I’m sorry, but disliking many of the characters so much made it hard for me to pick up on the lovely writing and poetry Emily’s used in some of her passages. I’m glad that others picked up on it and are quoting it, because I was just trying to slog through. I really try to avoid the company of people I detest, as well as books they populate.
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@HImom, I find I feel that way about movies and TV shows, but for some reason, not books. I need a redeeming characters in my shows, but everybody can be hellbound in my books, as long as the writing is stellar. 
Re Wuthering Heights, I think we can count the mature Edgar Linton as a good man. Yes, he was passive, and he certainly had blinders on as regards Cathy, but he was a gentle person and a very loving father. I liked this description following Cathy’s death:
But he was too good to be thoroughly unhappy long. He didn’t pray for Catherine’s soul to haunt him. Time brought resignation, and a melancholy sweeter than common joy. He recalled her memory with ardent, tender love, and hopeful aspiring to the better world; where he doubted not she was gone.
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This discussion was like a therapy venting session for me. When reading this book, I said to my husband, my friends, my sister how awful this book was to read.
I’ve come to marvel at Bronte’s skill, the clever way of having Nelly tell the story, imperfect and honest about her true feelings and failings, her dislike of both Catharine and Heathcliff, and being caught up in their dramas.
I liked the plot and pace of the story, just enough dialogue and action to keep me intrigued.
But, it’s the absolute depiction of demented characters I will remember and this article SUMS up my feelings.
Perhaps it’s romantic to think of Catharine calling for Heathcliff to join her in eternal togetherness -
I saw a man have a complete and total nervous breakdown- not eating, not sleeping, due to his grief. It would not end well.
Hollywood sanitized the movie version, which I had seen at some point, which led me to believe I was reading one of the most beloved classic romance novels of all time-
Alas, this was untrue.
And, I thank you all for helping me process this book 
From the article linked -
“ It’s an undeniably well-crafted nightmare of deep psychological resonance, and it is rich and immersive, so that when you read it, you feel that you are trapped on the moors and there are people screaming all around you. It’s an incredible literary effect and Emily Brontë was probably a genius to achieve it, and holy god I want no part in it .
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My future self remembering this book, and why I literally laughed outloud about @AnAsmom - not forgiving her mother for making her read it - 
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“Several facts indicate Munch was aware of the danger of art of this sort for a neurotic humanist like himself. He soon abandoned the style and rarely if ever again subjected a foreground figure to this kind of radical and systematic distortion. At the top of another version of the subject (National Gallery, Oslo) he wrote: ‘Can only have been painted by a madman.’ He certainly had a horror of insanity, which had afflicted his sister Laura.”
I guess I agree about the awfulness and abuse but I don’t understand folks who insist on re-reading WH. There are folks on Reddit who say they’ve read it 100 times—wow! Also I don’t see it as a dramatic love story and never will.
Yes, I do see how abuse can create monsters but I knew that before picking up the book.
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Great Vox article, @jerseysouthmomchess. The quote you posted really captured the book’s essence.
I liked this description from the article, too — of Heathcliff and Cathy being so overwhelmed by the depth of their feelings that “all they can do is burn down the world in response.”
Here’s a slightly longer way of saying essentially the same thing – from the forward of my edition.
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Ha! I’ve read exactly none of these books! I can’t decide if this is something I feel a need to remedy or not.
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I have not read any of them. If you want romance without sex, but great wordplay I would say either Venetia or The Grand Sophie by Georgette Heyer. She’s so good even my husband got addicted!
My favorite of the modern sexier Regency era books are The Difficult Duke books by Loretta Chase. The second one is just about perfect, but you should read the first one first.
Mary Stewart provides romance, a bit of thriller and great locations. Most were written in 1950s and 60s.
I you want a little more spice I really enjoyed The Bride Test by Helen Huang. Slightly autistic woman hires a male escort to teach her how to have sex. Hilarious but also very sweet. Huang was diagnosed with Asperger’s as an adult.
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I loved the Mary Stewart “mysteries of romantic suspense.” My favorites were My Brother Michael and The Moonspinners. (The Disney version with Hayley Mills doesn’t do it justice.)
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Another drawing:
That’s Joseph — “aghast at the spectacle” of Catherine and Hareton’s friendship.
Joseph’s constant haranguing and Bible thumping help set the dismal tone at Wuthering Heights. It’s interesting that Emily Brontë, daughter of an Anglican Minister, should have Joseph be the religious mouthpiece in the novel. Her father, Patrick Brontë, was purported to be a harsh man (although there are different schools of thought on that, depending on the source). In any case, apart from Joseph, religious practice does not seem to be an important part of anyone’s life in the novel. In fact, there seems to be a not-so-gentle dig at organized religion.
