Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë

Vile people are mean to one another.

The End

A classic revenge story with two characters with bad temperaments...

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. It's dark, it's pretty messed up and definitely not romantic (really people? I worry about you).

This is my favourite book. I do not say that lightly - I've read quite a lot from all different genres - but this is my favourite book. Of all time. Ever. The ladies over at The Readventurer kindly allowed me to get my feelings of utter adoration for Wuthering Heights off my chest in their "Year of the Classics" feature, but I now realise it's time I posted a little something in this blank review space. I mean, come on, it's my favourite book so it deserves better than empty nothingness.

So, what do I love so much about Wuthering Heights? Everything. Okay, maybe not. That wouldn't really be saying it strongly enough.

What I love about this novel is the setting; the wilderness. This is not a story about niceties and upper class propriety. This is the tale of people who aren't so socially acceptable, who live away from the strict rules of civilization - it's almost as if they're not quite from the world we know. The isolation of the setting out on the Yorkshire moors between the fictional dwellings of The Heights and Thrushcross Grange emphasises how far removed these characters are from social norms, how unconventional they are, and how lonely they are.

This is a novel for readers who can appreciate unlikeable characters; readers who don't have to like someone to achieve a certain level of understanding of them and their circumstances. People are not born evil... so what makes them that way? What torments a man so much that he refuses to believe he has any worth? What kind of person digs up the grave of their loved one so they can see them once again? Heathcliff was not created to be liked or to earn your forgiveness. Emily Brontë simply tells his story from the abusive and unloved childhood he endured, to his obsession with the only person alive who showed him any real kindness, to his adulthood as an angry, violent man who beats his wife and imprisons the younger Cathy in order to make her marry his son.

It would be so easy to hate Heathcliff, and I don't feel that he is some dark, sexy hero like others often do. But I appreciate what Emily Brontë attempts to teach us about the cycle of violence and aggression. Heathcliff eventually becomes little more than the man he hates. By being brought up with beatings and anger he in turn unleashes it on everyone else. And Cathy is no delicate flower either. What hope did Heathcliff have when the only person he ever loved was so selfish and vindictive? But I love Emily Brontë for creating such imperfect, screwed-up characters.

This is a dark novel that deals with some very complicated people, but I think in the end we are offered the possibility of peace and happiness through Cathy (younger) and Hareton's relationship, and the suggestion that Cathy (older) and Heathcliff were reunited in the afterlife. I had an English teacher in high school that said Cathy and Heathcliff's personalities and their relationship were too much for this world and that peace was only possible for them in the next. I have no idea if this was something Ms Bronte intended, but the romantic in me likes to imagine that it's true.

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Vastly overrated hysterical nonsense.

One feels there is a good novel in there somewhere, and a more experienced writer might have been more successful. There are Gothic elements which could have been explored, characters who deserved to be more fully fleshed out (the only believable character is the narrator, the servant Nellie Dean) and surely a world outside the two houses and their navel-gazing inmates, which is never mentioned. Not to mention incredibly complicated time shifts and an unnecessary flashback structure which only serves to distract the reader from the plot. As if 3 generations of similarly named characters were not difficult enough to keep track of; all the Haretons, Hindleys, Heathcliffe (Was Emily disappointed in love, one wonders - let down by a suitor named H______ much as Jane (Austen) had been by her W______? But I digress.) This much-lauded "mastery of an extremely complex structure" (as one critic will have it) seems to me extremely amateurish. Every so often, the author recollects that the narrator is an actual character, and breaks off at a random moment to bring the reader back to the present. Irritating.

I find myself wondering why this novel attracts so much adoration from modern readers. Is it because it is the only novel by the middle one of the Brontë sisters? The one who died tragically young, blah-di-blah-di-blah? Has it just been lumped with all the Haworth hyperbole? I find all the Brontë trio deficient when compared with the sheer breadth of compass of many other 19th Century writers, and Emily seems by far the weakest. In fact I've suspected for a long time that because the Parsonage at Haworth (the family home) and many of their childhood artefacts still exist, this may be almost entirely responsible for firing the public's imagination.

