Wuthering Heights

 

 

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is quite frankly one of the best works in classic English literature. It has a strong narrative. It’s not only a gripping read but also a gorgeously crafted piece of fiction. Though it is often termed as a love story, what you will find in abundance is hate, disgust, revenge, sadness, madness, and a few supernatural instances as well. You  will find yourself hating each and every character. Wuthering Heights is still astoundingly beautiful and the only novel by Emily Brontë as she died shortly after the novel was published.

The novel comprises of a small world with a handful of characters with the settings either at Thrushcross Grange or the Wuthering Heights. On a very basic level, the novel is the story of love between Mr. Heathcliff and Catherine and how that affected or rather destroyed their lives and that of those around them as well.

The story begins with Mr. Lockwood, a young and wealthy man, who is a tenant at Thrushcross Grange. On reaching the place, he decided to pay a visit to the landlord, Mr. Heathcliff, who lives at Wuthering Heights. Mr. Lockwood describes Heathcliff as a grumpy and ungracious host. Heathcliff lives with Cathy Heathcliff, his daughter-in-law, and Hareton Earnshaw who he treats very harshly like a servant, and yet, his name, ‘Earnshaw,’ adorns over the front door. On one of his succeeding visit to Wuthering Heights, Lockwood is forced to shelter there overnight due to a turbulent snowstorm where he encounters a ghostly visitation of the by then dead Catherine.

After a terrified and sick Lockwood returns home to Thrushcross Grange, he coaxes the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, who has earlier worked at Wuthering Heights, into telling him the story of those bizarre inhabitants at the Heights. She recounts a very complicated story of two families, the Earnshaws and the Lintons.

 Mr. Earnshaw, a gentleman, owns Wuthering Heights. He has two children, Hindley and Catherine, and adopts a third, Heathcliff. Hindley is jealous of Heathcliff because both his father and his sister are very fond of the youngster. To avoid strife, Mr. Earnshaw sends Hindley away to college, during which time Catherine and Heathclifff become extremely close. Mr. Earnshaw dies, and Hindley, with a new wife, returns to claim Wuthering Heights. Still bitter, Hindley forces Heathcliff to give up his education and treats him like a servant. Hindley's wife dies soon after giving birth to a baby boy, Hareton. Hindley descends into alcoholism, though he continues to abuse and mistreat Heathcliff.

Catherine is injured during one of the moor excursions with Heathcliff and the Lintons at Thrushcross Grange carry her into their home and dismiss Heathcliff.

The Lintons have two children—Edgar and Isabella, well mannered and gracious. Catherine stays with them for five weeks while she recovers and returns home as a graceful and cultured young woman enticed by Edgar's wealth and blonde beauty. 

As they grow up, Edgar falls in love with Catherine and proposes her. Although her feelings for Heathcliff is very deep, Catherine tells Nelly that she can't marry Heathcliff because of how Hindley has degraded him. Heathcliff overhears Catherine and flees Wuthering Heights that night deeply hurt by the betrayal.

Three years pass. Hindley and his wife have a child named, Hareton. After his wife dies, Hindley loses himself into gambling and alcohol, neglecting Hareton and leaving his upbringing to Nelly. Catherine marries Edgar Linton where she lives with a loving husband and sister-in-law and all is well until Heathcliff returns who is now rich and dignified but just as wild and ravaging. He moves into Wuthering Heights and is welcomed by Hindley who is piled under debts and lusts after Heathcliff’s wealth. Catherine is overly happy to see him while Edgar resents him to the core. He tries to keep them apart but Catherine continues to meet Heathcliff. Catherine tells Heathcliff, on one of the subsequent meetings, that Isabella has a crush on him.

The growing proximity between Isabella and Heathcliff (which is actually Heathcliff’s plan of action to destroy the Lintons) and Edgar’s demand that she must choose one between him and Heathcliff vexes her and she responds by locking herself and refusing to eat for three days. She falls severely ill. Not knowing this, Heathcliff elopes with Isabella and both get married. As a result, Edgar ceases all ties with Isabella.