In the opening pages, Lockwood dreams of a chapel “whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there." He has a nightmare about a clergyman who preaches a sermon “divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin” (p. 21). I read that this dream sequence introduces the themes of the novel, in particular the dire consequences of withholding mercy and forgiveness.
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Re Catherine and Hareton, I thought the scene where she basically teases him into forgiving her–with lots of pestering and a kiss on the cheek–was one of the few (the only?) light-hearted moments in the novel. Catherine’s peace offering is a book (in direct contrast to the earlier scene where Hareton threw them in the fire). Nelly says:
I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round again I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of the accepted book, that I did not doubt that the treaty had been ratified on both sides; and the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies.
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I reread My Brother Michael fairly recently. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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I reread My Brother Michael last year and thoroughly enjoyed it! It’s one of my favorites by Mary Stewart along with Nine Coaches Waiting and This Rough Magic.
Touch not the Cat is different from her usual but I liked it as well.
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Joseph was an odd character for sure. So mean-spirited for a supposed Christian. I’m not sure why Bronte thought she needed to include him.
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Just sharing a bit about “ Emily May” she is English, grew up in Yorkshire, moved to Los Angeles - was in some kind of 9 month reading slump and backed off from reading but has since returned ( depression I think she mentioned )
Linked in she is now connected to publishing world
Don’t want to start discussion about her just wanted to share some things I found - you tube has video of her from 7 years ago - she looks like she’s 20 in that clip - young
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Because she had to get rid of excess apostrophes.
It did bemuse me that the apostrophes held through the retelling of a retelling. I could vaguely understand why they would be included in direct quotes, but as part of a memory?
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Oh yes! I loved Touch Not the Cat. I was a young teen when I read it, much more caught up in the romance than the suspense. 
(Finally found a topic where that emoji works perfectly!)
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I think that was a literary device to enable the reader (who is seeing text and not hearing language) to differentiate between classes. It makes Joseph’s social standing clear. He speaks an almost incomprehensible Yorkshire dialect, whereas Lockwood (for example) speaks the King’s English.
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I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Many years ago, I wrote my undergraduate thesis on Wuthering Heights (specifically on how Bronte used religious imagery to highlight themes), so the book is very special to me. I haven’t re-read it in years, but may now go back and do so and see how it impacts now versus as a college student.
One of the things that makes Wuthering Heights is that there is so very much to unpack. What makes Heathcliff and Cathy who they are? What does it mean to love? Can love be evil? What is Nelly’s role? How naive is Lockwood? Is there hope for the next generation? And on and on.
I have great admiration for Emily Bronte’s artistic gifts and writing, and what little is known of her is fascinating. She certainly experienced much suffering in her life, losing her mother, two older sisters, and her brother’s issues with addiction. Her father and her Aunt Branwell both were stern. All of this surely impacted her writing. She also hated to be away from home and nature, and Cathy and Heathcliff’s need for the moors and nature may have been drawn from her own experience.
Like many have commented, I think Heathcliff’s nature being twisted by the cruelty is an important theme. The descriptions of Heathcliff when he first arrived indicate that he was dark and gypsy-like, and there are suggestions that the Earnshaw reactions to him contained elements of racism or possibly anti-immigrant sentiment with Liverpool being a port city. I have notes in one of my books about how his arrival precedes the death of the Earnshaw parents and then his return precedes Cathy’s death, which could be interpreted as his being a source of evil or bad luck. Again, questions scholars have considered, but no clear answers.
Heathcliff and Cathy definitely don’t seem intended to be likeable. However, there is a bit of contrast in that Heathcliff’s suffering is largely done TO him, and Cathy’s choices really trigger the destruction of the two families. I think their relationship does raise interesting questions about appropriate boundaries for love/the line between love and hate/how a lack of love can twist people.
I also agree that Nelly and Lockwood both are unreliable narrators, and Nelly certainly manipulated some of the historical events that she narrates more than 20 years later. Most scholars think her version of events is not meant to be trusted.
In many ways, I think Hareton and Catherine are meant to be a redemption arc. There is a contrast between Linton - born out of a union of hate between Heathcliff and Isabella, and Hareton - born out of his parents’ loving union. Linton embodies the worst of each of his parents, whereas Hareton embodies the best of his parents.
I have visited Haworth and the Bronte parsonage and walked the moors. It was very powerful to be there - the remoteness of the location, the openness of the moors and the surroundings, the dinginess of the town and the cemetery that the parsonage was adjacent to - and imagine Emily’s upbringing and how it must have impacted her art.
Anyway . . . this is already entirely too long, but reading this thread has been the joy of my day, so to everyone who suffered through Wuthering Heights to contribute to this discussion, thank you.
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