In a sense, the transformation of the villain into the true hero in Wuthering Heights -namely, the wicked Heathcliff- is not original, nor the final unraveling of the story for the romantic period. From what we read of Emily Brontë's life, she was a diligent student. A scholar, I would say. In a moment when Romanticism had already yielded its most important creations, Emily must have known and been aware of its main trends and tricks as a well-read and studied woman. I mean: Emily Brontë fits well in the Romantic tradition. The ending of Wuthering Heights is, in my opinion, a classic one borrowed from Romanticism out of necessity, in the trail of the Frankenstein's ending. Naturally, when attention is concentrated on single individuals who step away from the crowd, it is a question of time that someone will perform a more serious exploration of personalities and individual actions, and that is, I think, the first characteristic of Emily's cutting-edge production. Camus says in The Rebel: "Much more than the cult of the individual, Romanticism inaugurates the cult of 'character'".
We can talk about the Romantic element of Wuthering Heights. Let us start from the beginning and highlight the previous point in Stabilo Boss yellow. The centrality of Wuthering Heights, its core, is the story of Heathcliff: the novel is all about his crusade as a rebel against the human's world who humiliated and despised him.
Of course, there is Love in it. Heathcliff loved Catherine in health and sickness. He had many reasons to forget about her, but he would not do it, just in the same way the boy who loves his indolent sweetheart would not do it and is bound to be miserable. On the other side, Catherine was just too real to us as a woman then. She treated Heathcliff with harshness; as a matter of fact, Catherine turned her back on him at least twice, but in two vital moments. And she did it in most harmful way for a man: by changing. Oh! How sorrowful and poisonous is for a man the experience of not recognizing the woman who has been, hitherto, his. The change, inevitably, distilled indifference Cathy and Heathcliff were flesh and bone in the beginning; it was so until the night when they both run from the house under the rain and ended up in Thrushcross Grange. Catherine was attacked by a dog and had to stay at the Lintons, who took her in their care until her ankle healed. That night, however, Heathcliff had to return alone to Wuthering Heights, soaking wet. When Cathy came back five weeks later, she had changed: she was no longer an accomplice nor the partner of his games. And, worse, she was different.
At the time, Catherine was growing an impossible beauty. Heathcliff's pain magnifies here: first, the distance derived from someone who changes and, second, the realization of a utter impossibility to revert the situation. Catherine has learned to lie in order to have her will done, even if that means to get herself deceived. This was her perdition.
But at this point Heathcliff changed. And improved and gave her another opportunity. Exactly in the same way, Frankenstein, the monster, hidden away in a cave, learns the language of the humans and read the classics. At the same time, Heathcliff continued loving Cathy. This Love is even proclaimed at the central pages of the novel: the scene of a handsome Heathcliff and a dying Catherine Linton, both in tears, recognizing the mistake at a non-return point is told, precisely, about half-way through the novel. He is not allowed to see her and both know that Catherine will die from the encounter. I am looking now at the watercolor including in my edition of the novel, which portraits this moment. Below it it is written: "'How can I bear it', he murmured?". That is terrible; Camus says: "For the dandy [romantic rebel], to be alone is not to exist". How could Frankenstein resist without the bride he asked Victor and that he denied?
All the Romantic tradition explodes here. That was too much for them. Efforts have been done in vain and the victim is left faithless. Heathcliff could have been something, but now there is only a could-have-been. The monster of Victor Frankenstein was also good-willing until a collection of repeatable episodes of denial turned him into it. The world has been just too bad for them. The uttermost Romantic verse of Milton's Paradise Lost blasts in fury: "Evil, be Thy my Good". As Camus says, Heathcliff was willing to "put his love above God and (...) go to Hell in order to be reunited with the woman he loves". He also says: "The romantic hero considers himself compelled to do evil by his nostalgia for impracticable good". Heathcliff destroys everyone who had hurt him, devastating everything and using everyone in his way to the most atrocious consequences, starting from his son Linton. Once Heathcliff's will is fulfilled -he is the only heir of both houses and the last man standing- the evil fire that prompted his transformation ceases and his life stops making sense. In the same way, the beast of Frankenstein burns himself in the ice of the Arctic once Victor passes away; in the same way, the Terminator terminates himself in melted metal after O'Connor is safe. And so, Heathcliff abandons himself to die. This is a powerful element of Romanticism: once the labor is done, the hero has no more reason to exist.
