It’s amazing how you can want something so badly and not get to have it at the time you want it. Then after a while of waiting, you then get it. That’s what happened with the book I just finished reading a couple of weeks ago: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte- another 19th century classic. I had stumbled on a short summary of the book in my dictionary as I searched the meaning of some words I was trying to get. As at then, I had never heard of it or the author prior to that time, and the simple excerpt I read, sparked my interest. I went online to do a research about the author Emily Bronte and her sisters, Charlotte and Anne Bronte.
Wuthering Heights is a book I find very intriguing, full of eccentricity but original, and most naturally crafted from the author’s probably everyday observation of the occurrences and experiences of the people who lived in her time. Like the review from the Britannia, January 15, 1848 says:’ Strangely original’. I strongly agree with this perfect description of the book. It’s a story that sets you on edge; although I had to read some pages twice to grasp the colloquial meaning of some words, phrases and sentences, it was nevertheless an interesting book.
It perfectly describes the story of a man, Mr. Earnshaw who out of kindness and a good heart brings in to his home an abandoned gypsy orphaned child, who he names Heathcliff, much to the dislike of his wife, Mrs. Earnshaw and eldest son, Hindely Earnshaw. Catherine Earnshaw the only daughter and last child, was the only one who took to Heathcliff and saw no grimness in him neither thought him to be savage at all. She spent every waking moment with him and they became inseparable as children, much to the discomfort and dislike of her elder brother Hindely, who had been sent away to college partly because of his disagreeable behavior and his ill treatment of Heathcliff the adopted child. He had returned to take over Wuthering Heights after the death of his father, Mr. Earnshaw.
Five years later, I’m at one of the schools where we have our book clubs running, and as I am waiting for the kids to converge in the library for our usual reading session, I began to peruse the book shelves and suddenly my eyes rest on the title: Wuthering Heights! I screamed in delight and immediately pulled the book off the shelf, and thus my long awaited journey began into the world of the Earnshaws, the Lintons, and the antagonist and hero of the book, Mr. Heathcliff.
Wuthering Heights is a book I find very intriguing, full of eccentricity but original, and most naturally crafted from the author’s probably everyday observation of the occurrences and experiences of the people who lived in her time. Like the review from the Britannia, January 15, 1848 says:’ Strangely original’. I strongly agree with this perfect description of the book. It’s a story that sets you on edge; although I had to read some pages twice to grasp the colloquial meaning of some words, phrases and sentences, it was nevertheless an interesting book.
It perfectly describes the story of a man, Mr. Earnshaw who out of kindness and a good heart brings in to his home an abandoned gypsy orphaned child, who he names Heathcliff, much to the dislike of his wife, Mrs. Earnshaw and eldest son, Hindely Earnshaw. Catherine Earnshaw the only daughter and last child, was the only one who took to Heathcliff and saw no grimness in him neither thought him to be savage at all. She spent every waking moment with him and they became inseparable as children, much to the discomfort and dislike of her elder brother Hindely, who had been sent away to college partly because of his disagreeable behavior and his ill treatment of Heathcliff the adopted child. He had returned to take over Wuthering Heights after the death of his father, Mr. Earnshaw.
Mrs. Earnshaw had passed on two years after Heathcliff came into the family. As time goes on, Edgar Linton, the son of the rich Linton family from Thrushcross Grange begins to call on Miss Catherine Earnshaw, much to Heathcliff ‘s displeasure, envy and rage. He eavesdrops on Catherine’s conversation with her Maid, Mrs. Ellen and hears of her acceptance of Edgar’s marriage proposal, he bolts and runs away leaving Catherine in the doldrums of total despair and on the verge of a nervous break down! She eventually marries Edgar and after three years of absence.
Heathcliff returns unexpectedly with hidden and gruesome plans to take on revenge on Hindely Earnshaw, who had brutally wronged him as a child; on Edgar Linton, who had taken away Catherine Earnshaw the love of his life- and Isabella Linton, Edgar’s younger sister, who upon learning of her intense feelings for him, took it as a bait, and coaxed her into eloping with him. He would marry her and she would give birth to a son, who many years later, he would force to marry Edgar and Catherine’s daughter, Catherine Linton in order to take the Lintons’ inheritance out of their hands!
In the end, however, many years later, now master and owner of Wuthering Heights and Thrusscross Grange, and still grieved by the death of Catherine Earnshaw Linton, the love of his life- full of anger, spite, and hatred, dies tragically, on the throes of insanity, recieving the full harvest of evil deeds done to Hareton Earnshaw, Hindely’s son; Isabella Linton; her son, Linton Heathcliff, and Catherine’s Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine Linton.
Nice write up......
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