Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Why I Recommend This Book…
How to review one’s favorite novel? Where to begin?
I believe I’ll start with the romance, since romance is what I write.
Oh, and please make allowance for the post’s length. As I mentioned, it is my favorite novel.
There are several types of romance found within Wuthering Heights. There is the intensified passion between Heathcliff and Cathy, and the docile and gentle love between Edgar and Cathy. There’s the infatuation Isabella has for Heathcliff, and the young love between Cathy and Linton.
But it is the love between Heathcliff and Cathy that has made Wuthering Heights such a beloved book, so much so that their love has become an archetype in literature, which I’ll discuss below.
1. Soulmates. Cathy and Heathcliff’s love flows from a spiritual place, where two souls long to fuse, merge, unite, and then, form a new identity. The affinity these two have for each other draws them together, irresistibly. They share a mystical connection that’s unexplainable. Heathcliff even calls Cathy his soul, proclaiming “I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” Cathy claims she loves Heathcliff because “whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” But then Brontë details the agony this type of love creates, the pain both Cathy and Heathcliff experience as they struggle to unite; the obstacles, both out of their control and self-inflicted, that it generates.
2. All-Consuming Love. The book details a self-centered type of love, where all the needs and feelings of others are ignored, and the only thing that matters is their being together. Nothing else matters.
3. Insatiable Love. No matter how much “love” Heathcliff and Cathy receive, their hunger for the other is never satisfied. It’s an unfillable and unrelenting love, and in turn, quite demanding (and exhausting) for both lovers.
4. Love That Brings Meaning. When not together, both lovers feel there is no purpose in life. Life becomes empty and meaningless. Which brings us to…
5. Love as a Religion. Conventional religion is replaced with their love. They find redemption in the other. Heathcliff claims “I have nearly attained my heaven” and Cathy speaks of her dream to Heathcliff, where she has died and found herself in heaven, but feels “that heaven did not seem to be [her] home” and she “broke [her] heart with weeping to come back to earth.” Once the angels throw her out, and she finds herself back at Wuthering Heights, she wakes “sobbing for joy” because Heathcliff is there.
6. Love as an Addiction. Heathcliff and Cathy’s love numbs out the other stressors in their environment, just like a drug. When not together, they experience withdrawal-like symptoms, illustrated by Heathcliff’s self-starvation. And like an addiction, at times they each want to possess, getting their fix of the other, no matter the cost.
Given all the types of love presented in the novel, it’s no surprise Wuthering Heights has never fallen out of print (in over one-hundred and seventy years!) or out of favor with readers.
Nor do I think it ever will.
But at the same time, as is obvious from above, readers know this is not a healthy love. Healthy love is capable of putting the needs of others before one’s own; healthy love is balanced and does not completely dominate; healthy love leaves room for one to gain and maintain their own identity, separate from the other. In healthy love, space for believing in a higher power, outside of the union, is possible.
Regardless of all of this, though, readers love this novel. I suppose we adore being swept up in all the drama and emotion.
Wuthering Heights remains inescapably delicious.
But there is another dark side to the novel: vengeance seeking.
The revenge is put into motion when Mr. Earnshaw brings home the orphan, Heathcliff, and favors him above his own son, Hindley. But when Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights and seeks revenge on Heathcliff, lowering him to the status of a servant. Cathy, Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter, marries Edgar, even though she loves Heathcliff (really…all due to a breakdown in communication, a misunderstanding).
Years later Heathcliff returns and inflicts double revenge on the two siblings, and he doesn’t stop there; his revenge continues with the next generation. And it’s here, in the next generation, that readers learn how all this madness could’ve been prevented, thwarted, quite simply in fact. But you’ll have to read the book to find out what that is.
In short, revenge is never a good idea. It puts into motion a chain reaction of revenge, which often escalates, and like wildfire, becomes very difficult to stop. And if one is not careful, the cycle could go on for an entire lifetime.
It’s just not worth it.
