Visit to the Bronte family home and the Bronte Museum. The narrator mentions brother Bramwell was drug addicted. Now I have to search that, certainly would have impact on Emily?
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The mystery is solved. I wondered why Emily’s book was so violent, disturbing, and where a shy, cloistered young woman knew so intimately of madness and anger.
Branwell her brother , drug addicted to alcohol and opium clearly inspired her.
I now feel sorry for her tragic life.
What a tragedy – that picture of the old father and the three sisters,
trembling day and night in terror at the possible deeds of this
drunken brutal son and brother!
That is the part of the life which affects me most.
George Eliot’s reaction to Elizabeth Gaskell’s dramatic account of Branwell Brontë’s malign effect on his family shows the stark difference between tranquil and industrious images of their home at Haworth Parsonage and the claustrophobic reality.
Branwell’s spiralling addictions to drink and drugs transformed Haworth at times from a well-ordered home to a domestic prison isolated by shame and fear. His behaviour became so dangerous that his father felt compelled to insist they share a bedroom after Branwell drunkenly almost set fire to the house. He was saved by Emily who flung him bodily from the bed and put the fire out with a large pan of water from the kitchen.
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@jerseysouthmomchess, thanks for the article on Branwell Brontë. He seems to have been the model for Hindley Earnshaw (and for both, the downward spiral is precipitated by the loss of a woman, one through rejection, the other through death).
Given the darkness of her home life, maybe Emily Brontë created Heathcliff as a sort of a “vessel”-- holding the rage she felt, and also the desire for escape, while at the same time expressing what it’s like to fiercely love someone despite what they have become.
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I suspect the scenes of Cathy’s mental breakdown, and other times of erratic behaviors, ie Heathcliff after Cathy died, may have been something she witnessed with Branwells drunken and drugged days and nights.
Emily watched her brother die a year before she died, lots of grief in that family.
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Lots of grief for sure! They lost two sisters, Maria and Elizabeth at the ages of 10 and 11, within weeks of one another. How awful.
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@mathmom The plot guide/review from Goodreads cracked me up!!!
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Reading about the drunken brother does explain a lot. I’m sorry the Brontes had such a tough life, but it did produce some memorable literature.
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l just read this — the mom died of cancer when the kids were young and several died of TB, including Emily.
I finished “Wuthering Heights” VERY early this morning, when I couldn’t sleep. Count me among those who had never read it. In short, although I didn’t “hate” the book, I definitely didn’t love it either. A lot of the time I felt like I was reading just to be done with the book so I could join this discussion. A fair amount of the time the story dragged and I wanted to be able to tell Emily (Bronte) to “get on with it!” And yet, when the book ended, I sat back and thought, “Well, that was a wild ride, in a crazy, memorable sort of way.” I’m quite sure I’ll never feel the need to read it again, but I can honestly say I’m glad I read it once.
Further up thread someone mentioned “Jane Eyre.” W-a-y back when I was in Jr. High, my mother bought me a fairly old copy from a used book sale. I LOVED it!!! I do wonder, though, if I’d love it as much if I re-read it today …
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Congrats on finishing! Glad you were able to get through it. It was definitely a different read.
Interesting that the dad lived to ripe old age of 84 while the last child died at 38!
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I also read Jane Eyre as a young teen … then again in adulthood when I was taking a lit class “for fun.” Was astonished how much I had missed, forgotten, or glossed over.
Way more going on there than a love story! (Reader, I wouldn’t have married him.)
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I am glad I read Wuthering Heights, and while I’m not sure I would say I enjoyed it, I would say that it held my interest.
A few things that stood out to me:
- I didn’t like any of the characters in the story. While I initially felt sorry for young Heathcliff who was horribly mistreated by the jealous Hindley Earnshaw, the story became one of revenge, with Heathcliff playing the long game.
- I thought Nelly’s telling of the story was engaging, but continue to wonder why Bronte set up the story to have one narrator relaying the story to another (albeit less active) narrator. I can only imagine that as readers, we are meant to consider and perhaps question the motives and reliability. Overall, Nelly appeared to provide depth of understanding and perspective, but we are aware throughout that we don’t know (as readers) what she doesn’t know as the narrator. Whether and how a different narration would change the story is something I’m still considering.
