My review of Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My first reading of this was under force, at school. I loathed it. When I more recently came across it and, for some reason, reread it, I loved it in its entirety. We come to appreciate things, as adults, that we despised as kids.

Adaptations have found their way into four films (the most memorable being director William Wyler's Academy Award winning 1939 version starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon), countless radio incarnations, three TV series, a ballet, three operas and a musical show. 

This, Emily Brontë's first and only novel, appeared in 1847 under the nom de plume Ellis Bell, a year before she died aged 30. Her sister Charlotte then edited Wuthering Heights and arranged its posthumous second edition publication in 1850. Its depiction of human cruelty was contentious, challenging Victorian morality ideals, examining religious hypocrisy, social class and gender roles.

Central themes are passion, jealousy and vengefulness. Smouldering, swarthy Heathcliff and his great love Catherine and many adversaries are described impeccably by earthy housekeeper Nelly Dean, who I'd so like to have a pot of tea and a natter with.

Set on the North Yorkshire Moors between roughly 1771 and 1803, mostly in flashback form, Wuthering Heights is the story's farmhouse setting. Arriving in 1801 to rent nearby Thrushcross Grange, wealthy southern gentleman Mr. Lockwood seeks peace and recuperation. He visits his landlord, Mr. Heathcliff, at his remote neighbouring moorland farmhouse, Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is coarsely mannered, his teenaged mistress of the house reserved and their young male servant seemingly some family member.

During his visit, Lockwood becomes snowed in at Wuthering Heights. He is reluctantly escorted to a bedchamber, where he finds books and graffiti of one-time inhabitant Catherine. He has a nightmare in which ghostly Catherine attempts entry at the window. Lockwood's cries rouse Heathcliff who arrives at the room. Believing Lockwood, Heathcliff opens the window to let in Catherine's ghost, but nothing happens. Transferring Lockwood to his own bedroom, Heathcliff returns to watch the window.

Next morning, after Heathcliff escorts Lockwood back to Thrushcross Grange, housekeeper Nelly Dean recounts to the guest the story of Wuthering Heights' family:

Flashback to thirty years before. Then householder Mr. Earnshaw, on a trip to Liverpool, adopts a homeless gypsy boy, brings home to Wuthering Heights and renames him Heathcliff. Earnshaw's son, Hindley, feels replaced in his father's affections by Heathcliff, turning bitterly jealous. Hindley's sister Catherine befriends Heathcliff, spending hours playing daily with him, out on the moors. Hindley is then packed off to boarding college.

Three years on, when Earnshaw dies, Hindley returns as master of Wuthering Heights with his new wife, Frances. He allows Heathcliff to stay but relegates him to servant status.

After ambling one day to Thrushcross Grange, spying on the Lintons for fun, Heathcliff and Catherine are caught trespassing. Heathcliff is sent home while Catherine, injured by the Lintons' dog, is taken in to recuperate. Remaining with the Lintons some time, Catherine is affected by their gentility. She returns to Wuthering Heights more refined and scorns Heathcliff's roughness. When the Lintons visit, Heathcliff dresses up to impress Catherine and starts an argument with Edgar Linton. Hindley locks Heathcliff in the attic. Catherine tries comforting Heathcliff, who vows revenge on Hindley.

The following year, after having a son, Hareton, Frances dies. The widowed Hindley turns to drink, then moves away for a while. 

Two years on, when Catherine and Edgar Linton become closer friends and then lovers, she distances herself from Heathcliff. Catherine confides in Nelly that Edgar has proposed and she has accepted, although she loves him less than Heathcliff, whom she can't marry due to his low rank and poor education. She instead hopes to use her position as Edgar's wife to elevate Heathcliff. Eavesdropping into this conversation between Catherine and Nelly, Heathcliff hears Catherine reason that it would 'degrade' her to marry him, though he misses her admission to Nelly her love for him over Edgar.

Heathcliff runs away, disappearing without a trace. Distraught, Catherine makes herself ill out of spite. Nursing her to health, Nelly and Edgar soon pander to her every whim to prevent relapse.

Three years on, Edgar and Catherine have married and live together at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff returns, a wealthy gentleman, to Catherine's delight and Edgar's chagrin. Edgar's sister, Isabella, falls for Heathcliff, who encourages her infatuation as a means of revenge. Catherine locks herself in her room, making herself ill again through spite and jealousy.

Heathcliff assumes residence at Wuthering Heights, habitually gambling with Hindley and teaching Hareton bad habits. Hindley has to mortgage Heathcliff the farmhouse to pay his gambling dues and debt. When Hindley dies, six months after Catherine, Heathcliff becomes master of Wuthering Heights. He elopes with Isabella Linton.

When they return some months later, Heathcliff hears of Catherine's illness. With Nelly's aid, he visits her secretly. Catherine's condition turns out to be pregnancy. After giving birth to a daughter, Cathy, Catherine dies. Isabella, pregnant herself, deserts the brutal Heathcliff and flees south, where she gives birth to a son, Linton, before falling ill. She dies and Edgar travels south to retrieve his nephew, Linton, to adopt and educate him.   

Young Cathy, meanwhile, has become a beautiful, spirited girl. Though usually seldom leaving Thrushcross Grange, she ventures farther afield in her father Edgar's absences. Riding across the moors to Wuthering Heights, she discovers her cousin, Hareton. When her father returns with her other cousin, the weak and sickly Linton, the boy's father Heathcliff prohibits Edgar custody, insisting that Linton live instead at Wuthering Heights.

Three years later, on the moors, Nelly and Cathy run into Heathcliff, who takes them to Wuthering Heights to see Linton and Hareton. Heathcliff hopes Linton and Cathy will marry, making Linton heir to Thrushcross Grange. Linton and Cathy begin a secret liaison, echoing that of their respective parents, Heathcliff and Catherine, as youngsters.

The following year, after falling ill, Edgar's condition worsens while Nelly and Cathy are out on the moors, where Heathcliff and Linton trick them into entering Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff holds them captive, enforcing Cathy's marriage to Linton. With Linton's help, Cathy then escapes, returning to the Grange where her father dies.

As master of Wuthering Heights and now Thrushcross Grange, and as Cathy's father-in-law, Heathcliff insists she leave the Grange and move to Wuthering Heights. Soon after she arrives, Linton dies. Though her young cousin Hareton shows her kindness, Cathy becomes entirely withdrawn.

Here, Nelly's long flashback catches up to the present. Lockwood soon tires of the moors, announcing to Heathcliff his departure. Returning to the area by chance, eight months later, with his tenancy at Thrushcross Grange still valid, he lodges there again. Finding Nelly living at Wuthering Heights, he enquires what has happened since he left.

She explains that she moved to Wuthering Heights to replace departing housekeeper Zillah. Hareton, after an accident, became confined to the farmhouse. During his convalescence, he and Cathy became close and got engaged. Heathcliff, after seeing visions of Catherine, stopped eating for four days and was found dead in Catherine's old bedchamber. He was buried next to Catherine.

Readying to leave, Lockwood passes the graves of Catherine, Edgar and Heathcliff. He pauses to contemplate the stillness of the moors.

This is Victorian gothic at its finest. Chilly, ghostly, disturbing and ravishingly beautiful literature that will never be successfully emulated - thank goodness.