When I received a copy of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights I was doubtful and fumbling as to whether I should read it. In fact I had not a notion of what the book was; I had merely heard of the Bronte sisters and had once had a fleeting glimpse of the mysterious Heathcliff through a few general grimaces of friends who had already read the book. Nevertheless, I began reading and was at once surprised at how the themes in the book harmonized with concepts I had been pondering recently (themes such as sadism, control/submission, narcissism).
If you are one who favours the dark and macabre or the sadistic and deathly, Wuthering Heights might be entirely pleasing to you.
Wuthering Heights was Emily Bronte’s only novel, published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell and is told from the perspective of one Nelly dean, a caretaker and maidservant to the Earnshaws and then the Linton’s.
The novel centres on two characters –Heathcliff and Catherine and two families – the Earnshaws and the Lintons. From young children, they grow up together, Heathcliff a strange savage boy who Mr Earnshaw carried under coat from market and Catherine, an unruly and haughty girl who delights in others disapproval of herself. Heathcliff is a swarthy orphan and is shamefully abused and shunned by all of the Earnshaws excepting for Master Earnshaw and Catherine. After Master Earnshaw’s death, the abuse escalates and Heathcliff becomes a rude and rough boy who cares for nothing but Catherine.
The turning point of miss Dean’s story is when, wandering out on the vast deathly moors with Heathcliff and spying on Thrushcross Grange, Catherine’s ankle is bitten roughly by one of the Linon’s dogs. The Linton’s, a far more decent, conventional and higher class of people than the abusive and crude Earnshaws let her recover in their chambers until she is fully recovered and bright cheeked again.
The tale continues with the marriage of Catherine to a Linton and Heathcliff’s flight from Wuthering Heights. Catherine never forgets about Heathcliff and it is when Heathcliff returns years later that their love is widely rekindled with a monstrous intensity and undulating anguish.
I think that it is the sadistic drives, dark humour and unearthly character of Heathcliff that make this novel highly intriguing.
Curious Clockwork 