Wuthering Heights; a Polarizing, Intense Family Feud

I started this book after finishing Jane Eyre. I heard and now witnessed the talents of the Bronte sisters and I expected this book to be similar to Jane Eyre or something like Pride and Prejudice.

I was very wrong and very right at the same time.

Here are a few pointers about Wuthering Heights:

This is a story about revenge, abuse, social classes, the obsessive nature of love and many other things, but I don't think that anything about this book screams romance. It is definitely not a romance, and I dislike that romanticize Heathcliff so often. I have heard so many people say that Heathcliff was their ultimate romantic hero. The tall-dark-handsome, intelligent, brooding, intense, intimidating hero who just needed a woman to tame him. And although I would have maybe agreed with them had I read this book even a year before, I certainly didn't have any attraction towards Heathcliff in the slightest now. His and Catherine's relationship was toxic, and destructive. BBC's Culture writes: "Most of us read Wuthering Heights in our teens. In other words, when we’re wildly impressionable and at an age when our crush on that kid in the year above feels like the greatest love story ever. Heathcliff’s desire is beyond obsessive, and for self-dramatizing, ego-hungry teenage girls, that’s potent stuff. Emily Bronte was even aware that this would happen while she was writing the book and brought our attention to it when Heathcliff described why Isabella fell in love with him.

The Main character of the story, Mr. Lockwood, doesn't do anything for 90% of the story. The Narrator is someone entirely different- Nelly Dean, the servant. We don't know how reliable she is while she's telling us the story of the Earnshaws and the Lintons because of passing the time, personal bias, etc. Mr. Lockwood even questions her account at the end when he compares his own interactions with the characters she described.. The only thing we can be 100% certain of is the contents of Isabella's letter that Nelly reads to Lockwood (and to us).

Which brings me to another point. The timeline and POV's of this book are kinda wacky and sometimes confusing if you don't pay attention. As well as the names. You know that thing that people say- don't give characters names that start with the same letter or something like that? Yeah, Emily didn't really listen. I mean there's 2 Catherines for gods sake. And they're mother and daughter. And then you have Heathcliff, Hareton, Hindley, and one who's first name is the last name of one family (Linton) but the first name of another character who doesn't even have a last name(Heathcliff). And of course, some of these names have deeper meanings and shenanigans. But they're still kinds confusing.

There's a lot of symbolism in nature and weather as well. Everything in this novel happens in cycles, there's a lot of repetition. Maybe that's why I found it a little longer than it had to be. But we know that the writing is going to be good and amazing and meaningful, this is a classic. All of the academic talk aside, I didn't really like reading this novel. It didn't give me pleasure. There are those kinds of novels that you read and you want to keep reading them until dawn because it's just so compelling- you know what I mean. Not this one. The fact that we had a very passive main character only added to the fact that I didn't feel any connection to any of these characters. Complete apathy. Don't get me wrong, in an objective sense, all of these characters were crafted very carefully and were at least somewhat realistic. Catherine and Heathcliff were free and wild and selfish and angry all the time, Linton was sickly and demanding and manipulative, Nelly is like the voice of reason, sensible and intelligent and compassionate. Hareton is quick tempered but has a good heart and a will to improve. Edgar used to be stuck up but turned out to be a genuinely good human being who was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. He didn't need all that drama. The characterization was on point and all of the decisions the characters made in the story made sense for their character. Still, I didn't really care about any of them, except maybe Hareton and Edgar. Which does not mean I approved of all of their actions. I just think that out of all of the characters they deserved everything that happened to them the least and that despite everything they managed to stay decent humans. Cathy the younger is somewhere there as well, though there were many times when I was really done with her.

I think the ending is really uplifting and gives one hope that people and families can overcome their differences. The symbolism of Cathy's blonde hair and Hareton's black hair intermingling was really powerful in my opinion. I can see how this book, when it first came out, caused a lot of stir. Many scenes in this book are kind of disturbing and creepy (I mean, It is a Gothic novel) but especially that one scene when Heathcliff dug up Catherine's grave. I was all goosebumps at that. It's very raw and doesn't shy away from describing all the psychological abuse.

Now to the controversial part. Racism? Did Emily Bronte imagine Heathcliff as a black, or at least biracial man? In the text there are many references to his darker skin, to him being a Gypsy. Mr. Earnshaw also picked him up on the streets of Liverpool, one of the biggest slave trading centers of England at that time. His mad, monstrous portrayal reminds me of Bertha Mason- the crazy, Creole wife of Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre- the iconic novel Emily's sister Charlotte wrote. The sisters grew up near a family which had more than 30 Jamaican slaves. Were these characters merely crazy and maniacal because of the Bronte sisters' fear of the "unknown, foreign savage"? Or was their nature a product of how people treated them as if they were savages?

Overall I'd recommend it, but this is one of the books that are really polarizing. Either you hate it or you love it. I hated it, but I acknowledge that it's a pretty amazing piece of literature. It's not one of those happy ending love stories. It's harsh and honest. I just wasn't all that into it. Oh, and when you're reading it- keep in mind that it was written by a upper-middle class Victorian young woman who was fairly isolated her whole life and didn't have any experience with romance at all, according to most accounts.