Maybe a lot of the self-absorption of the writers and their characters can be attributed to the fact that the Brontë's water supply ran through the graveyard. This in itself must be enough to make anyone feel unwell and inclined to emote all the time. "Cathy" surely needed a good slap. In fact most of the characters' agonising may have mysteriously disappeared if they'd only had something to DO!! (Now I'm revealing my origins - fully Yorkshire Protestant Work Ethic….)

Every decade or so I have taken this down from the bookshelf to give it another chance. Never again. It has now been consigned for ever more to someone else's. May they have joy of it. For me it remains the most overrated classic of all time.

I first read this in AP English Literature - senior year of high school. This book is dense and thick and confusing, and with a class full of haters, it was hard to wrap my head around it. I subsequently read it three or four more times for classes in college and every time I read it, I loved it more. I always found some new, fascinating piece of the story I had never picked up on.

The last time I read it, I suddenly realized that there were many hints and clues that Heathcliff could, in fact, be black. A quick shot at research into Liverpool, where Mr. Earnshaw found the urchin, shows that it was the home to a thriving slave trade. This theory completely changes the story, in my opinion.

Or the thought someone brought up in our seminar on the Brontes - what if Nellie is in love with Heathcliff and subsequently altered how she told the story? You do find Nellie to be coincidently involved in many key scenes throughout the text. What if she isn't the good guy most readers assume she is?

Wuthering Heights is one of the quintessential novels in history. There's nothing else you can really say about it, except that it's one of the best pieces of writing to ever be created. It's just that incredible.

Finished for the 5th time - 11/25/2014

When people say they don’t like books where the characters are all unlikable I think “hear me out: Wuthering Heights.” These people are all shit. But I hear you protest “but but, madam, consider if you will that they have reason to be from their past and their—“
Oh I get it and agree, doesn’t make them not suck as people though. But what fun would a happy and content ghost be anyways? On the moors no less. I stand by it. And this book slaps.

Em.B, you penned a real one.

Phantoms sobbing through the night, a shitty guest telling your story based on the cleaning lady’s oddly verbatim retelling, a man more beast than man or so they say, a tale of love a tale of obsession a tale told through soaring statements of euphoric beauty. ‘Honest people don't hide their deeds,’ and this dishonest crew are gonna give you the most notorious tell-all of literary history. Shit will get real and hit the fan and you will love it. This is a classic for a reason. Heathcliff is an eternal little vindictive shit and can go fuck himself but of course I’m gonna read this story gripping the pages and frantically flipping as fast as me wee eyeballs can carry us. Read it. Do it, you’ll love it. Just do it already.
Also, shoutout to Anne Carson's phenomenal poem/essay The Glass Essay which inspired me to revisit this book.

Surprising! This is my first experience with Wuthering Heights, having neither read nor seen film versions before. My immediate reaction is that it is far less romantic than popular culture has implied. I’m also confused why it’s not known more for being a “ghost story” than a romance. I might even argue it should be shelved in the Gothic horror section, next to The Haunting of Hill House, The Turn of the Screw, and The Mysteries of Udolpho.

Heathcliff is expectedly brooding and delivers plenty of sexual tension, but he’s also diabolical. His plotting and conniving goes far beyond the insufferable (but endearing) quirks of Mr. Darcy or Mr. Rochester. He’s a jerk on a level that’s pseudo-murderous and financially predatory. His motivations are based on romance, sure, but so are psycho stalker serial killers—and he’s far closer to that than the dream boat many think him to be.

Movie versions may be to blame for romanticizing Heathcliff. I understand the iconic 1939 film completely cuts out a generation of characters. These offspring, which an aged Heathcliff torments with merciless ferocity, are aspects of the book that cement his evil nature. Without them I imagine the story could be transformed to a more traditional romance.