- As a product of it’s time, the story is critical of the treatment of women and children as being possessions and belongings of spouses, parents and/or male relatives. Bronte underscores this point throughout the book using specific quotes ranging from referring to Heathcliff as “it” when he arrives at the Earnshaws, to later referencing that young Catherine will “belong” to Linton (as his wife) and Heathcliff as the FIL. I think Cathy’s excursions to WH (and her defiance of Nelly and her father, and later of Linton and Heathcliff) are the author’s way of showing the limited means available to women who seek independence or personal freedom–and the despair and boredom that many women endured.
- The books deals with big themes–love, jealousy, revenge, loyalty, despair, desperation. None of the characters seem worthy of the passion they engender, which I think makes it a very human story, and perhaps more believable as a commentary of human nature.
- Which brings me full circle. I didn’t like the characters, and yet found them believable as flawed human beings used by the author to critique both the most base and selfish human instincts while also acknowledging the social constructs that bound them to their circumstances and dictated their actions.
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Thanks for that thorough summary and analysis. Welcome to the cc book discussion group, assuming this is your first post.
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I love the way Cathy talks about Heathcliff. Her language is so evocative. On the one hand:
*“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
and then when she’s trying to dissuade Isabella from pursuing him (and tried to get Nellie to help)
“Nelly, help me to convince her of her madness. Tell her what Heathcliff is: an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. I’d as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter’s day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don’t imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He’s not a rough diamond - a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.”
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Good point. Having Lockwood as the framing narrator and Nelly as the secondary narrator is like playing a game of Telephone. A first person narration can already be suspect in a novel. Compound that by having one narrator pass along the story he’s just been told by another narrator and you’ve doubled the chances of accidentally losing (or incorrectly gaining) something along the way.
In addition, two narrators, with one relating past events to the other, pushes Wuthering Heights toward oral tradition, which is a common way of passing down legends, myths, folklore, and ballads from generation to generation. It can be argued that the wild and other-worldly plot of Wuthering Heights drops it into those categories. Can’t you imagine a scary tale told around the fire hundreds of years after the events of the story – about a restless ghost who knocks on your window at night, searching for her lost love, and a crazed man who digs up her grave to hold her in his arms again?
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It really felt like the isolation of these people was a major character and factor in their very stunted emotional development. They didn’t have full relationships with many people and I think this really limited their personal development. They also didn’t view themselves as having options or agency to change their situation other than Heathcliff and Mrs Heathcliff by running away, or becoming surly and/or mean.
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In Gothic truth is stranger than fiction, it appears that the Brontes and most of the town drank contaminated water, which may at least partly account for their shortened lifespans (though the dad was apparently immune). Water supply was contaminated both by privies and nearby graveyard! There are reports that they didn’t have a very good diet at at the boarding school attended either, which contributed to the problem.
The mother died of TB or cancer.
The father was about 40 when he moved to the parsonage with the unhealthy water and was able to grow up with healthy water in Wales. The entire town had remarkably low life expectancy—like a toxic waste site.
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A toxic waste land, for sure. 40% of the children didn’t survive until 6 years old!
The Bronte house, and the town of Haworth were grim places.
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Hats off to everyone who persisted! The discussion (almost) makes me want to pick up the book again. Maybe the Classic Comic version? 
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- Does Heathcliff’s story hold the novel together? Does it make sense to read it as, in its own fashion, a Bildungsroman (telling the story of the building of a character over time, through education and experience)?
There is no novel without Healthcliff. He drives the action and has a profound impact on the fate of almost every character. So in that way, yes, he holds it together. But I would not call his story a Bildungsroman, which “depicts and explores the manner in which the protagonist develops morally and psychologically.”
The four stages are loss, journey, personal growth through conflict, and maturity. Per Wikipedia, “Character change is important.”
All Heathcliff has is loss, through Catherine’s marriage to Edgar and her eventual death. His physical journey is outside the action of the novel and he does not exhibit any metaphorical journey where he grows and changes. He leaves Wuthering Heights hell-bent on revenge and returns ready to wreak havoc. That never changes. There is no moral growth.
I think the Bildungsroman aspect would pertain to Hareton, but we can never really track that journey as we don’t know enough about it. Wuthering Heights is not his story. But it seems to me that he goes through the four necessary stages.
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