The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910 discussion

Week 2 - Chapters 9 through 14 (the end of Book 1)

An interesting beginning to this week's reading where Hindley "accidentally" drops Hareton over the banister. Wow.

Chapter nine shows us Catherine's duality. She declares her love for Heathcliff to Nelly but then states she can not marry him and has agreed to marry Edgar. How do you think she justifies this in her mind? (To love one but marry another.) Is she really naive enough to believe she is going to be able to maintain a relationship with one man when she is married to another?

What do you think the most likely cause(s) of Heathcliff leaving Wuthering Heights? What effect does his return have on Catherine's relationship with Edgar? What do you think the implications and potential consequences are of Isabella's interest in Heathcliff?

What do you think about Edgar's attempt to resolve the situation with Heathcliff? And is this typical of the way Romanticism and the Gothic novel were often done?

What do you think about Catherine locking herself away in her room and refusing to eat? Is this simply grief? Or do you think this is manipulation on her part? Or is there something else at play?

Heathcliff is set on revenge and we see how he does this through manipulating and using those around him. He has taken on the role of father and teacher to Hareton, in a way that mirrors Mr. Earnshaw's parental role to Heathcliff. How do you think Hindley sees this? Next Heathcliff encourages Isabella's infatuation with him even though he has no interest in her except for the fact that she is Edgar's heir. Do you think Edgar realizes this? Or is he too blind to anything except Catherine's affection and well-being?

Early in Chapter 12, Nelly states that "the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body." What does this tell you about her outlook on the others? Does it challenge her reliability as a narrator?

We learn about Catherine's pregnancy and Edgar's nursing of Catherine. Do you think Edgar's attention, love, and concern are for Catherine or for the child that she carries, his heir? As without an heir, Heathcliff and Isabella would inherit Thrushcross Grange.

I can't answer most of the questions addressed by Gem as Heathcliff and Cathy's motivations can only be explained by their being a bit crazed. Neither has normal desires and motivations. They are mysterious creatures. I think the lack of exposition that Abigail and Gem have referred to is an intentional effort to keep them as mysterious creatures,
While I understand that this is frustrating to some readers, for me, it helps make the story work. Detailed explanations for their motivations and behaviors would serve to normalize them and Cathy and Heathcliff work better as being beyond normal. I prefer keeping my distance and just observing their behaviors rather than getting into their heads. Who the reader is concerned with are the human people who their behaviors impact - the collateral damage.

Love and marriage didn't necessarily go together in the 1820's. Women often married for convenience or financial reasons. But I think Edgar really cares for her.

I'd venture to guess that it's not unusual for people who are a bit crazed not to know nor understand their own motivations.

Yes, Linda2, I agree with you. Probably many women were even expected to put financial and status considerations above feelings. Being a wife was essentially a job.

H and C are both immature, and don't know what love or marriage are in reality. They're obsessed with each other.

I first read this book some 60 years ago, in junior high school, and we mooned over it. I've read it several times since. I think it's more appealing to adolescents than to mature adults because the 2 main characters act like children having temper tantrums.

This book is like a parade of the id! Jealousy, revenge, cruelty, hatred, disloyalty, selfishness all on display. All of them variations on obsession.

I’m guessing by the frequent references to the weather that Brontë was aiming for a certain level of symbolism, the idea that the wildness of physical nature led to a wildness in the natures of the residents there. It’s not heavily stressed though, and was maybe not much more than an intuitive connection in her mind.

I’m interested in how the most civilized characters, like Edgar (and even Mr. Lockwood), are portrayed as enervated and even physically weak, while the most savage ones are (at least for a time) physically robust. Gives the impression that savagery is the road to viability in this wild place. Brontë certainly seems ambivalent about good manners!

In my reading Edgar does really love Catherine after his own fashion. Perhaps more accurately, he loves his idea of her and clings to it in defiance of all evidence. I don’t think it’s all about an heir.

As for Catherine’s locking herself away, Brontë uses the terms “brain fever” and “permanent alienation of the intellect,” so I think we are intended to read her actions as a nervous breakdown.

It is interesting to me that Catherine’s attachment to Heathcliff, and Heathcliff’s to Catherine, appear to grow in proportion to their separation. When our lives turn out not to match our dreams of what they should be like, we often turn to obsessing about what we don’t have as a way of thinking of ourselves as hapless victims rather than architects of our own fate.

Early in Chapter 12, Nelly states that "the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body." What does this tell you about her outlook on the others? Does it challenge her reliability as a narrator?


This is exactly what I can't stop thinking about.....how reliable is Nelly's take on the motives behind all the characters.

Very early in her narrative she declares how much she detests Catherine and Heathcliff so I can't help but wonder what the other side of the story is as I'm progressing.

Like when Hareton falls over the balcony and Heathcliff catches him, Nelly surmises that Heathcliff's thoughts were that he would have much rather destroyed Hareton....but was that really what he thought, or just want Nelly assumed?

Nelly liked the Lintons so they are portrayed in a very favorable, civilized light - polar opposite to Heathcliff and Catherine's thunder cloud existence at Wuthering Heights. When I picture Wuthering Heights based off all of Nelly's descriptions and the characters, I picture something straight out of the movie Deliverance, lol.

