Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights. Ugh.

After reading Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer, in which Heathcliff and Cathy are mentioned several times, a friend of mine and I decided to read Emily Bronte's novel.

Wow. What a mistake.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is set in the English country side around 1801. It is the "love" story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, two childhood friends who fall desperately and completely in love. Despite Catherine's selfishness and Heathcliff's evil, these two come against all odds to be with each other.

Or DO they???

I found this book to be atrocious, confusing and hypocritical. I don't understand how this book can be compared to the like of Romeo and Juliet, and Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. The only thing that I can possibly compliment it on is the complicated and detailed plot. (i don't know how she did it. Honestly.) To quote another book: "It's not a love story, it's a hate story." I couldn't have said it better myself, Edward.

Moving away from my dangerous obsession with the Twilight characters, Wuthering Heights is told through the perspective of a new tenant at the grounds, Mr. Lockwood. But the story itself is told TOO him from a maid named Nelly (or Ellen) who was there to witness most of Cathy and Heathcliff's lives. And boy, are they messed up.

***WARNING! I don't know if these are considered spoilers, but i do talk about everything important that happens***

Heathcliff, for instance, is just kind of found by Mr. Earnshaw, Cathy's father, and taken into the family. Cathy's older brother Hindley, hates him because Heathcliff is treated the "favorite" by Mr. Earnshaw. As children, Cathy is a bratty trouble maker and Heathcliff is her brooding right hand man. But then they begin to grow up, Cathy becomes more of a lady, Mr. Earnshaw dies, leaving Hindley to become the master of the house and degrade Heathcliff to a servant and the two childhood friends are beginning to fall in love.

Okay, so up to this point you're thinking "Hey, this isn't THAT bad, right? I mean, they've got flaws, big deal, every character has flaws, right?" WRONG! Yeah, every character has flaws, but this book is like the queen-bee-mother of all character mess-ups. You know why? Because Heathcliff runs away as Cathy is declaring her love to him, then Cathy marries somebody else (some pansy named Edgar Linton).

Right now you're probably thinking, "Oh, its not that bad. I bet Heathcliff comes back and then runs away with Cathy or something." Nope. Wrong again. You'd think that would happen, but it doesn't. Instead, Heathcliff married Edgar Linton's sister Isabella.

Yeah. Exactly.

But that's not all! Oooh no. The story keeps going when Heathcliff decides to ruin another generation of innocents at manors of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange (say that 5 times fast).

Overall, I'd say it was a terrible book. Absolutely terrible. The characters were nasty, nasty people and i think that the thing i disliked about it the most was how none of the characters had a saving grace. I don't know. You might feel differently, but i like my main characters to at least TRY to be normal, or kind, or interesting. That's another thing that tears this book apart, it could have been stupendous had Ms. Bronte written it in another way and allowed the reader to see for themselves what is in the heads of Cathy and Heathcliff and Hindley etc. Instead, we just get the second hand judgements of Nelly... I shouldn't be so harsh on her though, she's probably my favorite character.

But read it. Seriously. I know i just berated the heck out of this book but it IS a classic and there are some things that this book can teach you. Tell me what you think.