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Wuthering Heights
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Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontė's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte.
The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centres (as an adjective, wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather). The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them.
Now considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights met with mixed reviews by critics when it first appeared, with many horrified by the stark depictions of mental and physical cruelty.
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Encyclopedia
Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontė's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte.
The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centres (as an adjective, wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather). The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them.
Now considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights met with mixed reviews by critics when it first appeared, with many horrified by the stark depictions of mental and physical cruelty. Though Charlotte Brontė's Jane Eyre was originally considered the best of the Brontė sisters' works, many subsequent critics of Wuthering Heights argued that its originality and achievement made it superior. Wuthering Heights has also given rise to many adaptations and inspired works, including films, radio, television dramatisations, a musical by Bernard J. Taylor and songs (notably the hit "Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush), ballet and opera.
Plot summary
The narrative is non-linear, involving several flashbacks, and two narrators Mr. Lockwood and Ellen "Nelly" Dean. The novel opens in 1801, with Lockwood arriving at Thrushcross Grange, a grand house on the Yorkshire moors he is renting from the surly Heathcliff, who lives at nearby Wuthering Heights. Lockwood is treated rudely and coldly by the brooding, unsociable Heathcliff, and is forced to stay at Wuthering Heights for a night when one of the savage dogs of the Heights attacks him and the weather turns against him. The housekeeper cautiously takes him to a chamber to sleep through the night and warns him to not speak to Heathcliff about where he is sleeping.
During the night, Lockwood finds a book of the experiences of a girl named Catherine Earnshaw, in which he discovers that she and Heathcliff were extremely close as children. As he dozes off, Lockwood has a terrifying dream of Catherine's ghost coming in through the window, deathly pale and frightening, begging him to let her in to the home. Heathcliff, awakened as Lockwood shouts in fear, comes running. Heathcliff's mood changes dramatically when Lockwood tells him of Catherine's ghost. Heathcliff asks Mr. Lockwood to leave the room and Lockwood hears him sobbing outside the door saying, "Oh Cathy, please come in." The following morning, Lockwood sets off to Thrushcross Grange where he asks the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell the story of Heathcliff, Catherine, and Wuthering Heights as he recovers from a cold.
Nelly takes over the narration and begins her story thirty years earlier, when Heathcliff, a foundling living on the streets of Liverpool, is brought to Wuthering Heights by the then-owner, the kind Mr. Earnshaw, and raised as his own. Ellen comments that Heathcliff perhaps might have been descended from American origins. He is often described as "dark" or "gypsy". Earnshaw's daughter Catherine becomes Heathcliff's inseparable friend. Her brother Hindley, however, resents Heathcliff, seeing him as an interloper and rival. When Mr. Earnshaw dies three years later, Hindley (who has married a woman named Frances) takes over the estate. He brutalises Heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. Catherine becomes friends with a neighbouring family, the Lintons of Thrushcross Grange, who mellow her initially wild personality. She is especially attached to the refined and mild young Edgar Linton, whom Heathcliff instantly dislikes.
A year later, Hindley's wife dies, apparently of consumption, shortly after giving birth to a son, Hareton. Hindley takes to drinking. Some two years after that, Catherine agrees to marry Edgar. Nelly knows that this will crush Heathcliff, and Heathcliff overhears Catherine's explanation that it would be "degrading" to marry him. Heathcliff storms out and leaves Wuthering Heights, not hearing Catherine's continuing declarations that "she is Heathcliff" and that her love for him is immovable like the rocks. After realizing that Heathcliff has left her, Catherine becomes desperate and is struck down by a fever. Edgar's attentions slowly return Catherine back to health, and some years later she marries him. She lives in apparent happiness for a few months, until Heathcliff returns, intent on destroying those who prevent him from being with Catherine. He has, mysteriously, become very wealthy. Through loans he has made to the drunken and dissipated Hindley that Hindley cannot repay, Heathcliff takes ownership of Wuthering Heights upon Hindley's death. Intent on ruining Edgar, Heathcliff elopes with Edgar's sister Isabella, which places him in a position to inherit Thrushcross Grange upon Edgar's death.
Catherine is initially very happy at seeing Heathcliff again, but then becomes very ill after a harsh argument with Heathcliff regarding Isabella. They reconcile a few hours before her death, however, reaffirming their feelings for one another for the last time. Catherine dies after giving birth to a daughter also named Catherine, or Cathy. Heathcliff becomes only more bitter and vengeful towards everybody around him. Isabella flees her abusive marriage a month later and subsequently gives birth to a boy, Linton. At around the same time, Hindley dies. Heathcliff takes ownership of Wuthering Heights and vows to raise Hindley's son Hareton with as much neglect as he had suffered at Hindley's hands years earlier. Later on, Heathcliff tells Nelly that he despises his own son, Linton, who reminds him of Edgar and Isabella, and favours Hareton as a son, recognising an element of Catherine in him (it having already been established that both Catherine and Heathcliff considered themselves one and the same person), and therefore himself. Yet, Heathcliff chooses to ignore these paternal emotions so that he might continue to degrade Hareton as Hindley degraded Heathcliff: thereby achieving his revenge on his hated foster-brother.