Bronte was a young, shy, reclusive woman. I think she had little knowledge of what love and marriage were in reality, except what she had read in the Romantic works of that era. But she had a vivid imagination.

I don't understand why she inserted so much violence, hatred and cruelty into the story.

Kelly wrote: "Early in Chapter 12, Nelly states that "the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body." What does this tell you about her outlook on the others? Does it challenge he..."

Lacking another viewpoint in the book, we don't know exactly what they thought. We don't even know if the events were as she described.

@Abigail Bok, great analysis. And I also think Edgar loved Catherine in his own way.

Also, "parade of the id"?! Has this yet been adapted into an opera? Seems like with all the raging emotions, it would be a good candidate.

Heathcliff and Catherine together are like the encounter of two hurricanes: the result is chaos and destruction.

When Catherine locked herself in her room and them try to force Nelly to tell Edgar seems quite childish and manipulative. She acts like a child that the are seeking attention.

LOL, LiLi!

Indeed, it exists!
https://youtu.be/mvwvow_6Tc8

Two hurricanes is a good description. It's like they aren't even aware that there are other people around them. Human obstacles, yes, but not people.

Great find, LiLi! Suitably gothic; I was expecting Bela Lugosi and the armadillos standing in for giant rats (watch his Dracula and you’ll see them).

Yes, the music seems to be very...20th century classical.

Of course, the native armadillo of Romania! I last watched the movie as a teenager, so I'd forgotten that detail. :D

Gem talked in the first message about Catherine's pregnancy. Where in the book it did occur? I suppose I missed it.

LiLi wrote: "Yes, the music seems to be very...20th century classical."

Composer Bernard Hermann is famous for his movie scores. especially his scores for seven Alfred Hitchcock movies, including Psycho. I think of the shower scene when I think of Hermann's music.

Abigail wrote: "Great find, LiLi! Suitably gothic; I was expecting Bela Lugosi and the armadillos standing in for giant rats (watch his Dracula and you’ll see them)."

And Nosferatu has hyenas standing in for werewolves!

Rafael wrote: "Gem talked in the first message about Catherine's pregnancy. Where in the book it did occur? I suppose I missed it."

I wasn't clear about it either. I think there is only this subtle reference to it early in Chapter 13, right before Isabella's letter, as they are tending to Cathy after she has had her nervous breakdown:

"Ah, I thought myself, she might recover, so waited on as she was. And there was double cause to desire it, for on her existence depended that of another: we cherished the hope that in a little while Mr. Linton's heart would be gladdened, and his lands secured from a stranger's gripe, by the birth of an heir."

This is the second book I've read in the past year or so where I missed a subtle reference to a character being pregnant. It appears that matters like this have to be more explicitly explained to men.
I think the use of the word "hope" confused me. I thought it meant that they "hoped" she'd get pregnant someday while it really meant that they "hoped" for a male heir as she was already pregnant since "for on her existence depended that of another"

@Brian, interesting! I didn't know about the Hitchcock connexion, but it makes sense.

That is indeed a pretty subtle reference; although it wasn't uncommon to be "delicate" about talking about such things back then. Just goes to show that you have to read every word!

@Lori Goshert, was that the Max Schreck or the Klaas Kinski?

LiLi wrote: "@Lori Goshert, was that the Max Schreck or the Klaas Kinski?"

The 1922 version with Max Schreck

Brian wrote: "Rafael wrote: "Gem talked in the first message about Catherine's pregnancy. Where in the book it did occur? I suppose I missed it."

I wasn't clear about it either. I think there is only this subtl..."

Oh! Now it seems more clear. Yeah. haha We are not very clever when these topics are on the table. Thank you for point it out.

Linda2 wrote: "Bronte was a young, shy, reclusive woman. I think she had little knowledge of what love and marriage were in reality, except what she had read in the Romantic works of that era. But she had a vivid imagination."

Yes!! I can't imagine the characters being written the same way by an older write or one who was married. The intensity of the characters is just not realistic, in my experience.

Lori wrote: "Abigail wrote: "Great find, LiLi! Suitably gothic; I was expecting Bela Lugosi and the armadillos standing in for giant rats (watch his Dracula and you’ll see them)."

And Nosferatu has hyenas stan..."

Then there are the five film versions. The 2009 and 1998 are most faithful to the book.
https://www.imdb.com/find?q=wuthering...

Linda2 wrote: "Then there are the five film versions. The 2009 and 1998 are most faithful to the book. https://www.imdb.com/find?q=wuthering...."

I remember watching the 2009 miniseries with Tom Hardy as Heathcliff thinking that Hardy, as he is prone to do, was overdoing the maniacal evil part of Heathcliff, compared to say Laurence Olivier and Ralph Fiennes, At the time, I had just seen Hardy as Bill Sikes in the Oliver Twist miniseries and thought he played both roles as similarly evil.
Now that I am re-reading the book, I see that Hardy was not really overacting when playing Heathcliff's maniacal evil, but may have been the first to do the part justice.