Not that I want the novel to be traditional. The unexpected qualities are, in my opinion, what make it classic. Characters are complex, deeply flawed, and in many ways responsible for their own tragedies. As a lover of all things horror and gothic, the frightening aspects are welcomed—and there are a number of scary moments.

There is an idea about the novel that Heathcliff and Catherine are in love on a higher “spiritual plane” and thus capable of entering the ghostly realm. Bronte consistently compares Heathcliff to the devil and both he and Catherine use religious language to express their passions. They are practically willing to sell their soul—or at least keep it in earthly limbo—to be with one another. It’s a sooty romance that’s all about heat and passion, caring little about what’s Christian. I suppose there is something hot about that, even when Heathcliff so regularly becomes creepy and off-putting.

Perhaps there is also appeal in a paramour who loves you so ferociously that he’s willing to torment your entire family line if he can’t be with you. It’s bad behavior, no doubt, but in a fictional fantasy such intense yearning can be skewed as attractive. Certainly other novelists have cashed in on that theme. In many ways, Heathcliff is the template for modern gothic romance, where heroines frequently turn away from traditional hunks to fall in love with the grim domineer of the castle.

Stylistically, Bronte’s story-within-a-story structure both adds complexity to the narrative (can we trust all details?) and distances the reader from the action. I can’t say whether I liked this method or not—my gut tells me I didn’t—but obviously something about it works for us to still obsess over this book 175 years later. In the end, it all comes down to my own expectations. Once I looked past pre-conceived notions, I could slip into Bronte’s original vision and enjoy all its dark, imperfect glory.

Not often do I decide to edit the review - and change the opinion of the book I initially detested - mere days after writing a 'why I hated it' opus. Emily Bronte, you mastermind!

In addition to learning truly horrifying things through the comments from my fellow lovely Goodreaders (people have told me that not only Heathcliff and Catherine's horrible story served as an inspiration for 'Twilight - a story that's paraded as a love story; and - brrrr - that "in almost all polls on most romantic literary figure, Heathcliff takes the lead") I read this comment from Teresa:

n  "I think I read somewhere -- maybe in this book: Emily Bronte: The Artist As a Free Woman -- that she was creating her own world (and the book does seem claustrophobic with its two framing narrators), her own mythos. If one sees that interpretation, I think Heathcliff could be viewed almost as a Zeus-figure, another petty and vengeful 'entity.' n

... a comment that, combined with her observation in another comment that "the names Hindley/Heathcliff/Hareton all started with the same letter, not to mention having two Catherines -- an enclosed world that repeated itself" led me to realize that yes, in a mind-blowing turn of events this book is a genius take on the completely secluded, isolated world that lives only by its own rules, ruled by its own godlike creatures, and bears little resemblance to and has little influence from the larger universe outside of it.



Two Catherines in this book - and both of them take a journey between the stops of 'Catherine Earnshaw', 'Catherine Heathcliff' and 'Catherine Linton' - because what other options do they have? Even young Cathy, so seemingly close to possibly leaving this enclosed corner of the universe thanks to sudden fascination Lockwood (a man of the outside world) takes to her, ultimately remains tightly tethered to the place she knows, remaining with an Earnshaw - her first cousin (because who else is there?)

Heathcliff, who could have had the world, comes back to rule the little universe into which he was adopted, unable to leave the country of grey moors.

And everyone else is a Linton - another link in the chain that connects everyone else. And the little world of this novel takes no one else in who is not a Linton, a Cathy or an incarnation of Heathcliff/Hareton/Hindley. Everyone stays together, their fates tied only to one another, with disregard to the world outside. Only Isabella (who never seems to have fit into this world anyway) manages to escape - but remains tethered to this world by her child, Linton Heathcliff, who - thanks to his names - is powerless to escape being sucked into this little corner of the universe and become a pathetic little villain.

And this world, free from the influence outside, just continues to go in its own little circle, being its own little - and terrifying - universe.

