[WH] - Last blog post of the year?

"And who the devil gave you leave to touch a stick about the place?" (pg 277).

In this post, I want to delve deeper into this relationship between Hareton and Heathcliff because I think that it is a semi-interesting and not completely terrible relationship.  When I say this, I mean that it is not terrible to follow and not that I would want to experience a relationship like theirs.  I wouldn't.

In 2007, an evil AP test maker decided to curse the AP test takers to write an essay for eternity displaying how one character's past haunts them in the present and contributes to the overall meaning of the work.  I have two words for the AP graders:  Meet Heathcliff.

Raised an orphan, Heathcliff was exiled by Hindley out of sheer jealousy at his new brother.  Heathcliff was not allowed to do much in the family and I don't think that he was ever able to recover from this torment.  Case and point would be his relationship with Hareton.

Side note:  Emily Bronte hates my guts and decided to use alliteration in the names of the novel.

Heathcliff became Hareton's master, so obviously that gave him free reign to torture Hareton just as Heathcliff had been tortured by Hindley, who may very well have been tortured by Harold who could have been tortured by Henry... and the list goes on to infinity.

For example, Heathcliff would not allow Hareton any opportunities to become educated and sent him to work in the field to ensure no academic growth would undergo within Hareton.  Seriously, Hareton struggled to read his own name over the gate, but he could not read the date afterwards.  Poor guy.

[WH] - Why I hate this book.

"'These things happened last winter, sir,' said Mrs. Dean; 'hardly more than a year ago,'" (pg 221).

There are a ton of reasons why I hate this novel, but they all revolve around Wuthering Heights major theme of doubling.

• The story is frame story in which Lockwood tells the story about how Nelly told him a story in which she took a very minor role.  I think the purpose was to make the events seem more realistic, but frankly, I think it just made the flashbacks more confusing as a time line is almost impossible to form.  The above quote took me forever to figure out the logistics of whether she was talking in the present or the past.
• I really want to write a story about the protagonist, but unfortunately there appear to be two (if that is even legal).  Cathy drives most of the plot at the Grange, but Heathcliff drives all of the plot at the Heights.
• Heathcliff obviously seems to be the protagonist, but he is also an antagonist to Cathy at the same time.  At the same time though, it could also be said that Nelly is just as large an antagonist for not letting her love Linton fully.
• Why would Catherine ever have a baby girl named Cathy?  At least name it Kathy or Quatheryryne or something so I have some way of denoting a difference between the two.  I guess this just shows the similarities between the two halves of the plot.
• Unless I missed something, Catherine Earnshaw married to become Catherine Linton where as Catherine Linton is engaged to become Catherine Earnshaw.  Did I mention the similarities between Catherine and Catherine?
• Whose idea was it to name her characters Hindley, Heathcliff and Hareton?  Emily Bronte really seemed to be struggling when she was naming her characters for this book.

[WH] - YOLO

"...and, as he had no surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word, 'Heathcliff,'" (pg 286).

Whoever decided to say YOLO has never met Heathcliff nor Catherine (lucky them).  So when Catherine died, Heathcliff asked Catherine to not cease haunting him until he should die.  Apparently even then Heathcliff was planning his revenge to rise from the dead to haunt other people.  Obviously ghosts symbolize something in this novel since they haunted the book multiple times, but I am really struggling to decide their purpose.  Bullet lists, here I come!

• Though Catherine could die, her spirit lived on as a sign that true love never dies and that her love with Heathcliff could not be diminished.  Maybe he should be glad he never took his vows since they never married?
• After Heathcliff died, the two were able to haunt the moors.  See my analysis of the moors and why it would make sense for the two to reside there right here.
• If Heathcliff could remain in love with a ghost who is haunting him, then obviously he deserved her in the first place.
• Since Catherine never haunts Edgar Linton, it does not appear that she ever loved him as she did Heathcliff.
• Bronte was a Gothic writer and really found ghosts to interesting to not randomly throw into a love novel meet murder mystery minus the mystery minus the love.

[WH] - Apples and Oranges

"The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my jailer" (pg 209).

"Our first thought, on his departure, was to force an exit somewhere" (pg 234-35).

The 1991 (that's before I was born) prompt asked antsy AP test takers to bore through an epic essay in forty minutes about the difference between two settings and how they contribute to the meaning of a work as a whole.  I will now embark on a tale much less drawn out in a meager blog post, but first let me show you a picture of something near and dear to my heart.

