Wuthering Heights

Part 1

Why is Heathcliff such a cunt?

From the beginning Heathcliff was seen as being less than human, and unworthy of common decency. At first this made me pity him but upon further reading I began to question whether those who felt this way towards him were in fact correct, “it is but a boy – yet, the villain scowls so plainly in his face, would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts, as well as features?”

It is difficult to determine the reasons for his being the way he is, is it due to his previous life “starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb in the streets of Liverpool”, I mean he will have to have fought for his survival before Master Earnshaw had picked him up, or it may be due to the influence of the spoilt Catherine, “Cathy when she learnt the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing”, or perhaps it was just in his nature to be a cunt.

Cathy and Heathcliff’s “love” story

I understand that love can be all encompassing, hell I have done some crazy things over the man I fell in love with, but Cathy’s love for Heathcliff is worrisome to say the least.  “Who is to separate us, pray? They’ll meet the fate of Milo! * Not as long as I live, Ellen – for no mortal creature.”

*  The fate of Milo of Croton; he died after getting his hands stuck in a split tree trunk while trying to tear it apart. Leaving him vulnerable to wolves who devoured him.

Cathy is an egotistical, delusional bitch who somehow makes Edgar Linton fall for her

I shall never understand what Edgar Linton ever saw in Catherine Earnshaw, from the very beginning she treated him with such disregard that it bordered on embarrassing, “you should not have spoken to him.’ ‘He was in a bad temper, and now you’ve spoilt your visit, and he’ll be flagged – I hate him to be flagged! I can’t eat my dinner! Why did you speak to him, Edgar?”, for some odd reason Edgar proposed marriage to Catherine that same evening, truly baffling.

Even after accepting his proposal she still declared her love for Heathcliff to Nelly, well declared her love whilst saying becoming his wife would degrade her, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know I love him; and that, not because he is handsome, Nelly., but because he is more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightening, or frost from fire” – I’d personally argue that Cathy and Heathcliff’s souls were made up of dung and Edgar’s of naivety.

Cathy being a jealous cunt toward Isabella (Edgar’s younger sister)

 Again, I do not understand what the Linton sibling’s saw in these two, but Isabella grew to have a soft spot for Heathcliff (more on that shit show later*). Cathy did not take kindly to Isabella’s growing feelings, and jealousy towards hers and Heathcliff’s “friendship”, “Heathcliff, I’m proud to show you, at last, somebody that dotes on you more than myself. I expect you to feel flattered – nay, it’s not Nelly; don’t look at her! My poor little sister-in-law is breaking her heart by mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty. It lies in your own power to be Edgar’s brother! No, no, Isabella, you sha’n’t run off,’ she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the confounded girl, who had risen, indignantly.”

Heathcliff and Cathy are a match made in hell - * more on that shit show later

Heathcliff decides to marry Isabella, and they all live as one big happy family. If only. It seems that Heathcliff has taken a leaf out of Cathy’s books and married into the Linton family despite not feeling an ounce of love towards his betrothed. He literally hung her dog in front of her and tried to kill it, this is before they ran away together and got married; “She cannot accuse me of showing a bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog”. Once again, I put forward the question, what the fuck did the Linton siblings see in these two monsters?

“He says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him.” – the Linton’s are nothing more than pawns in this fucked up love story.

Part 2

Did the Fate of Milo of Croton come for Cathy?

“Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it.”  - Cathy’s decision to accept Edgar’s marriage proposal ultimately resulted in her death, from the start she knew deep down that it was the wrong decision, “in my soul, and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!”

I’m struggling with the idea that Cathy loved Edgar, I initially believed she only married him for selfish reasons, “Nelly, I see now, you think me a selfish wretch, but, did it never strike you that, if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? Whereas, if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power?”, but upon further reflection part of me thinks she truly did love him, just not in the same vein she loved Heathcliff. Heathcliff’s return to the Grange resulted in Catherine suffering from a brain fever* that she would never recover from. It is disputed whether Cathy’s death was due to a suicide, and on the one hand I do believe her death was due to her own actions, I do not believe that it was purposeful.

I believe Cathy used all the strength her body could muster to ensure that her daughter would be born and survive her, “About twelve o’clock, that night, was born the Catherine you saw at Wuthering Heights, a puny, seven months’ child; and two hours after the mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar.”.

In the end Catherine was laid to rest with a piece of Edgar Linton and Heathcliff upon her chest, “On the floor a curl of light hair, fastened with a silver thread, which, on examination, I ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung around Catherine’s neck. Heathcliff had opened the trinket, and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them together”.

* an imprecise, dramatic term for severe inflammation or infection of the brain (like meningitis or encephalitis), causing high fever, delirium, headaches, and confusion, often appearing after emotional shock in Victorian literature but representing serious, often fatal, real diseases, dreaded for their high mortality before antibiotics.

You cannot deny the love Heathcliff has for Catherine

I know I went on, and on and on about how much of a cunt Heathcliff was in part 1 but upon reading the grief he was experiencing after the passing of Catherine I cannot help but feel my heart break a little for him,“And I pray one prayer – I repeat it till my tongue stiffens – Catherine Earnshaw*, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you – haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe – I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! Only do not leave me in the abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!’

He dashed his head against a knotted trunk*; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears.”

* Cathy will always be Catherine Earnshaw in the eyes of Heathcliff, even though she married into the Linton family he will always see her as the girl he fell in love with at Wuthering Heights.

* The trunk that Heathcliff banged his head against could be argued to be symbolic of the trunk that Cathy tried to “split apart” with her own two hands when she accepted the proposal from Edgar.

Heathcliff using everyone as pawns in his game, once again

I really detest how Heathcliff views his own son, he is nothing more than a pawn in his vendetta against Edgar Linton, “my son is prospective owner of your place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain to be his successor. Besides, he’s mine, and I want the triumph of seeing my descendent fairly lord of their estates.” The way he describes his child is reminiscent of how they spoke about Heathcliff when he was first brought to the Grange, “when it was set on its feet”, “of his seeing it starving”, as if they’re not really a human being but a mere object or a piece of property, “I feared I should have to come down and fetch my property myself – you’ve brought it have you? Let us see what we can make of it.” Is this taught behaviour or Heathcliff just being a massive cunt again? I would argue likely a bit of both.