Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte. The name of the novel comes from the manor on which the story centers.

Though now taken to be a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights 's initial reception was lukewarm at best. Its innovative structure, which has been likened to a series of Matryoshka dolls, puzzled critics when it first appeared. Some critics of the time even believed it to be an earlier, less mature work from Charlotte Brontë, who had published Jane Eyre that same year under the pseudonym Currer Bell. Subsequent critics revised this view, and most agreed that Wuthering Heights' originality and achievement exceeded Charlotte and Anne's works.

Wuthering Heights has given rise to many adaptations, including several films, radio, and television dramatisations, and two musicals. It also inspired a hit song by Kate Bush, which subsequently has been covered by a variety of artists.

Plot

Brontë's novel tells the tale of Catherine and Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one another, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them both. Social tensions prevent their union, leading Heathcliff to shun and abuse society. The plot is given here in detail, as the book's narration is at times non-linear.

The story is narrated by a character named Lockwood, who is renting a house from Heathcliff. The house, Thrushcross Grange, is close to Wuthering Heights.

Much of the action itself is narrated to Lockwood during his illness by the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange, Nelly Dean. Lockwood's arrival is after much of the story has already happened - but his story is interwoven with Dean's.

Dean's story provides insight into how the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine would have far-reaching repercussions for their families. Heathcliff's passion for Catherine is so dark and sinister that he becomes hellbent on destroying the happiness of her sister-in-law, her daughter and even his own son. This mission of destruction, though fervent during Catherine's lifetime, becomes still more impassioned after her death.

Heathcliff arrives and departs

The plot is complicated, involving many turns of fortune. It begins with Mr. Earnshaw, the original proprietor of Wuthering Heights, bringing back the dark-skinned foundling Heathcliff from Liverpool. Initially, Earnshaw's children - Hindley and Catherine - detest the boy, but over time Heathcliff wins Catherine's heart, to the resentment of Hindley, who sees Heathcliff as an interloper of his father's affections. Later, Hindley is packed off to college by his father. Catherine and Heathcliff become inseparable.

Upon Earnshaw's death three years later, Hindley comes home from college and surprises everyone by also bringing home a wife, a woman named Frances. He takes over Wuthering Heights, and brutalizes Heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. Despite this, Heathcliff and Catherine remain the fastest of friends. By means of an accident (a dog bite), Catherine is forced to stay at the Linton family estate, Thrushcross Grange, for some weeks, wherein she matures and grows attached to the refined young Edgar Linton. When she returns to Wuthering Heights, she goes to some trouble to maintain her friendship with both Edgar and Heathcliff, in spite of them having an instantaneous dislike for each other.

A year later, Frances dies soon after the birth of Hindley's child Hareton. The loss leaves Hindley despondent, and he turns to alcohol. Some two years after that, Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar, causing Heathcliff to leave.

Heathcliff returns

After Catherine has been married to Edgar for three years, Heathcliff returns to see her, having amassed significant wealth. He has duped Hindley into owing him Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff learns of, and takes advantage of, a crush Edgar's sister Isabella has on him and he seduces and elopes with her, much to Edgar's despair. This places Heathcliff in a position to inherit Thrushcross Grange, as well. After his marriage, Heathcliff's true feelings toward Isabella emerge and his cruelty towards her (and Hareton, as the son of his old rival, Hindley) knows no bounds.

Back at Thrushcross Grange, Catherine dies in childbirth, giving birth to her and Edgar's child, a girl— also named Catherine. Isabella flees Heathcliff's cruelty a year after, and later gives birth to a boy, Linton. At around the same time, Hindley dies, and Heathcliff takes final control of Wuthering Heights. He also takes complete control of Hindley's son, Hareton, determined to raise the boy with as much neglect as he suffered at Hindley's hands years earlier. (Hareton, however, will remain loyal to Heathcliff to the end, looking at him as a surrogate father.) In perhaps the most complicated turn of the plot, fifteen or sixteen years later Heathcliff recalls his real son Linton back to Wuthering Heights. The boy is sickly and spoiled. Through a series of events, Heathcliff forces young Catherine and Linton to marry. Soon after, Edgar Linton, father of young Catherine, dies, followed shortly by Heathcliff's son, Linton. This leaves young Catherine a widow and a virtual prisoner at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff gains complete control of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

It is at this point in the story, the winter of 1801, that Lockwood arrives. Dean tells him the past thirty or so years of the story during his illness. Lockwood is horrified and departs for London.