Twelve years later, the dying Isabella asks Edgar to raise her and Heathcliff's son, Linton. However, Heathcliff finds out about this and takes the sickly, spoiled child to Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff has nothing but contempt for his son, but delights in the idea of him ruling the property of his enemies. To that end, a few years later, Heathcliff attempts to persuade young Cathy to marry Linton. With Linton's health diminishing swiftly, Heathcliff kidnaps Cathy and forces the two to marry. Soon after, Edgar Linton dies, followed shortly by Linton Heathcliff. This leaves Cathy a widow and a virtual prisoner at Wuthering Heights, as Heathcliff has gained complete control of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. It is at this point in the narrative that Lockwood arrives, renting Thrushcross Grange from Heathcliff, and hearing Nelly Dean's story. Shocked, Lockwood leaves for London.
During his absence from the area, however, events reach a climax that Nelly describes when he returns a year later. Cathy gradually softens toward her rough, uneducated cousin Hareton, just as her mother was tender towards Heathcliff. When Heathcliff is confronted by Cathy and Hareton's love, notably Hareton's determination to protect the defiant Cathy from Heathcliff's attacks, he seems to suffer a mental break from reality and begins to see Catherine's ghost. He abandons his life-long vendetta and soon dies, smiling at having achieved his life-long dream of joining Catherine in the afterlife. Nelly describes Heathcliff's corpse. It is lying on the bed stiff. The window is open and rain is pouring in through it soaking Heathcliff's body. His hand is outstretched as if reaching for somebody's hand (possibly the ghost of Catherine as seen by Lockwood). He is buried next to Catherine, and several villagers swear that they have seen their ghosts wandering together through the moors. The story concludes with Lockwood visiting their graves, noting how restful the spot seems.
Characters
Timeline
| 1757 | Hindley born (Summer); Nelly born | | 1762 | Edgar Linton born | | 1764 | Heathcliff born | | 1765 | Catherine Earnshaw born (Summer); Isabella Linton born (late 1765) | | 1771 | Heathcliff is brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw (late summer) | | 1773 | Mrs Earnshaw dies (Spring) | | 1774 | Hindley is sent off to college | | 1777 | Hindley marries Frances; Mr Earnshaw dies (October); Hindley comes back (October); Heathcliff and Catherine visit Thrushcross Grange, Catherine remains behind (November), then returns to Wuthering Heights (Christmas Eve). | | 1778 | Hareton is born (June); Frances dies | | 1780 | Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights; Mr and Mrs Linton both die | | 1783 | Catherine marries Edgar (March); Heathcliff comes back (September) | | 1784 | Heathcliff marries Isabella (February); Catherine dies and Cathy is born (20 March); Hindley dies; Linton is born (September) | | 1797 | Isabella dies; Cathy visits Wuthering Heights and meets Hareton; Linton is brought to Thrushcross Grange and is then taken to Wuthering Heights | | 1800 | Cathy meets Heathcliff and sees Linton again (20 March) | | 1801 | Cathy and Linton are married (August); Edgar dies (August); Linton dies (September); Mr Lockwood goes to Thrushcross Grange and visits Wuthering Heights, beginning his narrative | | 1802 | Mr Lockwood goes back to London (January); Heathcliff dies (April); Mr Lockwood comes back to Thrushcross Grange (September) | | 1803 | Cathy plans to marry Hareton (1 January) |
Local background
Though tourists are often told that Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse, near the Haworth Parsonage (), is the model for Wuthering Heights, it seems more likely that the now demolished High Sunderland Hall, near Halifax was the partial model for the building. This Gothic edifice, near Law Hill, where Emily worked briefly as a schoolmistress in 1838, had grotesque embellishments of griffins and misshapen nude men similar to those described by Lockwood of Wuthering Heights in chapter one of the novel:
- "Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door, above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date "1500"".
The originals of Thrushcross Grange have been traditionally connected to Ponden Hall near Haworth (although it is far too small) and, more likely, Shibden Hall, near Halifax. A feud centred around Walterclough Hall is also said to have been one inspiration for the story along with the story of Emily's grandfather, Hugh Brunty.
