Is Wuthering Heights a Love Story? ¦ WH Guide, Ep.3

Is Wuthering Heights a love story? Or is it a story of domestic abuse? Does Emily Bronté romanticise abuse? These are the questions I'll be answering in this weeks episode of Wuthering Heights: A Reader's Guide.

WHERE TO FIND ME:

[JoshuaJClarkeKelsall]

Is Wuthering Heights a love story? Let me know what you think!

[theoriginalsuzycat]

I've always thought that Cathy and Hareton are the second-chance Catherine and Heathcliff.

[jjmboston]

I think they "love" the best they can. Do we see Healthcliff or Catherine show any "better" love to anyone? We hear nothing of Catherine's love for her maternal mother. We don't know the background of Heathcliff, but we can imagine he had no love in his very young years, especially being left in the streets. Maybe the most love we see is Heathcliff's love (or is it just gratitude?) for Mr. Linton, Their love is wild and unthinking (read: passion without thought of consequences). It is just another form, more primitive. As far as lust? not sure. there is no carnal description of what happens on the moors, but we can let our imagination run to think that two yougins' who are going through puberty don't just look at the heather on the LOL

[emmaphilo]

I'd say it is love. But love 'aggravated' by trauma and attachment issues.
Wuthering heights is a 'family saga' in which Emily Brontë shares her ideas about the world and the human condition. The love story is one if the key element of the story, but the real topics are wild passions versus civilisation/ education and even religion and the importance of upbringing. There is also an interesting take on religion in the novel. Thanks for the videos, I just re read WH and they feed my thoughts

[tumblyhomecarolinep]

I think that to describe Wuthering Heights as a love story or anything else really does it a huge disservice. It is a story...it shouldn’t be put in a box and to be honest I think Emily Bronte was the last author ever to want to be characterised by her writing in that way. Yes I do think Heathcliff and Cathy loved each other..it was a passionate love...and I don’t think it can be judged by how we want to see loving relationships now. They were deeply selfish because what upbringing did they have to be otherwise. But also women then had little choice. Cathy couldn’t be independent or earn money for her keep. It is easy to say she could have married Heathcliff and been happy in poverty, but life was hard, there was no social structure to help the poor. I think Emily recognised that and certainly that reality is reflected in the book. Better to profess hatred and loathing for Heathcliff because she knew she could never have a future with him. Better kid herself and him that they had nothing to keep them together. Also they were young..young people make mistakes...get wowed by money and social strata and try to deny themselves and the truth in the process.
So I don’t think wuthering heights is a love story but it is about passionate love and mistakes...revenge...all those things.
I don’t think it can be judged and put down because it doesn’t fit with how we think love should be handled...rather read and enjoyed for its rawness, bleakness, passion and bad behaviour...and ghost!

[melaniew]

I think it is a story of impulsive dysfunction, a toxic relationship. Which is something modern people can relate to, that it's something born out of childhood trauma and lack of coping skills. I told you on another video that it would be an episode of Fatal Attaction or Snapped today because it would be a trailer park murder-suicide.

[nola]

I always describe it as a passionate and dark classic story.

[nass]

Esta novela esta llena de reflexiones metafisicas, siempre me hace pensar en las dicotomias y como esta compuesta el alma o el ser, el amor como expresion del ser. Creo que si es una historia de amor.

[louiseparham-lk]

My first experience of the Wuthering Heights story was watching the 1939 Lawrence Olivier film when I was 14 years old and into romantic stories. My impression of it was a tragic story of star-crossed lovers rather like Romeo and Juliet. A few years later, I came across a copy of the book, read it, and was disappointed. It did not meet my expectations and found the violence and abuse uncomfortable to read, expecting the opposite. Over the years, I warmed to it once I realised what the story was really about. I found it intriguing.

[slowfootlabeef]

I've only gotten this far so haven't seen your last part, but commenting on the sibling relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff, i feel that part of Emily Bronte's inspiration for the characters, both Hindley and for Heathcliff seems to have been her brother, Bramwell. (Based on biographies of the Brontës, not my own insights) Bramwell had been the golden boy of the family and the 4 children were known to spend hours playing together pretty much left to their own devices as their father was working and their aunt didn't really know what to do with them! But of course, things turned very different when Bramwell became addicted to alcohol and Opium. I feel that on the subject of sibling relationships Emily is highlighting how you can love someone so much as a young person, And how that love changes when someone starts to self-destruct. The alcoholic can become very abusive towards even the most loved family members. And now you're walking down that love-hate road. Abusive and self abusive people are usually not happy just destroying themselves but flushing everyone else down the same toilet.
I'm really enjoying your videos, very insightful and interesting! Look forward to the last part.

[jessica-fcm]

What I find interesting in the book is that Emily leaves a lot for the imagination and doesn't plainly show us some stuff and then just surprises us out of nowhere.
Like, we (or at least I) had no idea that Cathy and Heathcliff had a romantic love for each other until Cathy's speech to Nelly. The book doesn't show even one scene of them together in the moors, kissing, or hugging, or showing affection...Nelly just casually and briefly says that they became closer while growing up, and did some mischief together, but it doesnt put much emphasis to it.
I sincerely did not think much of the pair Cathy-Heathcliff until that speech to Nelly and then I was like whoooa where did all that come from lol

Yet, somehow (maybe because of the movies), your mind kind of fills in the gaps and creates the visions of the two together in a romantic way. I do wonder if up until that speech they had actually been together romantically (like, kissed or something) or if it was just the feelings, but nothing concrete ever really happened between them up until that point.

