Blog 4

I think that Emily Bronte highlights love throughout her novel Wuthering Heights in an idiosyncratic manner. Bronte speaks about the idea that true love will always be recognized, but only few can capture it; however, one won’t be content until they do (this is paradoxical, I know).  She illustrates this idea by reliving the same moments with different people: something that I was able to recognize throughout the novel.

As I spoke about before in Blog 2, the first major love relationship seems to happen between Edgar Linton and Catherine (for they become married). However, this gives a false interpretation, with Catherine stating, ““If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger,” illustrating the infatuation Catherine has for Heathcliff. On Catherine’s death bed, Heathcliff states “Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” Heathcliff is in desperation, for if she dies, then he will never be able to be with her. Thus, it will drive him mad, and he will have lost his soul.  On the other hand, Catherine also did not obtain her true love - for this reasons she died ill-content, with Mrs. Dean stating (to Mr. Lockwood), “‘She’s fainted or dead,’ I thought: ‘so much the better. Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to all about her.” Catherine died in despair and anguish, unable to capture who she really loved. Heathcliff, who was still alive, suffered from this desolation throughout the rest of the book. At one point, Heathcliff has the sexton un-bury Catherine so he could make sure she “looked the same,” and make sure she wasn't “haunting him.” Later in the novel, Heathcliff states to Mrs. Dean, “‘ It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest,’ he replied. ‘I assure you it is through no settled designs. I’ll do both, as soon as I possibly can. But you might as well bid a man struggling in water rest within arms’ length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I’ll rest.’” Heathcliff is still brooding over Catherine, and he is so close to salvation. And, although he does not literally capture his true love, he does capture her in essence  - when he dies he dies in peace. I sense this because he dies in rain: “the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still.” From Foster, rain represents transformation, fertility and repose.

There also is a different love story in the novel - one that is impeded as well by another character (but the reader doesn’t know it is impeded till the end). At first, Cathy Linton falls in love with Linton Heathcliff. This relationship soon dissipates, with Catherine coming to the realization that Linton is not confident in himself, and is eternally under the authority of his father, Heathcliff. (Linton also dies which is another reason the relationship didn’t work).  However, in the end, she falls in love with another person: Hareton Earnshaw. Although it took her growth as well as transformation (the first time that they saw each other Cathy was “disgusted” to call him her cousin),  she finally did find her true love (I think this is what Bronte wants us to think because 1) Linton dies and 2) when Linton dies Cathy did not muse over Linton’s death like Heathcliff does over Catherine's).

The juxtaposition that Bronte suggests with these different love stories are very similar, but also different as well. They are both love stories, and both have characters thwarting the intimacy. However, on the other hand, they are also very different. For one, the first relationship (between Catherine and Heathcliff) is rooted in eternal love, and an everlasting relationship. However, on the other hand, the second relationship is rooted in transformation and change (both of these surmises are elaborated on in the able paragraphs). Furthermore, in the first relationship the “true-love” was never found - in the second, it seems that the true love was found. This suggests that the second relationship served as a ‘revision’ of the first - a very interesting idea.

Certain methods helped me to closely read this story. For one, I didn't identify with a character, which Nabokov tells us to do. This was important, because if I did, I would be ‘rooting’ for a specific person - such as Edgar Linton or Heathcliff - and to completely understand the story, I needed to have an unbiased view on the situation. Both Edgar and Heathcliff were at faults at times, and the reader needs to recognize this. Furthermore, I had to “acquire a certain language for reading,” which is something Foster recommends. There is a specific language that Bronte uses in this novel (it was written in 1847), and to fully understand what characters are saying (especially the housekeeper Jim) I needed to be in this mindset - looking for tropes and other words that had a somewhat different meaning back then. Furthermore, rereading was key in this piece - this is a strategy that Prose tells us to do. To comprehend what people were saying, and to whom they were saying it (there were so many characters) was paramount in this piece. Sometimes I needed to go back full pages to remember who were the two characters in conversations.

I definitely recommend this novel for a reader looking to be challenged. The way it was written is genius - having a ‘story within a story’ (which I talk about more in Blogs 1 and 3) as well as having two different narrators, make this novel unbelievably creative. If you want to read Wuthering Heights, just make sure to keep a dictionary by your side, and to be in the 19th century mindset.