Literary allusions
Traditionally, this novel has been seen as a unique piece of work written by a woman confined to the lonesome heath, detached from the literary movements of the time. However, Emily Brontė received literary training at the Pensionnat Héger in Brussels by imitating and analyzing the styles of classic writers. She also learned German and was able to read the German Romantics in the original. The work of Lord Byron was also admired by all three Brontė sisters. The brother-sister relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy is reminiscent of the brother-sister couples in Byron's epics. The character of Heathcliff is reminiscent of the Byronic hero.
Gothic and supernatural elements
The novel contains many Gothic and supernatural elements. The mystery of Heathcliff's parentage is never solved. Film interpretations fail in accurately depicting Heathcliff's appearance. He is described as "a dark skinned gypsy in appearance," with black hair and black eyes. It is assumed that he is a gypsy; there were, from what M. Earnshaw said, no people in the town who knew him or claimed him; he belonged to no one. In literature, the smoky, threatening, miserable factory-towns were often represented in religious terms and compared to hell. The poet William Blake, writing near the turn of the nineteenth century, speaks of Englands "dark Satanic Mills." Heathcliff is described by Hindley as an "imp of Satan" in chapter four. Near the end of the novel, Nelly Dean wonders if Heathcliff is a ghoul or vampire, but then remembers how they grew up together and dismisses the thought. The awesome but unseen presence of Satan is also alluded to at several points in the novel, and it is noted in chapter three that "no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor" at the local chapel, which has fallen into dereliction. Heathcliff is constantly described as a devil or demon by many different characters throughout the course of the book. His wife, Isabella Linton, asks Nelly if Heathcliff is a man at all, after she marries him and is exposed to his true nature.
An important theory is often overlooked and never truly conveyed in any film adaptation: Cathy and Heathcliff are two halves of the same soul, and are good and evil, angel and devil. Catherine and Heathcliffs love is based on their shared perception that they are identical. Their love denies difference and is strangely asexual. The two do not kiss in dark corners or arrange secret trysts, as adulterers do. Cathy famously proclaims "I am Heathcliff!" In that same conversation with Nelly, she talks about a dream she had, where she was in heaven, but was very unhappy and wanted to be back on earth. The angels grew so angry with her that they cast her onto the heath and onto Wuthering Heights, and when she woke, she wept for joy.
Cathy goes through a transformation in the book. During an argument with Edgar Linton she starts going crazy, biting and ripping the pillows and then lying still as though dead. She is ill for a period of time and never fully recovers. She asks Nelly "Why am I so changed?" Her angelic nature, previously frustrated, surfaces, but she will not live long afterward. Nelly wonders often if she will get into heaven, because of her less-than-saintly life, but when she watches Cathy on her death-bed, she is filled with a wonderful feeling of calm and release and is assured that she has entered heaven.
Whereas Cathy's soul is angelic, Heathcliff's seems demonic. Heathcliff's long-lasting malevolence and gratuitous violence might be explained by his being a demon incarnate. Moreover, Heathcliff, upon Catherines death, wails that he cannot live without his "soul," meaning Catherine.
However, it could also be argued that Catherine is anything but angelic. At the age of six, she asks for a whip from her father and constantly vexes him. She slaps Nelly, abandons Heathcliff for Linton, and is generally extremely self-centred. She is strong and wild until imprisoned by society and its idea of femininity, and even then she is not a model housewife. To call her angelic and to call Heathcliff her antithesis is to misunderstand both their natures.
Ghosts also play a role in the novel. Lockwood has a horrible vision of Catherine (the elder) as a child, appearing at the window of her old chamber at Wuthering Heights and begging to be allowed in. Heathcliff believes this story of Catherine's ghostly return and late in the novel behaves as though he has seen her ghost himself. When Heathcliff dies, he is found in the bedroom with the window open, raising the possibility that Catherine's ghost entered Wuthering Heights as Lockwood visualized in his dream. At the end of the novel, Nelly Dean reports that various superstitious locals claimed to see Catherine and Heathcliff's ghosts roaming the moors. Lockwood, however, discounts the idea of "unquiet slumbers for those sleepers in that quiet earth."
Adaptations
The earliest known film adaptation of Wuthering Heights was filmed in England and directed by A.V. Bramble. It is unknown if any prints still exist. The most famous was 1939's Wuthering Heights, starring Laurence Olivier and nominated for the 1940 Academy Award for Best Picture.
The novel has been popular in opera and theatre, including an opera written by Bernard Herrmann and a musical by Bernard J. Taylor.
External links
- , online text with PDF version.
- , Guardian
- free downloads in PDF, PDB and LIT formats
http://www.wutheringheightsmusic.com/
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