'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Brontë is a Mad and Passionate Masterpiece

Sophia Alexander (me!)
with my old copy of
Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights was Emily Brontë’s only published novel, crammed with all of her intensity, passion, and verve, seemingly!  I’ve read it for my first time as a grownup, just before her 204^th birthday on July 30^th (she was born in 1818 in Yorkshire, England, almost exactly a year after Jane Austen's death. Hmm...). What a voice. I’m going to critique her, however, just as I critiqued Jane Austen (heresy!), but first let me say that this book is a masterpiece. 

I can honestly claim that I’ve never read a book with more caustic characters, as a whole. Fascinating, sometimes even with a biting sense of humor.

“Look here Joseph,” [Cathy] continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf. “I’ll show you how far I’ve progressed in the Black Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it. The red cow didn’t die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among providential visitations!”

“Oh, wicked, wicked!” gasped the elder….

I thought her conduct must be prompted by a species of dreary fun.

And so must Emily’s readers think! At least at times. Other times, it's a bit more brutal and heartrending. 

Perhaps my biggest critique of Emily’s actual writing is that her female characters keep developing nearly the same character eventually (excluding Nelly). For example, Isabella Linton is supposed to be far milder than Catherine, but she becomes just as impudent as Catherine after Catherine’s death.  Young Cathy (Catherine’s daughter) follows the same pattern.  Mind that I find their saucy tongues quite entertaining, and perhaps I should give Emily the benefit of the doubt: she may have meant to represent that under trying, abusive circumstances, sweet, cultivated women will all become a bit mad! 

I’m blown away far more this time than when I read it as a girl—both times the same copy, a now falling-apart Watermill Classic paperback edition, put out in 1983, that I received with my Troll book order at school. I still find it odd that books can be reprinted with no notation on the copyright page of the original publication date. At least this edition does mention in the About the Author section that Wuthering Heights was actually first published in 1847.  Emily would likely have produced many other great works if she hadn’t died the next year in 1848, age 30—her life snuffed out all too early, like so many of the novel’s characters. In fact, it almost seems that someone was truly making a ‘clear house of it’ for all the Brontë’s around this time.

Even though I think it a monumental work of art now, what I recall most about it from my girlhood is arguing that Jane Eyre, by Emily’s older sister, was a far better story (my own younger sister disagreed). I suppose I should probably reread Jane Eyre now, too, to see if I still feel the same way! At the time, I found it difficult to connect with the characters in Emily’s novel of eccentrics, whereas I completely identified with poor, relatable Jane Eyre. The only truly reasonable person in Wuthering Heights seems to be the motherly housekeeper Nelly Dean, who serves as the narrator of much of the story, and I certainly didn’t identify with her as a preteen. Perhaps not so much now, either, but more than before. I can also relate to the passions of the characters better, too, of course. Overall, though, I regard Wuthering Heights as gripping, highly dramatized entertainment in comparison with, say, the social realism of Jane Austen.

Emily Brontë

I very much appreciate novels written in their author’s own historical era to give us a realistic depiction of their time, such as Jane Austen’s novels. This one was actually written as a historical novel, however; it was set mostly in the late 1700s until 1802.  Given how repressive we ourselves judge the era a half-century before our own births, I assume Emily was attempting to depict a much more repressive time for women than that of her own day. Even so, knowing that she was writing this before 1847, you can still glean far more about the era than from an author writing centuries later in our own time. The setting is stark, though, and those poor young people were so isolated in the stories (especially the women) that I felt quite horrified for them. What abuse they had to endure. Young Cathy’s relatively happy situation at the end is entirely due to her adaptable nature and is still far from ideal.

Now, as I so like to do, let's shift gears a bit to chat about possible inspirations: 

First, there is the fairly shocking incident of Catherine’s coffin side being removed so that their bodies could lie together in the grave. This is perhaps inspired by a true story: King George II commanded similarly for his wife Caroline’s coffin--for the side of it to be removable so that his coffin to adjoin hers. She predeceased him, and he wanted to eventually lie with her in their resting place, undivided for the rest of eternity (he died in 1760). So perhaps that true story inspired Emily!

I mentioned before in my blog about Northanger Abbey how Wuthering Heights seemed to have been inspired at least in part by the protagonist Catherine’s character, especially, even having the same name—only, ironically, it’s set a little before Northanger Abbey, as if it could be Northanger Abbey’s inspiration!

The relatively happy situation at the end of Wuthering Heights for Cathy reminded me of a similar romantic scenario in one of my favorite novels (at least it’s a favorite book beginning), I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith, in which a young, scorned farmhand turns out to be far more intelligent than he seems at first.  Hmm, that also makes one think of the film The Princess Bride, which takes it to an entirely different level!

Finally, consider Linton Heathcliff, Cathy’s whiny, spindly cousin, as the inspiration for the young, crippled master of the manor, Colin Craven (Mary’s cousin), in The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

I truly enjoyed Wuthering Heights—Emily Brontë’s singular lifetime achievement. She accomplished in her twenties what most writers can never achieve. What a stunning cast of characters. What an impossibly passionate tale.