Ok, mindblowing. Enough to up my star rating by a full star.

n  Emily Bronte, your mind was darker than I gave it credit for. Touché.n

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ORIGINAL REVIEW FROM LONG AGO (a.k.a. a few days - an eternity in the eyes of a fruitfly, however)
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Ok, I'll be honest - I decided to read this one really because the word 'Wuthering' had for a while been fascinating my non-native speaker brain¹

¹ Basically, brain insists it should be 'wIthering.'
Computer spellcheck agrees.
And both of them are wrong.

Plus, I have also been introduced to it by - of course! - pop culture, courtesy of Phoebe Buffay:


(In the remainder of this episode, Rachel ends up comparing 'Jane Eyre' to 'Robocop', to Phoebe's utmost delight.)
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Ok, back to serious now.

This book had one of the most promising beginnings in all the literature. No joke. The narrator's stumbling into Heathcliff's household leads to the opening chapter as surreal and creepy as a nightmare you really want to wake up from but cannot. Seriously, let's look back to the beginning of the tale - with Heathcliff, and the dogs, and the creepiest servant since Igor, and strange perplexing characters of Hareton and Cathy, all in the most gothic setting a 19th century mind could have conjured. Lovely, just lovely.

But then a meddling self-righteous servant sat down to tell the story of Cathy and Heathcliff and everyone else caught in the destructive hurricane those two left in their selfish wake - and something changed, the magic dissolved.

I was promised passion and wilderness. Instead I got a cold wearisome shower of egotistical, self-absorbed, shallow, destructive, prejudiced, reckless petty disregard for anyone else from everyone else, combined with clear cases of sociopathic, narcissistic, and spoiled to the core people damaging everything they come in contact with. It's not wild passion; it's self-absorbed selfishness and nothing more.

It's a spoiled brat in a grocery store flinging himself on the floor and throwing a raging, embarrassing tantrum because he just has to have that unnecessary piece of candy.

No, I'm not a fan of anger, revenge and possessiveness trying to masquerade as wild love and passion. Neither Catherine nor Heathcliff love one another; instead of love they might as well just selfishly scream, "WAAAAAANT!!!"


Heathcliff is not wild - he is a cruel sociopath. Catherine is not wild and passionate - she is a haughty and spoiled thoughtless creature.

And I cannot help asking, dear reader - What is the point?
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Yes, I understand the balls ovaries needed for making such repulsive personalities be the center of your story (actually, that's not just Cathy and Heathcliff being repugnant; think of Hindley, and Hareton, and - brrrr! - Joseph, and young Linton, and even young Cathy, and to a point the ever-meddling self-righteous unsure-where-her-allegiance-lies-but-probably-with-whoever-the-current-master-happens-to-be Nelly Dean), and to systematically beat out any possible feel-good moment in this book. It probably was not an easy book to write, and definitely is not an easy book to read.

But because of all that I could not bring myself to care in the least. What's worse, the little cringeworthy details peppered throughout the story became even more obvious in the light of me disliking the book:

- Like the constant neverending out-of-character moments that all the action here seems to hinge upon (Heathcliff's sudden madness/death; Catherine's reaction to the argument between Heathcliff and Edgar; Cathy and Hareton's sudden feelings for each other; to name a few).

- Contrived happy-ish ending: a thought that young Cathy will end up with a man who has physically assaulted her in the past and be happy with him in a Stockholm Syndrome-like fashion - and for it (a) to seem like a good choice and (b) the violence presented as something she had coming for daring to have a 'saucy' tongue.

- Actually, constant violence, threats, marital rape - the stuff that would make even George R.R. Martin seem like a tender-hearted softie.

- Constant reminders of darkness of Heathcliff's character being tied to the darkness of his skin - while white paleness of the Lintons provides a contrast of civilization to the brute. Dark skin = evil, right? Ah, Miss Bronte, really?

- Constant nervous outbreaks and the destructive passion of feelings that after a while became much too repetitive.

- The predictable cycle of Heathcliff or Catherine wanting something --> rudeness --> physical violence to those they perceive to be their inferiors --> some contrived disease brought on by nervous exhaustion or something of the sort --> someone probably dies for no reason than the effects of wild passions --> rinse, repeat.