Another thing that surprised me was when Cathy gave birth out of nowhere. The book didn't mention that she was pregnant until she actually gives birth and dies shortly after. I was so shocked!

It says that the baby was 7 months, therefore, premature. I wonder 2 things... 1) How did she manage to give birth when she was so weak and 2) did Heathcliff know she was pregnant before she died? It seems a silly question but she was only 7 months and she had been bed-ridden and presumably all covered up in blankets... Maybe he didn't even notice it when he went to see her when she was dying...

[KyleMaxwell]

I think it’s a story of a difficult, abusive, and highly dysfunctional love. Both things can be true, and then we eventually see in the next generation a couple who learn (albeit with difficulty) to set boundaries and communicate their needs, leading to a healthier relationship.

[cjripley]

I read Wuthering Heights last week and I really badly wanted to talk to somebody about it so these videos have been exactly what I was looking for in terms of a breakdown, thank you for your insights! If you ever read Anna Karenina or Wives and Daughters, I'd love to hear your take.✨✨

[KirianTwins]

Thank you for these amazing video essays ❤️

[jessica-fcm]

I was wondering if there might be any chance that young Catherine is actually Heathcliff's daughter and not Linton's daughter, since chronologically, it would be possible in theory considering the lapse of time between Heathcliff's return to the premises and th birth. Or if at least that thought crossed Emily's mind, to plant a seed of doubt in her paternity. Or if that possibility was never even considered by Emily.
Since I'm kinda not the best at picking up stuff that is very very subtle in literature, I ask my fellow readers that might be sharper than I am: is it in any way shape or form implied or even the possibility hinted, that Heathcliff and Cathy ever got to the point of actually being intimate with each other sexually?

[seangentilechildsupport]

if catherine was so “wild” why did she select the husband that wasn’t her style

[charlottejones]

I think they love each other but not in the way we view love!

Like Cathy says
“are souls are one “
To me there love is like to two trees they are planted together,
So Cathy and Heathcliff they grow to close together that they roots get intertwined so they don’t know a life without one another soo they do become one soul in a way so when they grow and have to separate they can’t Separate because they roots or very soul are intertwined so closely
I think that’s ONE reason why Heathcliff started to take revenge
I think that makes sense maybe not 🤣
I love ur video really interesting

[jenniferlane]

Before reading Wuthering Heights I watched the 1939 movie which I hated, thus had no interest in the story. In my 30’s I read the book receiving it as a gift & fell in love with the story especially learning about the Brontë sisters. The book is amazing when compared to the time it was written, women held no place in the world outside the home, the Brontë girls lead sheltered lives except in their readings. The father did a good thing allowing such access to books & literature. Plus the imaginations of the sisters is beyond… amazing. Imagination now lacking in today’s young.

[melaniew]

Have read Gone With the Wind? I many people have big opinions about it, but it's another novel that the film has overshadowed public perception. I keep coming back to it as such solid story-telling and character development, with definite Southern Gothic elements. Scarlett is not presented to us as some perfect heroine. She is flawed and you don't always like her but you root for her just the same. Melanie survives everything that Scarlett does, but she comes through it with her kindness and grace intact. Scarlett is hardened, and it is Melanie's pureness of heart that Scarlett is jealous of, not so much Ashley. Scarlett is self aware enough to know she lacks that, and she knows she is doing immoral things, yet she holds her nose and dives in, vowing over and over to just get through this current tribulation and she will be a great and good lady and think about it tomorrow. Scarlett is a terrible mother, and her vulgar tacky taste is used to comic effect, so you can't say Margaret Mitchell is glorifying her or anything else. Mitchell was not writing some glorification of the Old South, quite the contrary. From the opening scene, you are given 3 spoiled teenagers who think nothing bad can ever happen to them. The black characters often have an intuition that the white characters do not. She does a good job of showing good and bad people of all kinds. Ashley and Rhett are not only physical opposites (one blond, one "swarthy") but also in basic constitution. Ashley is strong, capable, dutiful, and handsome, but he comes back from The War a broken man, not knowing what to do as society crumbles around him. Rhett is virile and a visionary, opportunist, yet sensitive and empathetic. He is the conscience of the novel, and I daresay the sexiest male character even put down on paper. People criticize GWTW over the portrayal of slavery, but I remind them that this isn't a story about slavery, and just because it is set in a time when it existed, does not mean that should take over the whole narrative. It is important, but from a standpoint of people in a time and place and living through traumatic events. You never see bigger implications when you are in the middle of it. It's an up close perspective without the modern-day pontificating and finger-wagging, which I find refreshing. I tell everyone they should read it.

[merrow]

absolutely loved this analysis - I think the reason this book is met with such polarized reviews is because it's advertised as a standard romanticist era love story, when it's far from such (and besides the inaccurate film portrayals, I think Emily Bronte being naturally associated with the works of her sisters also contributes to this notion that she's a romance writer). And it's a shame that no film adaptations have been able to capture the sheer raw emotion, the obsession, depravity, isolation and violence juxtaposed with innocence, civilization with wilderness that the book perfectly depicts.

That being said, I do wish there was a good film adaptation, and I'm naively hoping there will be one (I mean, with generational trauma being the current big thing in cinema as of late, surely someone's going to try to adapt this again? and hopefully they depict the second half and accurately cast Heathcliff this time. Like the 2011 adaptation came closer than the others, but please. if his ethnic origin wasn't important to the story Bronte wouldn't have mentioned it like fifty times)

anyway, end of rant. but yeah. loved this video :)