I remember the best English teacher I had ever had - my AP English Literature teacher during senior year - recommended the book as a "must-read for girls who like love stories". I had meant to pick it up earlier, but it so happened that I ended up reading it this summer, 2 years after I had first heard the recommendation.
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights explores the dark side of love, as young lovers' destructive love ends up destroying not only their lives, but (basically) everyone in their lives as well. However, I do not think it is fair to blame all the terrible things that Heathcliff ends up doing on his love for Catherine - the treatment Heathcliff received from Hindley and others largely contributed to his desire for revenge. That brings up another theme of the book that I picked up on - the terrible nature of human beings on self-righteousness and hatred. The book exposes the cycle of hatred - related to the capacity people have deep within to do evil. Heathcliff was abused most terribly by Hindley, which led to his desire of revenge, to not only kill Hindley but to take all of his possessions and destroy him in the process. Heathcliff responds to evil with evil, not only affecting those directly responsible for his nature, but also negatively impacting the future generation.
Heathcliff's malicious nature can be exposed not only by his terrible treatment of Hindley's son - Hareton - but also through the way he essentially destroys his own son - Linton. In the process of doing so, he destroys Isabella, his wife, and attempts to take the young Catherine (the daughter of his own beloved) into misery as well.
I think most people would agree that the entire book and story centers around how Heathcliff and Catherine's love is so powerful that it destroys so many lives. I think that their childhood sweetheart love might have ceased to become love once it got to a point of destruction - it became an infatuation, an obsession, engulfing their lives as well as the lives of everyone they could drag down with them.
Why must their love be so destructive? It honestly really puzzled me as I read through the novel - why is Heathcliff completely obsessed with Catherine? Is it possible for one to be so "crazy in love" to the point that it becomes an unhealthy infatuation? What is it about Heathcliff and Catherine's love that leads them to throw away everything else in the process, including their own children? (It's obvious from Heathcliff's treatment of Linton that this is true in his case; it is also true in Catherine's case since she knew that she was pregnant with a child and pretty much had no desire to live anyway).
It seemed to me, as I was reading through the novel, that Heathcliff's and Catherine's love for each other was very much so idealized, mostly because their love was forbidden due to societal expectations and...honestly a part of me feels like the characters (or perhaps just Catherine) put up walls that did not exist in between their love. I mean, really, she could have just ran off with him anytime in the beginning of the novel. I was reading up on the topic and scholars have said that it was because their love was stagnant that it ended up being so destructive. They refused to change. I think that perhaps they refused to change because they idolized an ideal version of their love.
Nearing the end of the novel, I was so sure that it was going to end up on a depressing note with everyone but the narrator (Mr. Lockwood) and story-teller (Nelly Dean) dead - but I was in for a pleasant surprise. The story ended on a positive note, with young Catherine and Hareton falling steadily in love - not a firey, passionate type of love but a steady love that magnifies over time and undergoes change. I guess that might be the key moral of the story then.
All the other characters end up being destroyed because of their firey, passionate love that borderlines obsession [Catherine<->Heathcliff, as already discussed; Edgar->Catherine; Isabella->Heathcliff and Young Catherine->Linton (this almost happened)]. Or perhaps it's just that the initial (Catherine<->Heathcliff) love is the root of it all that destroyed the rest of the individuals involved in the ordeal.
I think the timing of my finishing this novel is very interesting because I have had very recent talks with friends and my sister about marriage - all of us agreed that a relationship that can grow over time is much more healthy for marriage than one that is full of vigor and fire in the beginning. Blehhhhhhhhhh.
And now I'm thinking, 'Wow, growing up really sucks'. I kind of want to go back to those immature times when I dreamed of my own Disney prince in shining armor. Now I know how crazy and complicated "love" can be. And also I am realizing that "THE ONE" might not actually exist, but there are just multiple possibilities. I can already hear certain friends going, "maybe that's because you haven't met the one yet". Blahhhhblahblah.
Wow, too much thinking at 3 in the morning. Clearly, that must be it...
Regardless of whether any of this blabbering might make sense or not in the morning, here is the updated summer list, with Wuthering Heights bolded to indicate completion:
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Bleak House - Charles Dickens
Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
I shall make another trip to B&N in the afternoon to pick up another book off this list.