Edgar nurses Catherine for two months. Her health improves somewhat, though not completely. She also discovers that she is pregnant. At Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff treats Isabella terribly from the moment after their wedding, and Isabella realizes that he is still in love with Catherine.

Concerned about her well being, Heathcliff visits Catherine in Edgar’s absence where they both profess their deep and continuing love for each other despite being married to different people.

That night, Catherine gives birth to a girl who is named Cathy and dies a few hours later. Catherine is buried in a spot overlooking the moors where she used to play with Heathcliff as a child.

Her death leaves Edgar, who truly loved her, heartbroken and Heathcliff turns more into a fanatic. Isabella, pregnant, escapes from Heathcliff’s brutality to London, where she gives birth to a baby boy, whom she names Linton. A few years later, she also dies. Hindley, who is deeply indebted to Heathcliff, dies soon after and his son, Hareton is then subjected to the same subjugation as him by Heathcliff. Heathcliff thereby becomes the owner of Wuthering Heights.

Edgar Linton brings his nephew Linton home after twelve years. By then, Cathy has grown into a beautiful young woman while Hareton grows into an illiterate and coarse youth. Heathcliff insists that his son Linton come to live with him at Wuthering Heights. As Linton, a weak, sick, and spineless child much to the dismay of Heathcliff, grows up in Wuthering Heights, a mutual liking develops between him and Cathy. Heathcliff deliberately cultivates a friendship between them with an ulterior motive.

Cathy and Linton write secret, loving letters to each other since they’re forbidden by Edgar to meet. Heathcliff encourages their infatuation as he wants them to marry so he can get his hands on Thrushcross Grange too. 

Edgar Linton’s health begin to degrade. In order to get them both married, Heathcliff kidnaps Cathy and Nelly Dean and keeps them captive until a forced wedding is performed and Cathy becomes Linton’s wife. 

Edgar dies. Cathy escapes from the captivity just in time to meet her father before he dies but is soon taken back to the Heights by Heathcliff. Edgar is buried next to Catherine. Linton dies soon after that, and Heathcliff, as he previously planned for, now owns both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Cathy reluctantly lives with Heathcliff and Hareton at Wuthering Heights. This brings the story up to the present when Lockwood has rented Thrushcross Grange.

Lockwood goes back to London but comes back to the moors some eight months later to find many changes. Heathcliff is dead. Nelly tells him that he died mourning for Catherine. He no longer felt the need to continue his revenge spree as Hareton reminded him of his own younger self and Cathy reminded him of her fierce, bold, and beautiful mother. Cathy and Hareton have struck up a friendship and have fallen in love. Lockwood does not meet anyone other than Nelly Dean on this trip, but he does see Cathy and Hareton walking out, hand in hand, with love. 

Wuthering Heights is an intensely sensitive book. An engrossing tale of revenge, deaths and malice, pride, and corruption of love.

It displays varying forms of love. Heathcliff and Catherine’s love is passionate yet agonizing for others. Although the love between them is pure in all respect and rooted deep within themselves, it is also terribly destructive. 

The love shared between Edgar and Catherine is, however, peaceful and comfortably radiant. Although not being as intense as the former one, theirs was a socially acceptable love.

The so-called love between Linton and Cathy was merely a set up by Heathcliff that had its root in pity felt by young Cathy towards Linton whereby Linton gets Cathy to love him by playing on her desires to protect him. And finally, there is this love between Hareton and Cathy. Way above any emotion the entire book has in its store. It is gentle, understanding, and soft.  

Nearly all of the action in Wuthering Heights results from one or another character's desire for revenge. The result is cycles of revenge that seem to endlessly repeat.

One of the quotes from the book reads:

 “I have not broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.”

 It so perfectly illustrates the cycle that kept this book going.

 It is like a nightmare that is preventing you to get up from the slumber. Undeniably well-crafted, this book will make you feel trapped in the moors or a dark towering manor and hear people screaming or resenting one another. To sum it, Wuthering Heights is not a romantic tale of love and affection with a happily-ever-after. It is a bitter and twisted story of all the worst ways humans can corrupt emotions.