- Joseph's dialect. Need I say more?

And, all throughout, I realized that I just could no longer care about the story that brought two English families living on the wild moors to the state that the narrator observes in such a promising beginning of this book. I think I was too exhausted with this story to care. It tried too hard to unapologetically be dark and brooding and bleak - and succeeded in just wearing me out.

2 stars and valiant attempts to dodge the shower of rotten eggs and rotten tomatoes heading my way.

I first read this book as a teenager and then read it again in my twenties. After that, my memories of it were tainted by video productions of it, some good, some terrible. For this reason, I wanted to read the book again, to see how my memories matched up to the real thing.

I had forgotten so much of the book but once I was reading it again, it all came back to me. For some reason I thought it was a star crossed romance, but instead it's a character study of dysfunction. I was never so glad to finish a book and would have set it aside if it hadn't been a buddy read with my Goodreads friend Pat.

I know it's a classic and who am I to mess with such a hallowed title but this book could have benefited from some very heavy editing. I think I've been put off from reading any more classics for a while. Off to read something much lighter.

Memory is a treacherous monster.

How else can it make me remember this classic, which I read as a teenager, as a SAD LOVE STORY? It is quite impossible to explain the increasing surprise on my face, and the accelerated beat of my heart, after I lazily grabbed the new copy of Wuthering Heights that I bought for my daughter's birthday, and started reading. Inattentive at first, thinking I knew what was coming, I began to obsessively devour the story, finishing it in a frenzy.

What is this?

A Genealogy of Yorkshire Monsters - as observed over three generations and various family branches? An ambitious writing project with the mission to create only bad characters? If so, who would win? Let's see...

Monster In Chief must be Heathcliff, as he deliberately destroys what comes in his way. Naturally, he is cast as the dark-skinned orphan with a mysterious past, brought up to feel his difference and underprivilege every single day, and strongwilled and energetic enough to take revenge on a world that never gave him a chance: biological and social ostracism combined against a powerful individual character. Mister Monster In The Making only awaits the two additional ingredients that are necessary to make the Molotov cocktail explode: unreasonable, hopeless love and deep humiliation.

So Heathcliff wins the Monster Prize, along with the Height and the Grange, but he has strong contenders for the title.

What about the two siblings Earnshaw (first generation)?

A sadistic drunkard and careless father, Hindley has a horrible role to play. A natural snob and bully, he delivers most ingredients for Heathcliff's explosion. And the lovely lady of the play? The sweet darling Catherine? Not so much. Meet entitled, spoiled rotten, fake-tantrum throwing Miss Earnshaw, who adds to the mix by rejecting her true love because it would make her feel "low", while marrying a weak, boring, yet rich and suitable young man gives her the power she yearns. And of course she must keep playing with the heart she has broken - until it snaps. Mrs Linton is barely better than her former self, Miss Earnshaw. And then there is Isabella - the victim of the rest of the egos? Maybe. But only because she is weak. If she had had more strength, she would have used it to display exactly the same amount of monstrous cruelty and egomaniac emotional bankruptcy.

Nelly? The sweet creature taking care of all the spoiled brats, one after the other? But she is also causing trouble, meddling, taking things in her own hands and generally acting according to her own favouritism of the moment rather than according to true compassion.

The Holy Joseph, then? The voyeur of evil, preaching hellfire without ever helping a victim?

Generation One is a wild bunch of characters if there ever was one. No wonder the next generation turns out weak and selfish and confused. After all, parenting matters.

So who is surprised that the anti-fairytale can be summed up with a "and so they died unhappily ever after"?

The hint in the end at the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine haunting the wuthering heights can hardly be any scarier than their living selves, in my opinion. May they rest in unpeace, but this novel is a riot! I am glad I reread it, and hope I will remember it now.

The exprience does cast some doubt on my memory of other teenage favourites, though. Is Anna Karenina really a SAD LOVE STORY? I really hope she is not anything like Catherine, to be honest. But I guess I will have to reread that one as well to be sure.

