The End of Wuthering Heights

What happens to...

Linton Heathcliff? He marries Cathy Linton, after Heathcliff imprisons her in the house and forces them to marry so that Cathy won't get her inheritance. He is very weak and feeble, and is very selfish and willing to sacrifice her to Heathcliff so that he won't get hurt. He does pull through for her when he lets Cathy escape to see her father before he dies but he has no courage of his own. He dies shortly after he marries Cathy.

Hareton Earnshaw? He grows up completely uneducated and as a force of nature, but actually does have a good heart. Heathcliff encourages every bad unacceptable behavior in him so as to place him in the same position he was under Hindley. However Hareton really respects Heathcliff and sees him as a true father figure. Eventually, he falls for Cathy Linton and allows her to educate him and they eventually marry and move to Thruscross Grange.

Cathy Linton? She is very nice and mannered but still has a very selfish nature and still has a superiority complex about those she loves, especially regarding Hareton as she believes she is better than him. In the end she corrects her mother's mistake by overlooking the "degraded" nature of Hareton and is happy with him.

Wuthering Heights and Media con't

Things our class encountered include a scholarly article about Catherine's two loves, including Heathcliff as her transcendental love and Edgar as her more temporary, empirical love; comparing Heathcliff to Frankenstein, comparing Heathcliff to a cannibal.

Are scholarly articles going to help keep literature alive?

Yes and no, people don't read scholarly articles for fun but they are still relevant. But since the people who are writing them are also writing for people who have learned and studied the same things they may be essentially writing for themselves, or to their own elite group.

How do we make scholarship relevant and humane??

The scholar has to translate their philosophical and high flown educated language into ordinary English, which may ensure they are saying something relevant and real. If each layer is peeled back to something more basic, it might keep scholarship alive.

In the movie (1992), other important facts include that they used the same character for Catherine Earnshaw Linton and Cathy Linton Heathcliff. It suggests the entwinement of love and hate between Catherine and her daughter. Heathcliff couldn't hate the real Catherine but he could take it out on her daughter, who still looks like her but whom he does not love. (For example, Mr. Lockwood at the beginning says the ghost has the same face as Cathy Linton. Also Heathcliff tells his son Linton to write a love letter to Cathy and Heathcliff tells him what to write. As he does he pictures Catherine's face and as the camera pulls away it is actually Cathy). Having the same actress is actually medium specific -- can only do it in movies.

Also in the movie (1939), it was unique to see the facial expressions and non-verbal communication in the movies. It is not as dark and it is much calmer than when I envisioned it when I read the novel.

Is there a reason a woman would want to interrupt the traditional romance story??

Why would Bronte want to make it darker??

Perhaps, this is how it really is, it makes it more realistic. It also makes it more believable, this is the real live version of the Cinderella story your parents are telling you. It also maybe gives the women more control over the love story, as it has been written by men for so long. However, Catherine's story relates to many love stories with two types of love, such as the Notebook story, and also Sweet Home Alabama. It is possible to have both kinds of love. But is it impossible to find a person who is your soulmate and the person who is socially compatible with you? If they are the same person, is that just Cinderella territory?? Is it real?

Wuthering Heights and Media: Assignment

As my other source of media for this work of Literature, I watched the 1992 version of Wuthering Heights with actors Juliette Binochet and Ralph Fiennes. It was a very interesting take on the book, which I was still reading while I watched, and did stay for the most part true to the happenings and sequence of the book. All the characters were very similar and it followed a chronological order. The scene in the movie that was most shocking to me however was the scene and the beginning of Volume II, when Ellen Dean comes to tell Heathcliff that Catherine has died.

Now, I had read Wuthering Heights before in high school and I had also read this part of the novel before I watched the movie. Yet the scene actually moved me to tears. In the book, I pictured a dark scene with Heathcliff standing in a garden or park-like scene behind Thrushcross Grange looking totally wild and dirty, having already banged his head against the tree several times before Nelly arrives. In the book, Heathcliff cannot stand to see Nelly crying, and curses Catherine for dying and leaving him on the earth. He screams at her to haunt him and drive him mad until he dies and then bashes his head against a tree, making it bleed. It is a very powerful scene, filled with passion and anger and hate and love.

However this is not how it takes place in the movie. In this version, there is a specific lone tree in the moors that was of great significance to Catherine and Heathcliff in their youth. This is where Nelly meets him. Heathcliff neither yells, nor shows any sign of violence, and is more like the Heathcliff character I envisioned in the book. He holds all his pain and anguish inside himself, scarcely letting it be seen. However to me, this made it all the more difficult to bear. He speaks to Catherine in a quiet voice, as if she is standing next to him, and sounds more pleading and desperate than angry that she died. It was absolutely heartwrenching and actually envoked a lot of sympathy from me.