Heathcliff dies

Young Catherine, at first repulsed by Hareton's roughness, eventually grows tender towards him— just as her mother grew tender towards Heathcliff. In her lonely state of existence at Wuthering Heights, Hareton becomes her only source of happiness.

Only through the union of young Hareton and young Catherine can the pattern of hatred and darkness be broken and of course this can only come with Heathcliff's eventual demise at the end of the novel. The difference between young Hareton and young Catherine and Catherine and Heathcliff is that they are matched in social status and experience and therefore have more in common than just their love for one another. Furthermore, it is strongly implied that Heathcliff himself, on seeing their love for one another, no longer cares to pursue his life-long vendetta.

Tormented for years by what he perceives as the elder Catherine's ghost, Heathcliff finally dies, and Catherine and Hareton marry. Heathcliff is buried with Catherine (the elder), and the story concludes with Lockwood visiting the grave, unsure of exactly what to feel.

Supernatural elements

A number of apparently supernatural incidents occur during the novel, although their true nature is always ambiguous. The mystery of Heathcliff's parentage is never solved, and at one point in the novel Nelly Dean entertains the notion that Heathcliff may be some hideous changeling. At the beginning of the novel, Lockwood has a horrible vision of Catherine (the elder) as a child, appearing at the window of her old chamber at Wuthering Heights, begging to be allowed in; not only does Heathcliff, on hearing of this, lend it credence, but when he dies it is noted that the window of his room was left open, raising the possibility that Catherine returned at the moment of his death. After Heathcliff dies, Nelly Dean reports that various superstitious locals have claimed to see Catherine and Heathcliff's ghosts roaming the moors, although in the closing line of the novel Lockwood discounts the idea of "unquiet slumbers for those sleepers in that quiet earth."

In other literature

In Albert Camus' essay "The Rebel", Heathcliff is compared to a leader of the rebel forces. Both are driven by a sort of madness: one by misguided love, the other by oppression. Camus juxtaposes the concept of Heathcliff's reaction to Cathy with the reaction of a disenchanted rebel to the ideal he once held.

Maryse Condé's novel Windward Heights adapted Wuthering Heights to be set in Guadaloupe and Cuba.

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes both have poems titled "Wuthering Heights".

James Stoddard's novel The False House contains numerous references to "Wuthering Heights".

Film and television adaptations

Perhaps the best-known of the film adaptations was released in 1939. It stars Merle Oberon as Catherine Linton, Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff, David Niven as Edgar Linton, Flora Robson as Ellen Dean, Donald Crisp as Dr. Kenneth, Geraldine Fitzgerald as Isabella Linton and Leo G. Carroll as Joseph Earnshaw. The film was adapted by Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht and John Huston. It was directed by William Wyler. The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It did not depict the entire novel, portraying only half.

A 1953 adaptation on BBC Television was scripted by Nigel Kneale, directed by Rudolph Cartier and starred Yvonne Mitchell as Catherine. This version does not survive in the BBC archives.

In 1970 another film adaptation was released, starring Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff and Anna Calder-Marshall as Catherine (the elder). Both fit the part of their respective characters and both actors give admirable performances. This movie does a good job of capturing the wild and supernatural themes of the book, in spite of the shortcomings of the script. It does not cover the whole story. The characters of Nelly, old Earnshaw, Hindley, Edgar, and Isabella are well portrayed.

A 1992 adaptation was the first one to show both generations from the story; that is Heathcliff, Cathy, Edgar, and Hindley, as well as their children. Juliette Binoche plays two roles, Catherine Earnshaw and her daughter. Ralph Fiennes plays Heathcliff.

A 1998 adaptation by Neil McKay for London Weekend Television directed by David Skynner and starring Sarah Smart as Catherine and Robert Cavanah as Heathcliff. Also broadcast by PBS television as part of Masterpiece Theater.

Monty Python's Flying Circus Season 2 episode # 15 featured a sketch "The Semaphore Version of Wuthering Heights".

There was also a 2003 adaptation for MTV. It starred Erika Christensen, Mike Vogel, and Christopher Masterson.

As of 2006, a new film adaptation is in development, with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp presently attached to star. M. Night Shyamalan was once offered the project to direct, but he turned it down to work on The Village, which he later revealed to be inspired partly by the novel).

External links

Reviews, Themes, Motifs, Summaries from Spark Notes
Wuthering Heights – complete book in HTML one page for each chapter.
Bronte Sisters Links: the biggest online link-database regarding the Bronte Sisters, their lives and works
News from the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, Yorkshire
News and information about the Brontës using a blog format.
Brontëana: Brontë Studies Weblog

References

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