And last, but not least: I wonder if it was a wise choice to buy this for my twelve-year-old daughter. It is a WILD, WILD story. And she has an amazing memory. I am sure she won't forget the monsters once she gets to know them.

Many people consider this book a masterpiece, a monument of English literature. This novel exudes an incredible force due to Heathcliff's destructive passion for Catherine. Still, for my part, I did not find any character endearing or with which to identify me even slightly.
Let's start with the narrator, Mrs. Dean. At no time did I feel that she loved Catherine or anyone else. On the contrary, her coldness and moral lessons made her unpleasant.
As for Catherine, more unbearable, you die! At first, she was careless and a little proud, but she didn't change much as she grew up. Become weak. I waited for that moment when my heart would melt and feel some semblance of emotion, but nothing.
Heathcliff is the only character who has inspired me in any way. It's a small pity. As an adult, it's a pity, too!
Usually, I am fascinated by evil characters, but the plot here is too simple to make Heathcliff a complex man.
I won't write about my feelings about the other family members because you will understand that this book did not touch me.
This novel is dark, yes, but it remains a love story. Nothing sensational.

I first read this book back in school for the English class and remember disliking it very much. The characters were too black and the story was too dark for my preference. But with my recent turning back to reading classics again, I felt maybe I should give this book another chance and see if my teenage prejudice was ill-founded. After this second reading, I can safely draw two conclusions. Yes, my prejudice was ill-founded, for I have not appreciated the characters in their given context, and yes, the characters are still black and the story too dark for my preference.

The story mainly revolves around Heathcliff, a young orphan adopted by the rich Earnshaw family. This action of Mr. Earnshaw, however, causes a rivalry and resentment between his natural son Hindley, and the adopted son, Heathcliff. After the demise of the father when Hindley became the master, Heathcliff tastes the flavour of ill-treatment. But the daughter of the family, Catherine Earnshaw, forms a close attachment to Heathcliff, and the two eventually become lovers of a sort. Heathcliff bears all abuse and contempt for the sake of Catherine to whom he is devoted. But Catherine's fancy towards Edgar Linton, and the misinterpretation of a part conversation between Catherine and Ellen Dean, make Heathcliff believe that Catherine is indifferent to him. So he leaves only to come back three years later, a rich man, to avenge for all his grievances. This new Heathcliff was violent, wicked, and almost inhuman, and with him, Emily Bronte has created one of the darkest characters in the history of classics.

Emily Bronte has based the book on three different themes: love and despair, complexities of human nature, and similar to the contemporaries of her time, on the class difference. The relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine is one of love and despair, which sees the former ending up as a mad inhuman and the latter paying up with her life. With the use of dark and imperfect characters, Bronte accomplishes brilliance in portraying the prejudices of the human mind, the violent and wicked inclinations of humans, and the extremity of vengeance a human mind is capable of when injured. Catherine senior’s wavering between her true love Heathcliff and Edgar Linton, since the latter was similar in status her, and Catherine junior’s preference of Linton Heathcliff over Hareton although both of whom were her cousins, show how strong the class and status difference mattered at the time the author lived.

I had a serious issue with the narrator, however. This whole story was narrated by Mrs. Ellen Dean, the housekeeper. Mrs. Dean entertained a dislike for Heathcliff and Catherine senior from their younger days. This dislike was felt through most of her narration. So, one cannot truly rely on either the accuracy or the sincerity of her narrative. I'm truly surprised that Bronte used such a prejudiced narrator. It sort of affects the readers' view of those two main characters. I sincerely wish Bronte had chosen an unbiased person as a narrator to recount this tragic tale.

The passionate, engaging writing style, the easy flow, and the beautiful metaphoric language of Emily Bronte have made Wuthering Heights a beautiful classical tragedy of the Victorian era. This second reading certainly altered my prejudices about the book, and though I still didn't quite like the characters, I was able to appreciate them better.