The killer part for me was one line at the end. In the movie, when Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights for 3 years upon hearing Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, Catherine is physically and emotionally devastated. The scene shows her leaving the Heights to go to Thruscross Grange to marry Edgar and her voice comes over the scene and says "I cannot live without my life, I cannot live without my soul." And it is as if she is saying it to Heathcliff. This is the line Heathcliff speaks in the presence of Ellen but more to Catherine as he learns of her death. It is the first time in the movie we see Heathcliff as an openly loving character.

The only bad thing I have to say about this movie is that without reading the book, I do not think I would have had the slightest clue what was going on. I watched the movie at home with my mom this weekend and actually had to get out the family tree page in my novel to show her who was who. Also, I don't think it really conveyed the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine very well, it did not show much of their companionship but more so of their bickering toward each other. It made it much more difficult for my mom, who had neither read the book nor seen the movie, to really understand their characters or their love -- the most important part in my opinion. Other than that, I loved watching the movie, as it gave me new images while reading the rest of the book and different faces for the characters.

Wuthering Heights: Volume 1

Catherine and Nelly's Relationship
Ellen is very critical of Cathy and doesn't really understand or agree with her actions. She does nearly everything that Cathy asks of her but does not agree with her decisions. One would think that servant-served relationships would be fairly intimate because the person is so close to you every day. However, it seems that, as some philosophize about those being pampered like children on cruise ships, when things don't go her way, Catherine pulls the "social class card" and reminds Ellen as her place as a servant instead of a confidant.

Catherine on Heathcliff and Isabella:
Catherine was right to say that Heathcliff would crush Isabella like a sparrow's egg. It fits into his plan to have her fall for him but he might just do it for fun. He is open with Catherine and Ellen and Isabella that he has no use for her and is using her alone to get to her brother and to bother Cathy. He is retaliating against her for marrying someone else; he knows that she loves him more than Edgar but thought that he would degrade her social status. Heathcliff hates Isabella, but by marrying her it is a way of degrading her for degrading him and thinking he is less than a person, a servant, and treating him so poorly as a child.

Against who and why does Heathcliff want revenge?
Against Edgar because he ended up with Catherine and for him its a you take my girl, I'll take yours retaliatioin. He is also taking revenge against the Lintons and all members of the upper class who kept him down. In a way he is rubbing it in their faces that he has power over them despite the differences in social class. Finally, he is taking revenge against Hindley Earnshaw, for taking away his status as a legitimate child and made him a service. Even Catherine says that without Hindley degrading him so low, she never would have thought of marrying Edgar.

Why is Heathcliff back at Wuthering Heights?
Heathcliff goes back to play cards with Hindley, who assumes that he is rich, which he is. And slowly, he is getting Hindley to bet his property because he is losing and depriving him of his inheritance and wealth at Wuthering Heights. He is also changing Hareton because he is teaching him swear words, letting him run wild, and he beats Hindley, who beats him, Hareton.

Does Heathcliff live to inflict misery?
Maybe, certainly not on Catherine. But it is perhaps his only way of settling the score with the universe. Because he was so tortured and mistreated, he feels the only way to deal with it is to inflict equal misery on others.

Are Catherine and Heathcliff soulmates?
Yes, the literally cannot bear to live without each other. Catherine dies when she is forbidden to see Heathcliff and Heathcliff bashes his head against the wall and says that his soul leaves with her to the grave. Is it the greatest love story of all time? YES.

Wuthering Heights: Heathcliff

Describe Heathcliff in one paragraph.


To me, Heathcliff is the ultimate incarnation of the man all women hate to love but do anyway. He is handsome, wild, free-spirited, headstrong, quiet, and completely in love with you. His unruly temper and morose disposition make him hard to handle and can present a challenge that keeps Catherine intrigued, and their equal pride and mutual understanding give her a level of comfort that forms a perfect balance for their relationship. When I picture Heathcliff, I see a tall man with a strong, muscular build, strong facial features that make him seem as though he is thinking of beating someone up when he is actually just thinking quietly of nothing. He has dark eyes and dark skin from working outside all the time, but the seldom times he does smile is enough to compensate for all his grumpiness. He is cynical, pessimistic, a rebel, unruly, stubborn, and quiet, but also understanding, compassionate toward what he does love, and willing to do anything for Cathy, as long as he can be with her and she happy. However is also completely closed off and brutal because he has been betrayed so many times throughout his life. It is difficult to understand his character because he has such love for Cathy and such hatred for anything and everything else that tries to keep them apart and everything in his path.

Continued notes from class:
We get very differing views of Heathcliff throughout the first 10 chapters. At the beginning Mr. Earnshaw treats Heathcliff as the favorite son over Hindley and this gives Heathcliff a lot of power in the house and over Hindley.

