Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff and Class

 

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I read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte recently for the first time. Yes, one of the most famous novels in the English language and I'd only just gotten around to reading it.

I'd mostly been put off by its reputation. I remember Kate Bush's song of the same title from when I was young, and it evoked dreamy girls in love on a windswept moor and the passion of a tragic romance that, in spite of all that kept them apart, was always meant to be, and would continue even unto death. Romeo and Juliet. Gone With The Wind. Twilight. The ultimate teenage girl's (and the odd teenage boy's) fantasy: To be loved with a ferocity like no other. Because it would prove their worthiness to be loved.

Mentions of Heathcliff, the love interest in the story, evoked images of a dark, rugged, handsome stranger whose cool exterior barely masked an untamed and unrestrained passion that would make any woman's heart beat faster. The Ultimate Bad Boy. Bad enough to be wild in bed, but not bad enough to be repulsive.

There have been so many other Period Romance Dramas brought to the screen since, each one earning the journalistic title of 'bodice-ripper', and each iteration featuring more sex as the years went on until that became its defining feature. It kind of became a genre.

So I lost interest quickly as I wasn't the target audience and I had no posh friends I wanted to impress with my reading of such a classic.

A new version of Wuthering Heights has just come out recently, and once again I was not interested. But an internet comment about what this new version failed to include intrigued me, and since the kindle version of the book is almost free, I decided to read it. I didn't expect to like it, but I had nothing to lose, and at least it would answer my curiosity.

Turns out the book was nothing like I expected. And it's nothing like the image I portrayed above.

It's not a romance at all. It's a horror story.

I expected the book to be heavy going, but it's not. It doesn't wax poetic about the Yorkshire moors. In fact, it barely mentions them at all, which is odd, because that's the feature that many commentators mention. Emily Bronte doesn't care about the moors or the outdoors. It's just there. Sometimes it rains. Then it doesn't. Sometimes it's cold. And sometimes it's not. That's it. She doesn't waste too many sentences describing the two houses where all the action takes place either. Are they Tudor houses? Queen Anne style? Size? Colour? Doesn't matter. Not important.

What is important to Emily Bronte are the characters, and these get lavish attention. Their appearance, the thoughts that can be read on their faces, their motivations and machinations. These are the real landscapes of the book, these are where the storms are kept. The entire story takes place within the two houses, and it could easily be turned into a play. You can substitute the moors of Yorkshire for the steppes of Russia, the mountains of Japan or the forest of the Amazon. It wouldn't matter. But you wouldn't be able to change the characters without losing the whole point of the story.

The story moves along at a brisk pace, too. I've tried twice, for instance, to read Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake, which, despite being written only 80 years ago, and also featuring a story heavily reliant on the characters, drags and wanders around in circles. The descriptions of characters felt tedious rather than informative, and it got to where I hated all of them until I quit reading about them. Compared to that, Wuthering Heights feels very modern, with something inserted at the end of each chapter that makes you want to read the next. There's a list of victims, I felt for them all, and the stakes grew as the story progressed, until I just had to know what happened. That's the very definition of a page-turner. This book is easier to read for a modern audience than most others of its time.

Spoilers will follow, which normally wouldn't be necessary for a 200 year old book, but the movies and the story's reputation so little resemble the original, that I feel duty-bound to add this, in case you want to read this classic and see what all the fuss was about.

I don't want to go into too much detail. I just want to focus on some key aspects of the characters. Let's start with Cathy, the bewitching protagonist of Kate Bush's song.

Cathy is a narcissist. There's no two ways about it. As a child she was wild and spent most of her time outdoors with Heathcliff, her adopted brother. Then she became a teenager and experienced the polite advances of Edgar Linton, from the grand house four miles down the road. She grew besotted with life in that house, loving the flattery and the sense of being doted on as a lady. This put her at odds with Heathcliff, who wanted to stay wild, but she wanted to have it both ways. To stay wild at heart with Heathcliff, who was a soulmate by this point, whilst also getting the benefits of a lady's life with Edgar. She's torn by the two existences, but she remains adamant about clutching everything to her, rather then let anything, or anyone, go. She wheedles, she plots, she puts on a fake act for Edgar and beseeches Heathcliff to stick with her. Everything is about her and what she feels, and she has tantrums if she doesn't get her way. I don't know why nobody mentions Cathy's narcissism in comments about this book. Maybe they think this is a woman's default setting. The story's narrative doesn't think so, however, and it is made very clear to the reader that Cathy is self-centred, a manipulator and a drama queen. Eventually she declares out loud that she is only with Edgar for his money, which she hopes to use to raise Heathcliff's status. Unfortunately, Heathcliff overhears Cathy's statement that marrying Heathcliff would 'degrade' her, which is why she chooses to marry Edgar instead. Heathcliff goes off in a huff and disappears for three years, and it's when he comes back that all the trouble starts.