But, of course, after the tempest, the sea rests... . And from the most devastating land and grayish sky new forms of life emerge and the sun comes to shine again.
Wuthering Heights finishes so tenderly:
"I sought, and soon discovered, the three head-stones on the slope next the moor: the middle one grey, and half-buried in heath; Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and the moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's still bare.
I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth".
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
We can talk about the Romantic element of Wuthering Heights. Let us start from the beginning and highlight the previous point in Stabilo Boss yellow. The centrality of Wuthering Heights, its core, is the story of Heathcliff: the novel is all about his crusade as a rebel against the human's world who humiliated and despised him.
Of course, there is Love in it. Heathcliff loved Catherine in health and sickness. He had many reasons to forget about her, but he would not do it, just in the same way the boy who loves his indolent sweetheart would not do it and is bound to be miserable. On the other side, Catherine was just too real to us as a woman then. She treated Heathcliff with harshness; as a matter of fact, Catherine turned her back on him at least twice, but in two vital moments. And she did it in most harmful way for a man: by changing. Oh! How sorrowful and poisonous is for a man the experience of not recognizing the woman who has been, hitherto, his. The change, inevitably, distilled indifference Cathy and Heathcliff were flesh and bone in the beginning; it was so until the night when they both run from the house under the rain and ended up in Thrushcross Grange. Catherine was attacked by a dog and had to stay at the Lintons, who took her in their care until her ankle healed. That night, however, Heathcliff had to return alone to Wuthering Heights, soaking wet. When Cathy came back five weeks later, she had changed: she was no longer an accomplice nor the partner of his games. And, worse, she was different.
At the time, Catherine was growing an impossible beauty. Heathcliff's pain magnifies here: first, the distance derived from someone who changes and, second, the realization of a utter impossibility to revert the situation. Catherine has learned to lie in order to have her will done, even if that means to get herself deceived. This was her perdition.
But at this point Heathcliff changed. And improved and gave her another opportunity. Exactly in the same way, Frankenstein, the monster, hidden away in a cave, learns the language of the humans and read the classics. At the same time, Heathcliff continued loving Cathy. This Love is even proclaimed at the central pages of the novel: the scene of a handsome Heathcliff and a dying Catherine Linton, both in tears, recognizing the mistake at a non-return point is told, precisely, about half-way through the novel. He is not allowed to see her and both know that Catherine will die from the encounter. I am looking now at the watercolor including in my edition of the novel, which portraits this moment. Below it it is written: "'How can I bear it', he murmured?". That is terrible; Camus says: "For the dandy [romantic rebel], to be alone is not to exist". How could Frankenstein resist without the bride he asked Victor and that he denied?
All the Romantic tradition explodes here. That was too much for them. Efforts have been done in vain and the victim is left faithless. Heathcliff could have been something, but now there is only a could-have-been. The monster of Victor Frankenstein was also good-willing until a collection of repeatable episodes of denial turned him into it. The world has been just too bad for them. The uttermost Romantic verse of Milton's Paradise Lost blasts in fury: "Evil, be Thy my Good". As Camus says, Heathcliff was willing to "put his love above God and (...) go to Hell in order to be reunited with the woman he loves". He also says: "The romantic hero considers himself compelled to do evil by his nostalgia for impracticable good". Heathcliff destroys everyone who had hurt him, devastating everything and using everyone in his way to the most atrocious consequences, starting from his son Linton. Once Heathcliff's will is fulfilled -he is the only heir of both houses and the last man standing- the evil fire that prompted his transformation ceases and his life stops making sense. In the same way, the beast of Frankenstein burns himself in the ice of the Arctic once Victor passes away; in the same way, the Terminator terminates himself in melted metal after O'Connor is safe. And so, Heathcliff abandons himself to die. This is a powerful element of Romanticism: once the labor is done, the hero has no more reason to exist.
But, of course, after the tempest, the sea rests... . And from the most devastating land and grayish sky new forms of life emerge and the sun comes to shine again.
Wuthering Heights finishes so tenderly:
"I sought, and soon discovered, the three head-stones on the slope next the moor: the middle one grey, and half-buried in heath; Edgar Linton's only harmonized by the turf and the moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's still bare.
I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and hare-bells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth".
(PLEASE, LEAVE YOUR COMMENT).
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