A beautifully written novel, despite the story being far from beautiful. There is no passion or romance in this novel, the love between Heathcliff and Catherine is in the shadows.
There are no inner reflections or internal conversations in the narrative. Most of the story is the housemaid's account, Ellen/Nelly which she relates to the new tenant after he becomes spooked by Catherine’s ghost and inquires about the history of the place and its residents.
We learn that Heathcliff is brought into the wealthy family by Catherine's father Mr. Earnshaw, who found Heathcliff wandering alone on the streets. He is described as an orphan, dark color, uneducated gypsy boy. Despite of the objections Mr. Earnshaw officially adopts Heathcliff, so he becomes the adoptive brother of Catherine and Hindley.
Hindley is particularly jealous of Heathcliff and makes his life miserable, treating him poorly and discriminating against him.
Catherine, a free-spirited girl full of curiosity and thirsty for adventure, finds in Heathcliff a friend and partner in crime, rebelling against the strict and demanding rules of their society. Catherine and Heathcliff fall in love with each other. However, because of their difference in social status, a marriage is not possible. So Catherine marries Edgar Linton, a boy from another wealthy family. This hurts Heathcliff deeply, he ends up leaving and swearing revenge to everyone who hurt him. As the story develops, Heathcliff turns into a monster.
There is no one single character in the novel that I could sympathize with. At the end of the novel I sympathize more with Hareton, the son of Hindley, who ends up living with Heathcliff after his dad dies. Heathcliff purposely treats him poorly to revenge the treatment he received from the father.
In my opinion, Emily Bronte is illustrating the negative impact of denying the union of two souls meant to be together, simply to comply with social norms. An illness develops from this separation, and everyone involved becomes sick with it. The writing is so exquisite allowing some sort of enjoyment from the dark and bleak narrative.
It amuses me that a movie based on this novel is being promoted right now for Valentine’s Day, because is far from that. Unless Hollywood reshaped the story to make it more romantic. The story for me, fits more for Halloween, as it is full of darkness, illness and ghosts. Very dark. I heard someone in Youtube describe it as a Gothic novel and compare it to Frankenstein, and I agree.
I enjoyed reading it, I was going to re read from the beginning, now that I know the characters. However, I thought best to read it another time.
I've been reading about Emily Bronte. I have a new admiration for her as a writer. This is the only novel she ever published, wondering if it was because of the critics reaction to this one, which was no favorable. They hated her novel but praised her sisters’ more romantic and conventional works.
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