‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ – PROBLEMS OF POSSESSION
‘Towering over the romantic fiction of the mid-19th century are the Brontë sisters, in particular Emily and Charlotte, who with Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre set a standard, the first for the novel of doomed love, the second for the novel of the young woman’s climb to moral independence and a passion underscored by equality.’
Oxford Companion to English Literature
I find I have an irresolvable problem with ‘Wuthering Heights’. The accepted view of the novel, like that stated above, is that it is revolves around the passionate relationship between the two main characters, Catherine Earnshaw and
Heathcliff. Their
love for each other is meant to
transcend all barriers, be they
physical or
spiritual. But the nature of this love is destructive – it tears apart the fabric of the
landscape around it. Even Catherine herself admits:
‘… “he’s always in my mind – not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself.”’
p82
The nature of their love is
controlling and
selfish – not
unconditional. The lovers make disastrous decisions, often for their own
gratification as opposed to each other’s. The actions are possessive and, therefore, I believe that this is a novel, not so much about ‘
doomed love’, but about
possession of
people,
property and
ideas.
Throughout the novel all of the
characters are, at some point, emotionally or physically
dispossessed. Heathcliff is introduced to the family, by old Earnshaw, as a childhood
waif and stray – miles away from the fiddle and whip that Hindley and Catherine hoped for. While his
appearance suggests that he comes from
gypsy stock, Nellie later points out that he could be heir to some far off kingdom. This is reflected in Earnshaw’s observation,
‘… “I was never so beaten with anything in my life; but you must e'en take it as a gift of God; though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil.”’
p36
He is continually made to feel like an
outcast, as with the death of old Earnshaw and Hindley’s succession, when he is reduced to the rank of mere farm labourer. Again, when he and Catherine visit Thrushcross Grange and she is taken in, injured, the closed windows highlight their
separation, not only from each other, but also in terms of
social spheres:
‘… “The curtains were still looped up at one corner; and I resumed my station as a spy…’
p51
Ultimately he is isolated by Catherine’s choice of Edgar for a husband.
Hindley, in turn, feels understandably dispossessed by the arrival of the stranger – on whom his father showers affection. He, like many of the characters is emotionally isolated, save for the short period of time he has with Frances. When Heathcliff grows up and challenges him, Hindley is cast out of his role as master, and the
order is
upset once more. This in turn dispossesses Hareton of his
birthright.
Meanwhile, Catherine, in the words of
Terry Eagleton, ‘becomes after Earnshaw’s death a spiritual orphan as Heathcliff is a literal one.’ She is dispossessed by association and allowed to
run wild. While she attempts to find a
resolution in her
marriage to Edgar, and the subsequent move to Thrushcross Grange, her desire to have her cake and eat it – by continuing her relationship with Heathcliff – results in her being stranded between the two. Is it
naivety,
self-deception or
arrogance at her own level of control that causes Catherine to make this cataclysmic
error of judgment? I believe that it is probably a bit of all of the above, illustrated by her flimsy
rationale that:
‘ … “if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power.”’
p82
But this is a forlorn hope, as her decision fails to make either man happy.
Finally, Isabella, Cathy and Linton are all ‘removed’ from their natural surroundings. Isabella marries into a ‘sphere’ alien to that which is natural to her, while Cathy is physically isolated at the Grange, only to be further isolated by her marriage to Linton. It is only at the novel’s conclusion, with the union of Cathy and Hareton that emotional isolation and physical dispossession comes to an end.
However, the other side of the novel is the possessive nature of the two main protagonists, and the need for many of the characters to take possession of people or places. Heathcliff is the main culprit here. Desperate for revenge, he becomes master of Wuthering Heights by steadily eroding Hindley’s capital at cards. This effectively gives him possession of Hindley – he is now his landlord and master – as well as possession of his son Hareton, whom he
brutalizes, in spite of the boy’s affection for him. He then goes onto secure Thrushcross Grange by forcibly marrying Cathy to Linton. He has seized both of these children from Edgar – Cathy is kept under house arrest.
Also, the love expressed by Catherine and Heathcliff is often controlling. While we feel sympathetic to Heathcliff, as Catherine’s jilted lover, it is harder to accept the boundless acts of
selfishness he indulges in to win her back,
punish her and sometimes just to make himself feel better! He arrogantly rejects Edgar’s love of Catherine as callow and constantly attempts to undermine it:
‘… “And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity!’
p152
He even wishes to
usurp Edgar in death, by being buried next to Catherine with the walls of the coffins removed. By so strongly denying Catherine’s relationship with Edgar, Heathcliff is effectively rejecting her decision and even her
autonomy. While one may feel that Edgar does not fully understand or know Catherine, he is at least a
dutiful and loving husband. In fact, the greatest criticism that could be levelled against him is
weakness – he allows himself to fulfil the role of Heathcliff’s victim, and this is especially true when he makes no attempt to stop the man seizing first Linton and then Cathy.
Catherine, in turn, uses
identity to control. Does her abstract declaration, ‘I am Heathcliff!’ merely express a boundless love in which identity becomes irrelevant, or is it also a useful means for her to continue possessing a part of him, in spite of her forthcoming marriage to Edgar? This, surely, is the central crux of the novel. But either way, the statement binds Heathcliff and her together, at a time when she has promised herself to someone else.
This in turn leads onto the subject of
male ownership of women, for the very identity of the novel’s two women ‘leads’ is dependent upon the man with whom they are aligned at the time. Brontë does this through surnames – which
feminists would also regard as a symbol of male ownership. Catherine starts out as ‘Earnshaw’, when she is under her father’s jurisdiction; with his death comes her bond to Heathcliff; then finally her agreement to marry, and thus become a ‘Linton’. The cyclical nature of the novel, with the
conciliatory second half, means that her daughter experiences the reverse: she begins as Catherine Linton, then Heathcliff, before finally becoming an Earnshaw. This merely serves to highlight the possessive nature of the relationships within the novel.
