Wuthering Heights written by Emily Bronte, was a novel filled with many emotions and activity. Her characters represent an on going conflict between love and hate. Upon the publication of the book articles and reviews were written regarding Brontes novel. Following her death some of these were recovered such as the following written January 15 1848: ” In Wuthering Heights the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity and the most diabolical hate and vengeance, and anon come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love-even over demons in the human form.
The women in the book are of a strange fiendish-angelic nature tantalizing and terrible, and the men are indescribable out of the book itself. ” The critic fills my complete expectations for what a review of this book should be. It is, in a sense, a blending of elements that make the book what it is. Both atmosphere and characters are filled with a mystery that keeps the reader drawn to the book much as some are addicted to viewing day time soap operas.
One of the main elements of the story that is mentioned in the review is cruelty. Cruelty has helped form some of the characters to be what they are. When a young Heathcliff is brought into the Earnshaw family, he is instantly disliked by Hindley Earnshaw. Hindley hates Heathcliff for intruding onto his family. He loses his fathers love and sets out to destroy Heathcliff. Within Catherine’s diary was written: ” I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute-his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious. (25) Hindleys hate toward Heathcliff is so deeply felt, that upon the news of Hindley receiving a son, Heathcliff sets out to torment the child as part of a plan to punish the Earnshaws. The cruelties of Hindley toward Heathcliff produces vengeance. Heathcliff feels the need to take revenge, and zeros in on Hareton Earnshaw son to Hindley.
Heathcliff’s evil influence is felt upon the boy who reflects the most insensitive traits. He turns the young Hareton into a brute for whom has no respect or love for his father or for his education. He raised his missile to hurl it: I commenced a soothing speech, but could not stay the hand-the stone struck my bonnet; and then ensued, from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses, which whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with practiced emphasis, and istorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity. ” (109) Heathcliffs cruelties toward Haerton is felt throughout. He has become a reflection of the cruelty Heathcliff hides in himself, he has done to Haerton what Hindley did to him.
In a strange sense Haerton clings to Heathcliff, and treats him as if he was a father. The supreme power of love is a central theme in the book. Bronte produces a love that is not so much romantic as it is powerful. Heathcliff’s evil is projected upon everyone in the story except Catherine. Catherine had from the start of the story had a love for Heathcliff. I ran to the children’s room; their door was ajar, I saw they had never laid down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them.
The little souls were confronting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on. ” (48) Here we can witness Catherine and Heathcliff comforting each other in the news of Mr. Earnshaw’s death. For a time it seems as if Heathcliff could be redeemed. And as they grew they became more separate. Catherine pledges her love to Edgar Linton, a young gentleman from Threshold Grange. She has second thoughts about her love. ” I’ve no more usiness to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in Heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it.
It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now: so he shall never know how I love him; and that not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire. ” (82) Catherine admits that within her heart she is not doing the right thing. After the death of Catherine, Heathcliff never fully recovers rom the loss. His love last to the point that seven years later he decides to bring up he coffin and embrace her one final time.
When he tells Nelly what he has done she deems his a wicked man who has no respect for the dead. Heathcliff replies that ” I disturbed nobody, and I gave some ease to myself. I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you’ll have a better chance of keeping me underground, when I get there. Disturbed her? No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years-incessantly-remorselessly-till yesternight; and yesternight I was tranquil. (274) Such as the review suggest shocking and disgusting displays of human nature.
One could not be more shocked than idea of removing a corpse from its grave to fulfill an undying love. The book ends as Heathcliff dies. We can see that the novel revolved around his life. He stands in the end unredeemed. His soul was forever locked in between his love for Catherine and his hate for the rest. Wuthering Heights can have a different interpretation by anyone who reads it. There are the evident struggles between love and hate, and as we can see through the end, love is stronger than hate.