The Books: “Wuthering Heights” (Emily Bronte)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Wuthering Heights – by Emily Bronte.

I re-read this book recently and was struck, as if for the first time, by the violence of it. It’s truly remarkable. Cathy and Heathcliff are not your ordinary star-crossed lovers. These two people are individuals, strong-willed, not all that likable all the time, selfish – It’s like that line in Emily Bronte’s poem “Often Rebuked”:

I’ll walk where my own nature leads me
It vexes me to choose another guide.

This is, on the surface, admirable – but if you truly behave that way – and hang the consequences – you can be seen as a monster. People who just walk where their own nature leads are criticized by those in our society who are really concerned with being nice, being polite, playing well with others … It seems that the highest good to some folks is our ability to NOT just walk where our own nature leads … but to suppress those qualities within us that would jar social harmony.

Cathy and Heathcliff thumb their noses at propriety. And it’s almost as though: in this book – society itself doesn’t even exist. Not as anything REAL anyway. It’s a complete construct. Cathy and Heathcliff barely acknowledge its existence – and to those people to whom “fitting in” and “playing well with others” is the highest good – that is the most unforgivable.

It’s fascinating. It’s truly a radical book. God doesn’t exist in this world either. He’s a complete construct as well. All that really exists, all that is real and eternal – is the WILLS of Cathy and Heathcliff. Their LOVE – which threatens to sweep away everything in its path … is the only thing worth saving. Like I said – it’s violent. And Godless. It’s truly not only ahead of its time, but ahead of ours as well. There’s a reason why it’s a classic, and why it speaks to generation after generation. Most of us give “society” its due. We let society tell us how to behave. We accept the rules. But how cathartic it is to hang out with two people who, frankly, could not give a crap. It is a teenager’s paradise, this book. Rebel without a cause. I mean, I read it – and I want to push down everybody who tries to thwart this couple’s overwhelming desire to be together. And love? I don’t know – to call what goes on between Cathy and Heathcliff “love” is just another way of society (the construct) trying to neaten up that which is messy. Love? What a neat nice little word. Cathy and Heathcliff are drawn to each other as though it is another form of Mother Nature – the plants drawn to the sun, spring following winter … a natural process, so natural that to try to get in its way would spell disaster. Mother Nature ALWAYS gets her way. You can put up nice little walls, and she’ll just laugh at you. That’s the kind of thing that goes on between Cathy and Heathcliff.

Morality? HA! Social norms? WhatEVS.
Here’s an excerpt.

Excerpt from Wuthering Heights – by Emily Bronte.

‘Are you alone, Nelly?’

‘Yes, Miss,’ I replied.

She entered and approached the hearth. I, supposing she was going to say something, looked up. The expression of her face seemed disturbed and anxious. Her lips were half asunder, as if she meant to speak, and she drew a breath; but it escaped in a sigh instead of a sentence.

I resumed my song; not having forgotten her recent behaviour.

‘Where’s Heathcliff?’ she said, interrupting me.

‘About his work in the stable,’ was my answer.

He did not contradict me; perhaps he had fallen into a dose.

There followed another long pause, during which I perceived a drop or two trickle from Catherine’s cheek to the flags.

Is she sorry for her shameful conduct? I asked myself. That will be a novelty: but she may come to the point as she will – I shan’t help her!

No, she felt small trouble regarding any subject, save her own concerns.

‘Oh dear!’ she cried at last. ‘I’m very unhappy!’

‘A pity,’ observed I. ‘You’re hard to please: so many friends and so few cares, and can’t make yourself content!’

‘Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?’ she pursued, kneeling down by me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the world to indulge it.

‘Is it worth keeping?’ I inquired, less sulkily.

‘Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to know what I should do. To-day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I’ve given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.’

‘Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know?’ I replied. ‘To be sure, considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this afternoon, I might say it would be wise to refuse him: since he asked you after that, he must be either hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool.’