At this point it could be argued that Cathy was bound by the fate of a 19th century woman, unable to steer a life of her own, so if she didn't want to live a life of poverty (for Heathcliff had nothing) she had to choose Edgar. This is in fact her own argument. But the book proves it wrong twice. Firstly when Heathcliff returns with wealth and learning. He got it from somewhere. He could have got it when he was with her. The second time was when Edgar's sister is forced to run away (more on that later) with no money and ends up in London, bringing up her son, who is given a gentleman's education. Clearly, in the book's world, there were options for women. Cathy really should have just followed her heart and chosen Heathcliff. But that would have been hard work and she wouldn't have been pampered.

Cathy really cannot comprehend why Edgar should mind Heathcliff's presence and her obvious infatuation for him. And she doesn't understand why Heathcliff cannot be more patient and less irritable at seeing her at Edgar's side. She's not stupid. She's just narcissistic to the point where everything is about her and everybody else should really be more understanding.

And then she dies. Halfway through the story.

Yes, halfway. Literally. The story carries on without her, because the story is not really about her and Heathcliff. It's about Heathcliff.

Heathcliff's got a chip on his shoulder the size of the Empire State building. And a fearsome temper, with a strength to match. He has dark hair and is ruggedly handsome. He's also a cunt.

No other way of describing him, really. Let me give you some examples.

When he returns from exile he imposes himself on Edgar so he can see Cathy. Eventually he gets a chance to bully Edgar in his own parlour and has to be chased off by the hired help. He fumes out loud that Edgar should let him see Cathy if that's what made her happy, because that's he would do if he was in Edgar's shoes (yeah, right).

He revenges himself on the stepbrother who treated him badly when he was younger and who owns the house of Wuthering Heights. He gambles with him, making him lose all his money, then accepts the mortgage of the house as payment of debts. The stepbrother falls ill and is found in a room by Heathcliff and a servant. Heathcliff sends the servant off to get a doctor, then claims the stepbrother was dead when he found him. The servant mutters that the master (the stepbrother) was still alive when he left the room, implying that maybe Heathcliff ended his hated enemy's life.

Okay, nothing salacious yet, and all explained by the circumstances of Heathcliff's miserable upbringing and love for Cathy. But there's more.

His stepbrother had a son, whom Heathcliff adopts as his own. He then goes out of his way to make sure the boy receives no education and is put to work as a farm labourer. Because he has no education Heathcliff lets him know how stupid he is, and how useless. Basic child abuse. The boy grows up but cannot read the inscription of his own surname carved above the main door, which would have told him that the house was his by right, stolen by Heathcliff. Every time we see him he looks awkward and miserable. Heathcliff laughs whenever he mentions his fate.

Heathcliff loathes Edgar, obviously, but he also hates Edgar's sister, Isabella. He thinks they're both frail and pathetic. After Cathy informs Heathcliff that Isabella is the actual heir to the estate and therefore wealthy, Heathcliff seduces Isabella in a brief illicit romance and elopes with her. On the night they run away, he makes a point of taking Isabella's little dog and hanging it by its neck in the courtyard. After marrying Isabella he takes her back to Wuthering Heights and lets her know how much he actually despises her, mocking her for actually believing him to be a romantic figure, and teasing her own inaction when he tried to kill her dog in front of her. Now that he has her inheritance he has no use for her and keeps her in the house, unable to go out. Eventually she escapes, pregnant (not likely a consensual conception) and lives alone with her son far away.

