It caught me off guard
By Ayesha / Spinebreakers Crew
Wuthering Heights is a fictional classic book, written in 1847, by Emily Bronte.
Wuthering Heights tells the tale of Catherine Earnshaw, a relatively wealthy country girl, and Heathcliff, an orphan boy who had been adopted by her father, and how their perplexing relationship has effects on their own generation and the next. Although Catherine's love for Heathcliff is overwhelming and fervent, she chooses to marry Edgar Linton, a man in the same league as her, purely for furtherance in her social life. From then on, Heathcliff, as an act of revenge, spends the rest of his life proving his potential (by acquiring money and property) and seeks to punish all those who he himself hated and those who caused him to suffer in his youth.
The story is told by Mr Lockwood, a tenant of Thrushcross Grange who is visiting Heathcliff, his landlord, who resides at Wuthering Heights. Unable to walk through the snow, he finds himself stuck at his landlord's residence. Here, he receives a discourteous reception from Mrs Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw. Lockwood returns to Thrushcross Grange a very curious man and inquires into the business of the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights, by asking Ellen Dean, who was once a housekeeper there. She willingly recounts their abnormal past, weaving through the betrayal of Heathcliff and the insanity of Catherine, and the abhorrent revenge that followed.
In all honesty, when I had finished the book, I was shocked. I had always had the impression Wuthering Heights was a romantic novel. To me, the novel seemed to be a sort of anti-romance. Although the love between Heathcliff and Catherine is intense, it is not external. They do not parade their love with conspicuous actions such as embraces. It is a hidden, more deeper and spiritual kind of love. She herself admits to Nelly, "...I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
It was quite a surprise to be exposed to this different kind of love. In general, we are subject to the romantic and dreamy kind of love shown in movies(such as Titanic). Wuthering Heights introduces a mysterious paradoxical kind of love. Heathcliff and Catherine cannot seem to live with or without each other.
At first, in some ways I thought that the novel was an anticlimax. I found myself wondering at the end of it whether there was any actual point to the story, or what the moral of the story was. However, after thinking about characteristic parts of the book, I started to peice the dominating themes together and I began to appreciate the individual parts of the book rather than the whole. For example, one large theme within the book is 'Nature'. Bronte uses a clever technique, where she subconsciously warns the readers of change by using nature references. At one point of the book, a howling wind forebodes the reader of a coming death. At others, she uses nature references to emphasise that of a character. For example, she often describes the wild moors by Wuthering Heights which I find emphasise the wild character of Heathcliff.
Although at first, I wasn't too fond of the book, it did grow on me and I did enjoy it. It wasn't as cliched as I had expected it to be and that caught me off guard (which is what a good book should do!). I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who is tired of reading about the same love we hear about in songs and movies.