Review: "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
First published 1847; Amazon Classics edition published July 2017
★★★

How is this remembered as a a great romance? Or as a romance at all? How?

I read this years and years ago, I think when I was still a teenager, and didn't remember it particularly fondly (Jane Eyre endures as my favorite novel, but I should note that I love Jane Eyre for Jane and Jane alone; Rochester is and always has been trash), but I picked it up again recently because I started reading The Favorites and it became immediately clear that I'd need either a reread or a better memory to get the full context. So into Wuthering Heights I dove, and...lawdy. If this isn't a picture of generational trauma, I don't know what is. Well, generational trauma and also violence against women and also a pretty damning portrait of what women's health looks like when reproductive health care is not available.

According to the Amazon Classics version I read, "the story features beloved characters Heathcliff and Catherine, who are—next to Romeo and Juliet—perhaps the most famous doomed lovers in all of English literature" (138*). And it's not that whoever wrote this is wrong, exactly. But my god, why are these characters beloved? They're awful, the lot of them. Here's Heathcliff, threatening both murder and suicide if he doesn't get his way:

"I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I mediated this plan—just to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time!" (39)

And here's Cathy, wishing a particularly spiteful death upon her husband:

"If I were only sure it would kill him," she interrupted, "I'd kill myself directly! These three awful nights I've never closed my lids—and oh, I've been tormented! I've been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everyone hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me." (49)

Then there's Isabella (Cathy's sister-in-law, who is either tricked or forced into marriage with Heathcliff, and who is one of the few characters who is not unremittingly and constantly horrible), hinting in a letter at just what marriage to Heathcliff is like:

The second question I have great interest in; it is this—Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married: that is, when you call to see me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon. (55)

Poor Isabella—Heathcliff has no use for her beyond hurting other people, and the first thing that happens when she gets to his home is that everyone is unwelcoming and her brother-in-law of a sort (Cathy's brother, Heathcliff's foster brother) tells her to keep the door locked at night to keep him from coming in to murder her husband. (Wikipedia says that she leaves because she is "bitter over Heathcliff's devotion to a dead woman", but what the what? Isabella flees because her husband is violent, manipulative, and abusive, and because she can't imagine surviving at Wuthering Heights.)

Isabella, again describing Heathcliff:

He told me of Catherine's illness, and accused my brother of causing it promising that I should be Edgar's proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him. (59)

And this continues and continues, flowing down to the next generation, in which Cathy's daughter (also Cathy) is kidnapped and forced to marry Heathcliff's son as part of Heathcliff's continued rampage against everyone associated with Cathy. Here's Cathy 2.0's husband, proving that although he's treated as a milquetoast weakling, he's not exactly a kind milquetoast weakling:

"I can't stay with her," he answered crossly. "I'll not stay by myself. She cries to I can't bear it. And she won't give over, though I say I'll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he left the room, moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed for vexation that I couldn't sleep." (113)

And Heathcliff blaming the victim:

Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine [2.0], said, with assumed calmness—"You must learn to avoid putting me in a passion, or I shall really murder you some time!" (131)

Again, this is so clearly a portrait of generational trauma. There is nothing that would induce me to strike up an aquaintance with Heathcliff, yet it's also evident that he has been mistreated for years: dragged from everything he knows to live in remote isolation with the Earnshaws, some of whom are happy to have him there and some of whom treat him with scorn (and some of whom—ahem, Cathy—do both); relegated to the lowest of servants once his master-slash-foster-father (who apparently did not see fit to provide long-term security for him?) dies; never introduced to people who might, like...treat him like a human being and teach him through example what it means to be a decent human being. Cathy, and later Cathy 2.0, is one part spoiled and one part neglected and allowed to run wild without any suggestion that it might be healthy for her to meet people outside their isolated corner of Yorkshire; Cathy's scorn of Heathcliff, which fuels some of his rage, is learned rather than innate, and Cathy 2.0's scorn of one of her cousin Hareton (whom Heathcliff has deliberately raised to be beaten down, uneducated, and violent) is similarly built upon her upbringing.

The Amazon Classics version I read says in the About the Author section that "Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, alternately appalling and beguiling readers—some of whom even questioned the author's sanity" (138). But between this and Rochester in Jane Eyre, I'm not questioning anyone's sanity—I'm wondering just what the Brontë sisters' lives were like, that Rochester was written to be a hero and Heathcliff has some sort of redemption arc. I see that Heathcliff is thought to be based on Branwell, the lone Brontë brother, and they must also have seen so many women die in or around childbirth (just as Charlotte Brontë died of complications from pregnancy, and multiple women in Wuthering Heights die quite young). This all ends up being so terribly, terribly dark, both for reasons intended and for surrounding context.


*Page number are absurd and probably have no relation to page numbers in a physical copy, but this is what my Kindle is telling me.