young woman
(later identified as Cathy Linton); Joseph, a cantankerous servant;
and Hareton, an uneducated young man who speaks like a servant.
Everyone is sullen and inhospitable. Snowed in for the night, he
reads some diary entries of a former inhabitant of his room,
Catherine Earnshaw, and has a nightmare in which a ghostly Catherine
begs to enter through the window. Woken by Lockwood, Heathcliff is
troubled.
Lockwood's
housekeeper Ellen (Nelly) Dean tells him the story of the strange
family.
Thirty
years earlier, the Earnshaws live at Wuthering Heights with their
children, Hindley and Catherine, and a servant — Nelly herself.
Returning from a trip to Liverpool, Earnshaw brings a young orphan
whom he names Heathcliff and treats as his favourite. His own
children he neglects, especially after his wife dies. Hindley beats
Heathcliff, who gradually becomes close friends with Catherine.
Hindley
departs for university, returning as the new master of Wuthering
Heights on the death of his father three years later. He and his new
wife Frances allow Heathcliff to stay, but only as a servant.
Heathcliff
and Catherine spy on Edgar Linton and his sister Isabella, children
who live nearby at Thrushcross Grange. Catherine is attacked by their
dog, and the Lintons take her in, sending Heathcliff home. When the
Lintons visit, Hindley and Edgar make fun of Heathcliff and a fight
ensues. Heathcliff is locked in the attic and vows revenge.
Frances
dies after giving birth to a son, Hareton. Two years later, Catherine
becomes engaged to Edgar. She confesses to Nelly that she still loves
Heathcliff, and will try to help but cannot marry him because of his
low social status. Nelly warns her against the plan. Heathcliff
overhears part of the conversation and, misunderstanding Catherine's
heart, flees the household. Catherine falls ill, distraught.
Edgar
and Catherine marry, and three years later Heathcliff unexpectedly
returns — now a wealthy gentleman. He encourages Isabella's
infatuation with him as a means of revenge on Catherine. Enraged by
Heathcliff's constant presence, Edgar cuts off contact. Catherine
responds by locking herself in her room and refusing food; pregnant
with Edgar's child, she never fully recovers. At Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff gambles with Hindley who mortgages the property to him to
pay his debts. Heathcliff elopes with Isabella, but the relationship
fails and they soon return.
When
Heathcliff discovers that Catherine is dying, he visits her in
secret. She dies shortly after giving birth to a daughter, Cathy, and
Heathcliff rages, calling on her ghost to haunt him for as long as he
lives. Isabella flees south where she gives birth to Heathcliff's
son, Linton. Hindley dies six months later, leaving Heathcliff as
master of Wuthering Heights.
Twelve
years later, Isabella is dying and the still-sickly Linton is brought
back to live with his uncle Edgar at the Grange, but Heathcliff
insists that his son must instead live with him. Cathy and Linton
(respectively at the Grange and Wuthering Heights) gradually develop
a relationship. Heathcliff schemes to ensure that they marry, and on
Edgar's death demands that the couple move in with him. He becomes
increasingly wild, and reveals that on the night Catherine died he
dug up her grave, and ever since has been plagued by her ghost. When
Linton dies, Cathy has no option but to remain at Wuthering Heights.
Having
reached the present day, Nelly's tale concludes.
Lockwood
grows tired of the moors and moves away. Eight months later he sees
Nelly again and she reports that Cathy has been teaching the
still-uneducated Hareton to read. Heathcliff was seeing visions of
the dead Catherine; he avoided the young people, saying that he could
not bear to see Catherine's eyes, which they both shared, looking at
him. He had stopped eating, and some days later was found dead in
Catherine's old room.
In
the present, Lockwood learns that Cathy and Hareton plan to marry and
move to the Grange. Joseph is left to take care of the declining
Wuthering Heights. Nelly says that the locals have seen the ghosts of
Catherine and Heathcliff wandering abroad together, and hopes they
are at peace.
I enjoyed almost every page of this book even while I hated and
despised almost every character in it. I think it takes some serious
skill on Miss Bronte's part to have done such a thing.
I did find the plethora of characters to be a tad bit confusing,
especially when different people had the same name and might, or
might not be, related. It also didn't help that outside of
Heathcliff and one or two others, everyone was cowardly, spiteful,
selfish, venal and despicable. Remove cowardly and add brutal for
Heathcliff.
I think a lot of why none of that got me down was that it was
portrayed for what it was, ie, bad. Heathcliff and Catherine are not
portrayed as lovers torn apart by fate yet destined for each other.
Only someone who is insane, or a teenager filled with enough hormones
to fill the sun, but I think the two are pretty close, could ever
make that mistake. Everyone's bad decisions has consequences, not
just for themselves but for everybody else around them.
Heathcliff uses his brutish strength and behavior to get what he
wants while people like Edgar Linton allow him his way through their
cowardice. Edgar has guns, he has weapons, but he's simply afraid to
use them. Thus Heathcliff triumphs in terms of getting what he wants.
Yet even he pays the price. His body gives out from such willful use.
Yet through it all, I never even once was given the sense that the
author thought this was the way it “should” be. Yes, it was the
way it was, but it wasn't the way it should have been. Too many
authors portray vile acts and character defects as things to be
praised, as good instead of the filthy evil that they are. I also
enjoyed how Bronte shows that people can change and that out of even
horrible circumstances love and growth can occur.
I guess that is all I have to say. This was not a long book, nor a
complicated one. If you wanted to dip your toes into the Bronte
sisters' writings, I'd definitely recommend this one.
★★★★★