The
narrative, meanwhile, provides the reader with the important task of deciding what to accept or reject as true. Lockwood and Nellie are both relatively uninvolved in the general thrust of the story – but, to differing degrees, make up for their limited roles by taking possession of the story itself. Lockwood
‘frames’ the narrative for us, and yet bizarrely the story appears to have little effect upon him. While he clearly enjoys a good yarn, and probes so much that one might go so far as to suggest that he’s really a bit of a
gossip, he fails to appreciate the
drama and passion. He only claims to be interested in the characters ‘more or less’ and his talk of the ‘hero’ and ‘heroine’ suggests that the whole event his
remote or inaccessible to him. His entire understanding is
superficial, even crass. He talks as if the only function of this lengthy and often terrible history is to ‘amuse’ him, and judges it, foremost, on such a basis:
‘She (Nelly) is, on the whole, a very fair narrator and I don’t think I could improve her style.’
p157
However, while he fails to appreciate the passion that exists between the main characters, he does enjoy
romanticizing events for himself. His attachment to the area, and particularly Catherine Heathcliff, is clearly much greater than he would allow the reader to believe. At one moment he states that:
‘… my residence in that locality had already grown dim and dreamy.’
p305
But upon hearing of Catherine’s engagement to Hareton he admits,
‘I bit my lip, in spite, at having thrown away the chance I might have had, of doing something besides staring at its smiting beauty.’
p308
The reader suspects that Lockwood would have done nothing but stare – his role as
bystander in the novel appears to be a
metaphor for his entire life. But he does appear to be an incorrigible
romantic, possibly exaggerating descriptions, such as that of the Heights when he returns one last time at the novel’s end, in an attempt to enhance his own desire for a happy, romantic conclusion. As a result the reader remains wary of him – his only real involvement with the plot is his recounting of it.
Similarly, Nellie Dean, whilst perhaps the ‘specimen of true
benevolence and homely fidelity’ of
Charlotte Brontë’s 1850
Preface, is also well observed as the ‘hidden enemy’. Indeed, the reader would be mistaken to place a large amount of trust in her, for she only appears to live through others, and the power vested in her by her possession of the narrative. There are many examples of her
hypocrisy and unreliability. For a start, she could be seen as culpable in the novel’s
pivotal event – Catherine’s consent to marry Edgar, for Catherine seeks her advice but Nellie just
piously lectures the ‘wicked, unprincipled girl.’ She is also involved in Heathcliff and Catherine’s secret meetings at the Grange, whilst at the same time disapproving of them. (This she does again with regard to Cathy and Linton’s love letters.) She enjoys taking the moral high ground, whilst also revelling in getting her hands dirty in the murky politics and dangerous liaisons. She works hard at getting people’s confidences, but has little problem breaking them. She is fickle in her allegiances, one moment suggesting a romance between Lockwood and Catherine Heathcliff; the next lauding her delight at the latter’s union with Hareton. One might suggest that she is the perfect narrator, for she appears to enjoy imparting things be known only unto her. But the reader must question one who is clearly so expert in knowing what to conceal or reveal:
‘As soon as he recovered, I related our compulsory visit, and detention at the Heights: I said Heathcliff forced me to go in, which was not quite true.’
p282
Her life is clearly empty and her
experiences
limited. We can guess that her interest in the relationships of others stems from the lack of one herself. We can, therefore, go onto suggest that the only real sense of possession of person that she has is through her telling of the story.
In conclusion, it is my belief that the novel is not true to its
organic self. The
imaginative centre, as we have established, is power and possession. This tells throughout, in the actions of the characters, the isolation of their existences and even in the means by which the story is told. On the other hand, I find much of Brontë’s description of a
transcendent love inconsistent. Why, if their love can survive even
heaven and
hell, does Heathcliff feel the need to degrade it by such a physical and mortal act as opening Catherine’s tomb? Why, if their spirits will live on at the Heights and on the moors, as is implied at the end, does Heathcliff feel the need for the sides of the coffins to be removed?
The ending of the novel does not belong to it, either. The power and attraction of the text lies in the
destruction, not in the healing. The cyclical means by which the reader goes full circle, and leaves the Heights as an open, scented place where Catherine Earnshaw resides is not true to the novel’s very core – it feels false,
formulaic. By comparison, ‘
Middlemarch’ and the ending for Fred Vincy and Mary Garth is entirely consistent with the novel’s development – it is
organic – while Cathy and Hareton’s union is not. One is about a wholesome, adult love, while the other is about a destructive,
adolescent passion. That is not to detract from Brontë’s work, which is powerful and
poetic, but I believe that it’s real power lies in the tale of destruction that can be caused by I need to own and control. She is perhaps, as William Blake wrote of John Milton,
‘ … of the Devil’s party without knowing it.’
Bibliography
Myths of Power: A Marxist Study of the Brontës by Terry Eagleton, Macmillan 1975
Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights by Frank Goodridge, Edward Arnold 1979
The 19th Century Novel and its Legacy Unit 5: Wuthering Heights prepared by Graham Holderness, The Open University Press 1976
Penguin Critical Studies: Wuthering Heights by Rod Mengham, Penguin Books 1988
Wuthering Heights: a Worksheet Guide by Jane O’Neill, Literary Images Limited 1992
York Notes on Wuthering Heights by Angela Smith, Longman 1980
New Casebooks: Wuthering Heights edited by Patsy Stoneman, Macmillan 1993