(Photo source)
So, I'm through with the novel and am glad to have re-read it; it's been a while for sure and I'd forgotten a lot of what happened in the story. And, it ends on a good note, so that's nice. It's as if once Heathcliff is out of the picture, the sun comes out. I am left wondering what happened to the next generation, but seeing as how they were happy in the end, they probably just raised fat babies and didn't have many conflicts that a few leeches or medicinal bleeding couldn't solve.
(Haha! Vampires. Bleeding. Nice...but I digress.)
Anywho...
So, taken out of context, some of the desperately romantic quotes uttered by Heathcliff and Cathy are the stuff of Hallmark greeting cards or proclamations of love:
"[Heathcliff] 'shall never know how I love him...because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's [the dude she does marry] is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.'" (pg. 80)
Catherine "Cathy" goes on:
"'Who is to separate us, pray? They'll meet the fate of Milo! Not as long as I live, Ellen--for no mortal creature. Every Linton [again, the dude she marries instead of Heathcliff...poor Linton...] on the face of the earth might melt into nothing, before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff.'" (pg. 82)
***Sigh*** Right? Er...no.
Heathcliff runs away after she says that it would be degrading to marry him and Catherine marries Linton anyway, even though the best she can do at the time is to greatly esteem him [Elinor Dashwood reference, a little shout-out for those Austen fans! :)].
Whatever. Blah, blah, blah!
Pretty much every other social convention is ignored by Cathy at one point or another in the story, and they live out in the boonies of England (aka Wuthering Heights), so it's not like they run into anyone who would care if she "degraded" herself by marrying Heathcliff and leaving the poor Lintons in peace. But, apparently, it was easier/better(?) to take advantage of naive Linton while remaining desperately in love with, and emotionally dependent on, someone else...to the point of literal madness.
Not that Heathcliff demands our sympathies as the novel progresses. Near the story's end,
"[Heathcliff] solicited the society of no one more. At dusk, he went into his chamber--through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him groaning, and murmuring to himself. Hareton [Heathcliff's nephew, basically] was anxious to enter, but I bid him fetch Mr. Kenneth [the doctor], and he should go in, and see him.
"When he came, and I requested admittance and tried to open the door, I found it locked; and Heathcliff bid us be damned." (pg. 331) Surely if Heathcliff had the power to actually send souls the direction of his bidding, Hell would be filled to the brim! He "damns" people left and right! He was full of hate and revenge, wishing ill of his enemies and exuming human remains just for morbid, romantic curiosity. Blech.
What the...? [Shaking head] When you understand that there's more hate than love in the story, such pretty quotes by Catherine--and others from Heathcliff, for there are a lot of them--don't really hold the same significance as they do when taken alone.
Sure, I can sympathize with the dude; it's unfortunate that the love of one person altered him so completely and turned him into the hate-filled wretch he became, but COME ON!!
The strange symbiotic relationship of Heathcliff and Cathy, where the one alternately feeds off of and is feed from the other, is unique and makes me wonder how dark Emily Bronte must have been in real life, and what made her that way.
Wuthering Heights, whether Heathcliff be a psychological vampire or not, is rife with the paranormal. Near the end, our narrarator Nelly states:
"I was going to the Grange one evening--a dark eveing threathening thunder--and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him, he was crying terribly, and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided.
"'What is the matter, my little man?' I asked.
"'They's Heathcliff and a woman, yonder, under t' Nab,' he blubbered, 'un' Aw darnut pass 'em.'
"I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on, so I bid him take the road lower down.
"He probably raised the phantoms from thinking, as he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents and companions repeat--yet, still, I don't like being out in the dark, now--and I don't like being left by myself in this grim house--I can't help it, I shall be glad when they leave it." (pg. 333)
Dun dun, DUN!! [Smirks]
Quotes from Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York: Penguin Books, 1995.
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