Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte
PDF e-book on Kindle. First published 1847.
This is a psychological study of how one man, 'to whom evil is done, does evil in return' (to quote W.H. Auden). The elderly Earnshaw lives in 'Wuthering Heights' with his son Hindley and daughter Catherine. Returning from a business trip, he brings home the orphan Heathcliff, who is badly treated by Hindley, though befriended by Catherine, when their father/guardian dies. In an earnest, though misguided attempt to attain a position where she could free Heathcliff from Hindley's authority, Catherine marries her neighbour Edward Linton of Thrushcross Grange. Outraged by his love becoming someone else's wife, Heathcliff disappears. He reappears after some years a rich man, marries Isabella, sister of Edward Linton, takes her to Wuthering Heights, where he first takes residency as a guest. He slowly gains ascendancy over Hindley, whose gambling habits drive him to yielding all his wealth to his hated, adopted brother. He has in the meanwhile married and has had a son, called Hareton Earnshaw after his father. He looses his wife to tuberculosis. Catherine, meanwhile has grown tired of Edward, though she has a daughter by him, also called Catherine. She supports Heathcliff when her husband and her friend confront each other. In the meantime Heathcliff has a son by Isabella, who runs away from him and raises her son, Linton, as a physically and psychologically weak boy. Now come a series of deaths, first Hindley, then Isabella, thus giving Heathcliff complete control of his son and the estate at Wuthering Heights. Unable to stand separation from her childhood friend and lover, Catherine dies. Heathcliff uses his great physically strength, his harsh temper and the financial powers he has acquired to make life miserable for the widower Edward, as well for Hareton, and to some extent for Linton his son. To further gratify his thirst for revenge, and his desire to gain control of the estate of the Grange as well, he maneuvers and gets the young Catherine to fall in love with, and marry his son Linton. He makes the two lead a miserable life at the Heights. Edward dies, and then Linton. Though he has now completely attained his crooked ambitions, Heathcliff dies a miserable death, tortured by the memory of his love Catherine, and the consciousness of his failure to attain her. The young widow Catherine now marries Hareton, who, despite the best efforts of Heathcliff to make him a brute, turns out well under her influence.
The entire action takes place in the two estates, which are about 5 miles apart. The setting of Wuthering Heights, especially as described in winter time, is a kind of 'House of Usher' (as described by Edgar Allen Poe), a gloomy complement to the personality of Heathcliff. There is very little description of any place outside these, bare references to a nearby village of Gimmerton, and some mention of the far-off town, which is where Heathcliff was found, and where he later made his fortune. There is however no description at all of the circumstances under which he was found. Why did the elderly Earnshaw adopt him? Was he his illegitimate son? There is not a even a hint to explain this background. Heathcliff, though, is always the 'other', a tough, unhappy, ill-tempered, physically powerful, uncultured man. He is presented however as essentially honest, and the others around him are presented as cultured, but dishonest, and weak, psychologically and physically.
The book has powerful characterizations, but is somewhat limited in its scope and imagination. It is essentially a study of the ruin of two landed families for a quarter of a century due to the thoughtlessness, it is implied, of a sentimental old man who brought home a devil.
No comments:
Post a Comment