‘If you talk so, I won’t tell you any more,’ she returned, peevishly, rising to her feet. ‘I accepted him, Nelly. Be quick, and say whether I was wrong!’

‘You accepted him! then what good is it discussing the matter? You have pledged your word and cannot retract.’

‘But say whether I should have done so – do!’ she exclaimed in an irritated tone; chafing her hands together, and frowning.

‘There are many things to be considered before that question can be answered properly,’ I said, sententiously. ‘First and foremost, do you love Mr. Edgar?’

‘Who can help it? Of course I do,’ she answered.

Then I put her through the following catechism: for a girl of twenty-two, it was not injudicious.

‘Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?’

‘Nonsense, I do – that’s sufficient.’

‘By no means; you must say why?’

‘Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with.’

‘Bad!’ was my commentary.

‘And because he is young and cheerful.’

‘Bad, still.’

‘And because he loves me.’

‘Indifferent, coming there.’

‘And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.’

‘Worst of all. And now say how you love him?’

‘As everybody loves – You’re silly, Nelly.’

‘Not at all – Answer.’

‘I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether. There now!’

‘And why?’

‘Nay, you are making a jest of it: it is exceedingly ill-natured! It’s no jest to me!’ said the young lady, scowling, and turning her face to the fire.

‘I’m very far from jesting, Miss Catherine,’ I replied. ‘You love Mr. Edgar, because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him without that, probably; and with it you wouldn’t, unless he possessed the four former attractions.’

‘No, to be sure not: I should only pity him – hate him, perhaps, if he were ugly, and a clown.’

‘But there are several other handsome, rich young men in the world: handsomer, possibly, and richer than he is. What should hinder you from loving them?’

‘If there be any, they are out of my way: I’ve seen none like Edgar.’

‘You may see some: and he won’t always be handsome, and young, and may not always be rich.’

‘He is now; and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would speak rationally.’

‘Well, that settles it: if you have only to do with the present, marry Mr. Linton.’

‘I don’t want your permission for that – I shall marry him; and yet you have not told me whether I’m right.’

‘Perfectly right: if people be right to marry only for the present. And now, let us hear what you are unhappy about. Your brother will be pleased … The old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will escape from a disorderly comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and easy: where is the obstacle?’

‘Here! and here!‘ replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead, and the other on her breast, ‘in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!’

‘That’s very strange! I cannot make it out.’

‘It’s my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I’ll explain it: I can’t do it distinctly, but I’ll give you a feeling of how I feel.’

She seated herself by my again: her countenance grew sadder and graver, and her clasped hands trembled.

‘Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?’ she said, suddenly, after some minutes’ reflection.

‘Yes, now and then,’ I answered.

‘And so do I. I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one: I’m going to tell it – but take care not to smile at any part of it.’

‘Oh! don’t, Miss Catherine!’ I cried. ‘We’re dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us. Come, come, be merry and like yourself! Look at little Hareton! he’s dreaming nothing dreary. How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!’

‘Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his solitude! You remember him, I dare say, when he was just such another as that chubby thing: nearly as young and innocent. However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to listen: it’s not long: and I’ve no power to be merry to-night.’

‘I won’t hear it, I won’t hear it!’ I repeated hastily.

I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had an unusual gloom in her aspect, that made me dread something from which I might shape a prophecy, and forsee a fearful catastrophe.

She was vexed, but she did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject, she recommenced in a short time.

‘If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.’

‘Because you are not fit to go there,’ I answered. ‘All sinners would be miserable in heaven.’

‘But it is not for that. I dreamt once that I was there.’

‘I tell you I won’t harken to your dreams, Miss Catherine! I’ll go to bed,’ I interrupted again.

She laughed, and held me down; for I made a motion to leave my chair.

‘This is nothing,’ cried she: ‘I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever are souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.’

Ere this speech ended, I became sensible of Heathcliff’s presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened til he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he staid to hear no farther.