Okay, now I know what you are probably thinking, "Max, how does a picture of a ribcage, while they are close to your heart, at all relate to the plot contributions made by the differing settings of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange?"  Okay Mr. Costello, imagine this for a moment.  What does a ribcage do for the heart?  It traps it and protects it from harm.  Is this a paradox I feel coming?

As you can see from my chosen quotes, one of the settings (hint: Thrushcross Grange) was thought to not be a jail to Cathy, but the differing setting (spoiler alert: Wuthering Heights) turned into a legitimate prison to Cathy.  I find it ironic that the immense amount of love that Nelly and Edgar had for Cathy caused her to feel trapped and exiled from Linton, but at the same time I have to somewhat have absolutely no pity for Cathy since she was her own means of entrapment in Wuthering Heights.

Sorry Cathy, but I think you should think more about your ribcage next time you think your own father is trapping you from the world.  Without that support and guidance, your heart could be trapped by an outside means or, God forbid, someone else's ribcage.

[WH] - This book needs an I hate the moors speech...

"Grief, and that together, transformed him into a complete hermit: he threw up his office of magistrate, ceased even to attend church, avoided the village on all occasions, and spent a life of entire seclusion within the limits of his park and grounds; only varied by solitary rambles on the moors, and visits to the grave of his wife, mostly at evening, or early morning before other wanderers were abroad" (pg 158).

Before I get to why I hate the moors, let me first relay to you how much I hate Bronte's syntax throughout her novel.  The syntax was long and complex, probably adding to the confusion she so desired, and succeeded, to create.  Congratulations Bronte, if your goal truly was to confuse your readers to parallel the relationships at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, then you have truly outdone yourself this time.  Not only did I become trapped in confusion until the plot finally clicked about 170 pages into the book, but your long and windy sentences that usually contained a plethora of hanging antecedents and dependent clauses usually left me forgetful of where the sentence actually began, which was never where it began.

This, my dear friend, is a moor.  You probably call it a swamp or marsh if you are from the 21st century.

 When I get older, I think that I might move out to somewhere wuthering just off the edge of a beautiful moor.  I mean, look at the view!  You can see for miles.

But seriously, moors are more of a symbol than a setting throughout this novel.  Moors are only home to grass and rarely trees which sort of sums up how Catherine and Heathcliffs initial love was, bland.  Due to the lack of anything stellar on a moor, they are often easy to get lost in (so I hear, I don't believe that I've ever ventured onto a moor before).  This might remind you of Cathy and Linton's love because neither of them really knew where they were going with the love and it became a trap.  Also, moors are pretty infertile.  I don't really know why, but I'm not actually an expert on moors.  I don't know about you, but infertile love sort of draws me to acknowledge Hareton and Cathy's love.  Where did this love even come from?  I feel like they just kind of decided that since they were together so often, they might as well get married.

This book makes me want a pet hamster.

[WH] - Symbols only work if I get the reference

 Before you start reading this set of blogs, I should probably warn you that the majority of them talk about how certain elements of the story lead up to the climax of the story (so I think) at Catherine's death.

"It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckle, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn" (pg 80).

As "the best romance novel of all time" (such a lie) I had to do one sappy love story blog post.  No matter how much it makes me want to throw up, this metaphor to true love gives my heart some warm fuzzy feeling when you see it between Cathy and Heathcliff's love.  Unfortunately, this is not a warm and fuzzy blog so if you want a happy story then you probably should not read this post, but if your name is Mr. Costello and you are compelled to read my blog in entirety I assure you that this will not be one of my more simple posts.

A thorn is obviously a symbol of an obstacle to love, but a honeysuckle cannot be easily defined.  It would be easy to say that it is the beauty of the love, but it would be deeper and more symbolic to portray the honeysuckle as if it were a weaker power.  The thorn is the overbearing presence that it would make sense for the honeysuckle to run from.

As foil characters, I believe Edgar and Heathcliff's relationship can be best described by the above metaphor.  When Heathcliff was adopted, he was abused by Edgar because he did not bend to the honeysuckle, but rather allowed Edgar to consume and trap him, figuratively that is.  This negative relationship inevitably lead Catherine to marry Edgar which led her to becoming the thorn and Edgar and Heathcliff fighting over becoming her honeysuckle, very masculine if I do say so myself.