First we see Heathcliff being cruel to his dogs and his tenant Mr. Lockwood, but on hearing Cathy Linton coming to try to see him in the middle of the night, his disposition changes and he becomes loving and passionate. Next we have a flashback to his childhood and see how he was at first favored by the late Mr. Earnshaw and then tortured and hated by Hindley Earnshaw after their father dies. Cathy and Heathcliff run wild without supervision, but after staying at the Linton's house for 5 weeks, Cathy becomes a young woman and comes home with the favor of the young Edgar Linton. She agrees to marry Edgar but knows that it is wrong because she is in love with Heathcliff, as shown when she explains "he is more myself than I am." This means that they are soulmates, she can keep up with him and acts as herself with him, they have no expectations where they can just be completely comfortable with each other. Unfortunately however, Heathcliff hears only that it will degrade her to marry him from the point of view of the people around them. He leaves and Cathy gets sick standing in the rain waiting for him, and Mrs. Linton nurses her back to health and then she and her husband die. Cathy marries Edgar and moves with Nelly to Thruscross Grange. 3 years later Heathcliff comes back, rich and successful, and Isabella falls in love with him. Cathy doesn't want him to be with her and Heathcliff beats her because he despises her brother.

She claims to be a strong character but is weak in the sense that she conforms to the social shallow ideals of money and title and power instead of an eternal love.

Do you want to be in a kind of relationship like that?
There are good and bad things about it. I think that I would like that sort of relationship. It could be sort of suffocating but I think that it allows you to have a sense of home and comfort in that person, especially in the sense that they are so isolated from everyone and everything. I think that there is something irreplaceably amazing about having someone who is so like you in knowing and understanding you in your life. It is the ideal love but is it realistic?

There is good and bad intertwined throughout this novel. No character is completely good or evil, it is important because their are no black and white characters, there are no good guys or bad guys, it is more realistic.

Perhaps the three directions of the crossing, Wuthering Heights, Gimmerton - the town, and Thrushcross Grange represent the 3 directions your soul can take. One is the town which is community, one is WH which is isolation and darkness, and one is TG which is perhaps too controlled by societal pressures.

Wuthering Heights: LOVE

First of all I would just like to say this is one of my favorite books of all time. And second, as opposed to reverting to cyber rape, Emily Bronte gives us a different approach to love in power in her classic love tale Wuthering Heights.



Emily Bronte, sister of the author of Jane Eyre. Emily, Charlotte and Anne Bronte all wrote together with pen names that could be interpreted as men. Emily Bronte was called a female Shakespeare, and I agree.

The atmosphere in the first two chapters in very dark, and kind of comical, especially Heathcliff and Joseph's take on life and humanity. Mr. Lockwood is a very interesting character; we find out early that he thinks he is a misanthrope, however he certainly changes his mind once he meets Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw. He moves away to come to Wuthering Heights because of his inability to show his feelings for a woman he loved. She showed affection for him but he was so cold that she thinks she misunderstood and leaves him alone. Mr. Lockwood has thus gained the reputation of being completely heartless and cold, because, possibly, he was afraid of love. It seems as though Lockwood's obsession with Heathcliff is derived from their equal association and affinity for loneliness.

Within the family, Catherine Linton hates Heathcliff. Heathcliff is also brutal to his pets, as shown when he kicks his mothering spaniel, and is brutal in general to the rest of the people who surround him. However his relationship with Catherine is unbelievably loving.

Here's the Genealogy of the Wuthering Heights' characters.

Mr. Bungle and Cyber Rape

Did Mr. Bungle commit rape? Explain yes or no.

This article was very interesting for me to know because, in general I am technologically un-savvy and do not understand anything of blogging, MUDs, or MOO rooms. I found myself reading and re-reading the explanations of what each abbreviation meant and what one could do with each.

Do I think Mr. Bungle committed rape? Yes, I do. Since rape is any forceful and unwilling act of intercourse, I think Mr. Bungle's actions fit well in that description. By using the VooDoo doll application on LambdaMOO, he forced those two women to engage in an unwilling and forceful virtual rape in a virtual reality. The line that perhaps convinced me most of this assertion was that, in the internet and any virtual technology "the body IS the mind" and thus assault on one is equally harmful and meaningful to assault on the other. I certainly believe that he violated these users in an unacceptable manner, and as rape would describe the actions he took in reality, I believe they apply to his character in this case as well.

Continuation in Class

Rape is a very charged word to use for verbal slander in this case. In general, there are certainly psychological and emotional ramifications but it's not based in reality; its an alter reality, there is no real person or victim, it's a character not a person. However, there is emotional investment in the characters in novels or stories. It is definitely possible to be traumatized by works of modern literature and work, like movies, it can be "rape" in that sense but not rape in the reality sense. Thus there is no "real victim" but it can still be horrifying.

This type of media brings into focus the human capacity for imagination, which can be terrifying. In this digital reality,you also have a choice to be on the internet and in the room but you don't have a choice to be raped. Also, you can stop once you've been violated, but it has already happened.

I grew up with fears of meeting strangers who turn out to be psycho on the internet. We have been constantly told to question the internet, asking questions about who they really are. However, what if the person you are talking to says that he's actually in the room next to you, then the internet virtual reality can tip over into real world? This type of cross over reminds me a lot of the recent film, Stranger than Fiction, a movie in which the author, writing a novel, finds that her character is a real person, and his life reflects the events in her book. It makes us realize that there is a huge difference between what you can do to a character and what you will do in reality.