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pagesofplatypus 's review for:
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë
Don't say you love toxic couples of you can't handle Catherine and Heathcliff.
Wuthering Heights, the Gothic masterspiece you are. This is the first book I've annotated and it added such an interesting perspective to my reading. I normally struggle with classics, but I found myself really taking time to read and re-read passages and analyse the text. I love Emily's writing style, and I'm glad the Penguin edition I have is published to most closely reflect what Emily would have originally written (there's no initial manuscript to go by). Something about Brontë's grasp of relationships and dialogue is visceral and unapologetic.
Catherine is a deeply flawed and at times downright unlikeable character.
Wuthering Heights, the Gothic masterspiece you are. This is the first book I've annotated and it added such an interesting perspective to my reading. I normally struggle with classics, but I found myself really taking time to read and re-read passages and analyse the text. I love Emily's writing style, and I'm glad the Penguin edition I have is published to most closely reflect what Emily would have originally written (there's no initial manuscript to go by). Something about Brontë's grasp of relationships and dialogue is visceral and unapologetic.
Catherine is a deeply flawed and at times downright unlikeable character.
She never had power to conceal her passion, it always set her whole complexion ablaze.
Unlike many female protagonists of classic novels, such as Austenian heroines or Montgomery's sisters, Catherine is violent, petulant, unruly, entitled, tempestuous, and oftentimes unkind. She consistently mistreats her servants and abuses Heathcliff both verbally and physically. Yet the two understand each other on a level no one else in their society does. They are both wild in spirit and therefore find a solace in one another. When they are alone, there is no pretense.
Nevertheless, Catherine is a product of her time. As much as she finds liberation in being with Heathcliff, she values status and wealth.
If Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother's power.
Rather than fully allow her heart to take control and run off with Heathcliff in a fairy tale romance, Catherine still chooses to maintain her proximity to wealth and influence under the guise of doing so in Heathcliff's interests. Even so, Catherine does have regret. Her marriage is deeply unhappy as she's chosen comfort over freedom, ultimately being her demise.
On the flip side, Heathcliff is both a product and condemnation of the racism of the 1840s. He is described numerous times as a g*psy, is referred to as an "it" by Catherine's father, and treated as a plaything by Catherine and her brother. For me, Heathcliff as a character is also an indictment for the racialisation and discrimination people of color, especially Romani and Black people faced in England at that time. For instance, it was not unheard of for English gentry to abduct orphaned Romani children and children of color and bring them home as playmates for their own white children. Moreover, Heathcliff's treatment and constant description as an uncouth and uneducated person can be seen as both racism seeping into the writing and a critique of the racism and colorism of not just the mid-19th century but even still today of darker skin being associated with aggression and stupidity. Once an adult, Heathcliff is still viewed as other and primal compared to Catherine and his peers such as Linton. As such, Heathcliff has an obsession with status and possession both in the form of property and of Catherine herself. All this is to say, that Heathcliff's race for better or worse is an intrinsic part of his character and it is crucial to be aware of how Heathcliff's darker skin affects his social standing and the other characters' views and treatment of him as well as the impact of his race on his own self-worth, perspective, and wants.
These themes are repeated through Catherine's own daughter, Cathy, as she grows into a woman of her own and discovers the existence of her uncle Heathcliff and her cousins Linton and Hareton. While Catherine is a mirror of her mother, Hareton is a mirror for Heathcliff. Hareton is an orphan taken in by Heathcliff, who mistreats Hareton as well as Linton. In turn, Hareton is gruff and much like a young Heathcliff especially in his relationship with Cathy who initially mistakes him as a servant and then proceeds to look down upon him. Instead Catherine bonds with Linton and the two exchange letters despite their parents' forbiddance of their companionship. After tragedy once again befalls the Earnshaw-Linton clan with the death of Linton.
This death is a crucial point in the story and highlights how death, grief, and loneliness are explored in Wuthering Heights. For Heathcliff, his grief is consuming. It's palpable and raw as he begs Catherine to haunt him and curses her for leaving him in his loneliness. Grief becomes simultaneously a tormentor and companion for Heathcliff. In contrast, Edgar Linton's grief is an absence. He becomes withdrawn and listless, almost a ghost himself. It is Cathy who breaks the cycle. She mourns Linton and has a period of sorrow but she overcomes. She begins an acquaintanceship with Hareton. Much like her own mother, Cathy both seeks to better Hareton and take companionship from him.
There are only two things keeping this from being a full five-star read for me and they're really more of personal nitpicks than anything. First, I really dislike when authors write in phonetic dialect as with some of the Northern English characters in here. It just makes it really hard for me to understand what the dialogue is, especially since I don't think Yorkshire is typically written in a different form of English even by Yorkshire inhabitants. Second, I kept mixing up the original Catherine and Edgar Linton with the younger Catherine and Linton duo because they share the same names and are addressed and referred to as Catherine and Linton oftentimes in the same page as the original Catherine and Edgar, so I would find myself losing the distinction of exactly which Catherine and Linton were being discussed.