Isabella eventually falls ill and dies (a lot of people fall ill and die in this story - a common occurrence for this period, no doubt). The son, now fourteen, is frail and sickly. Edgar wants his sister's son to live with him and be cared for, but Heathcliff catches wind of this and demands that his son live with him at Wuthering Heights. Everybody fears the boy, named Linton, will suffer the same fate as the other boy Heathcliff adopted, except that Linton likely wouldn't survive the rough treatment. Heathcliff seems to think so too and announces that he'll bring Linton up as a gentleman, with a proper education. He does this because he has a plan for Linton.

Cathy died giving birth to her daughter, Catherine. Edgar dotes on Catherine. Heathcliff has plans for Catherine and Linton to get together and get married, thus giving him all of Catherine and Linton's inheritances, and spiting Edgar. He openly despises Linton for being so sickly and frail, and puts the fear of god into him. Linton befriends Catherine and is told to lure her into Wuthering Heights (with terrifying consequences if he doesn't), which he eventually does. Heathcliff then imprisons her in the house and declares that she cannot leave until she has married Linton. Linton is ill and near death, but Heathcliff only cares that he live long enough to be married and waves away any thought of getting him a doctor. Catherine pleads with him to let her go because her father Edgar is also ill and dying, but Heathcliff refuses until she marries. When she tries desperately to get the key off him he savagely beats her. Forced to marry Linton, Catherine escapes to see her father just as he dies, but afterward is forced back to Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff has now taken revenge on both his stepbrother and Edgar and is in possession of both estates, but still treats everyone around him horribly and has them walking on egg shells in his presence, because everyone is so afraid of him and his violence.

Does Heathcliff sound like a dark and romantic enigma to you? Critics at the time of Wuthering Height's publication certainly didn't think so. Many were shocked at the cruelty on display, which indicates that this sort of behaviour wasn't okay back then, any more than it would be now. Heathcliff is a monster. He may initially have had reasons to be a monster, but a monster he is. He abuses three young people who never did anything to him. And the narrative makes it clear that Heathcliff is the villain. He is routinely described as a fiend.

But that all changed. In 1939, a movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights was produced, starring Lawrence Olivier. Interestingly, it only adapted half the novel, ending with Cathy's death. Thus the entire movie was only about Cathy and Heathcliff's romance. If you read the plot of the movie, you can see how it veered away from the essential conclusions of the book. This was likely the birth of Heathcliff's reputation as a sexually appealing bad boy, not to mention the darkly attractive appeal of the Yorkshire moors. Most subsequent adaptations, and there have been many, focussed only on Cathy and Heathcliff, and ignore Heathcliff's actions after Cathy dies. Heathcliff the abuser became Heathcliff the tragic lover. His ghost, therefore, enjoys a better reputation than he did in his day.

If you were to put the real Heathcliff on the screen, it would be the equivalent of showing James Bond drowning a bag of kittens. It's understandable, therefore, that they had to sanitise him.

But if Heathcliff is the villain of the book, then who is the hero? It is certainly not Cathy. Nor is it Edgar, who maintains only a passive resistance to Heathcliff's designs. No, to my mind, the hero of the book, and obviously so, is Ellen, the housekeeper.

Ellen is the one who tells the story to the guest who narrates the story. Ellen grew up with Heathcliff and Cathy, and nursed two of Heathcliff's victims. It is she, with the limited powers available to her, that resists Heathcliff's designs, passively and actively. She is the one who tries to warn and advise Heathcliff's victims before they are ensnared, except they do not fully listen. Hampered by her station as a servant, she nevertheless does her best. She is the epitome of working-class common sense. Maybe this is why she has been downgraded today.

In the 1950's some critic wrote a book claiming that Ellen was the real villain of the story. And in the latest movie she is shown to be the manipulative one, not Cathy.

Critics claim that, among other things, Wuthering Heights explores the theme of class in Britain. I think the real symptom of class warfare is the fact that Ellen has consistently been brushed under the carpet or dragged through the mud, while a narcissist and a sadist have been elevated to mythic status. They had status and power, while Ellen did not. They were pretty and handsome, she was not. They got the Hollywood treatment, which appealed to people's own narcissistic natures. Ellen was removed from the top step of the podium and essentially kicked out of the back door.

Ellen is the real hero of the story. Heathcliff's just a dick.