Wuthering Heights is a mess

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[steph.tregear]

The chaos of Wuthering Heights is why I love it so much. I see it as a 19th century soap opera drama. And there’s so much beautiful symbolism in the repeated names! ❤️

[angryotter]

I summarize Wuthering Heights as “a bunch of miserable people ruining each other’s lives until they’re dead.”

[cecilie...]

Someone already said it, but 100 years of solitude is like: Did someone talk about me and my 674 Aurelianos?

[elizabethmaelewis]

In college I wrote a 15 page paper about Wuthering Heights, and when I took it to my professor to discuss she said "oh, when we dicussed it previously, I thought you meant the other Katherine. I think she'd work better here, so just rewrite those 5 pages." ☠

[shamlaAK]

The characters names and relationship were confusing when nelly described it to mr. lockwood. So i drew a family tree. But it was not that confusing after a while when actually the flashback story started.
Then it was very easily. There are only like 12 characters.

[laramurieltzvir]

That's why every copy of 100 Years of Solitude comes with a family tree

[kianadouglas]

That's the point. It represents how they are all trapped in this pattern generationally. All of these people are sucked gravitationally into being defined, literally, by their names, by Heathcliff, Cathy, and Linton's relationships, mostly, Healthcliff and Cathy's. It also represents the family's inability to move on from the past, which is a chief point for Heathcliff. He has a sadistic Count of Monte Cristo thing going on. No matter how old he gets, it is Cathy that consumes him. He wields this power that traps them all in the significance of the Cathy-Heathcliff relationship.
It reminds me of how Gabriel Garcia Marquez does the same thing with names for future generations, but even worse. Gabriel Garcia Marquez literally gives like seven people the exact same name and then like five more variations of it. You literally can't tell who is who and at some point you just kind of give up and roll with it. The point is the repetition of a curse on the family, a generational curse. Another big part of this is incest and isolation.
Similarly, in Wuthering Heights, the parties are incestious and isolated. Similarly, in Wuthering Heights, the names are, as you pointed out, confusingly repeated and interwoven. They demonstrate how the weavings of familial trauma have infected this connection. Cathy is long dead, but she is very much alive. They are a generation past Cathy's death, but all the same players are here and in the same setting even if they go by a mixture of names and the topic on everybody's mind is still what happened that they held a grudge for and are seeking regenge for now. Each incident is another strand of the braid.

[CH-egqw]

Catherine Linton Heathcliff is the daughter of Edgar Linton and Catherine Earnshaw Linton. CLH married the son of Heathcliff Heathcliff (Linton Heathcliff). Although CEL and HH shared a toxic trauma bond obsession thing they were never married. They're all toxic, unlikeable, and I wasn't rooting for anyone.

[Nandanisinhaa_]

Why didn't i get confused at all while reading Wuthering Heights....

[wiredayan]

And then 100 years of Solitude has 21 characters with the same name…

[arandominternetuser]

Also the vocabulary was a bit difficult for me, (I could understand what was happening but there were words that were like 10 letters here and there which I couldnt understand ex) vociferous) being a teenager, and as English isnt my first language. Im around 80 pages into the book, and though sometimes a bit difficult, Im having a great time!
(Ill update this when I finish the book)

[sheridanlefanu.]

Wuthering Heights is my favorite novel because every time you read it, you get a different story somehow. I can’t explain it, but it feels like a half remembered dream that is different every time you have it. I reread it every summer at the beach.

[Neen-a-walker]

I watched an amazing theatrical version of wuthering heights and the fact that the production had to work in a family tree because its so confusing is very telling lmao.

[madeleine]

When we read it in high school it was CHAOS. Family trees were v necessary.

[acuteteacher]

I remember making my own family tree for them when I was reading the book to keep everything straight.

[belleellis]

I read Wuthering Heights about 15 years ago in my late teens and loved it but completely understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea. Every character is awful and I'm scared to re-read it in case I hate it even though I still love gothic literature. I don't think it helps people's experience of the book that pop culture has gaslighted everyone into believing it's a beautiful romance with a dark broody dreamboat called Heathcliff. It is a tale of intergenerational abuse and the scars that abuse leaves. It's so interesting to me that the suffocating and destructive relationship at the centre of the novel still appears in contemporary novels and people still idolise these unhealthy relationships. In conclusion to my rambling it is problematic on so many levels but I love it but I can completely understand why people hate it.

P.S. I love Kate Bush and the song is perfect.

[danarodz]

This is me and my book club reading 100 days of solitude

[stephr]

My Literature prof said I was one of the few who “got it” about WH. Well yeah, dude digs up deaf GF for a final hug anyone can see this wasn’t your average English novel….

[emmxzdk]

The names are repeated because the characters parallel each other

[kristinb]

I read the book to understand more about Cathy/Kathy? and Heathcliff from the Kate Bush song. Still don't know which Cathy/Kathy she sings about..