Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights

[RonPrice]

And Here is A Second Prose-Poem

GOLD, SAPPHIRE AND BLOOD


Emile Bronte wrote the novel Wuthering Heights and a body of poetry called the Gondal just before and just after the Decalaration of the Bab. A study of this remarkable woman and her writings will reveal some interesting juxtapositions between the writings of this young, single woman in her twenties in England and the birth of a new revelation.
-Ron Price

What were those three inner gods
that warred so long in thee?
Are they the same that still fight on
so passionately in me?

What were those three rivers which
ran of equal depth and flow?
Gold, sapphire and blood they were,
tumbling in an inky sea below.

Not His writings, surely not!
What was that dazzling gaze?
That Ocean's sudden blaze?
The glad deep sparkled wide and bright,
white as the sun and far more fair
in the midst of your gloomy night.

That seer that you missed back then:
His glorious eye,
lighting the clouds
but once1,
He may have helped you
wish for life and not the
sleep of death.


1 so much of this poem comes from Emile Bronte's poem "A27" written on February 3, 1845. In this poem Bronte expresses the desire for death after years of suffering.

Ron Price
17 July 1998

 

[agathafan]

I don't like Wuthering Heights becuase it is too dark.

 

[beer good]

BBC News - BBC reworks Wuthering Heights with swearing

 

[nwee]

Heathcliff - hero or villain

I was discussing this book with some people in FB group and the popular inclination is to portray Heathcliff as romantic wronged which results in a very degraded, vengeful, cruel man. However for me, I think Heathcliff had bad streaks by nature. Even before the love between cathy and H blossomed, the incident about colts proved to me that Heathcliff was a ruthless man, who would go to any extreme to get what he needs - even at the price of self defeat. In the colts incident, Heathcliff threatens and blackmails Hindley to give him the latters colt because his own was found to be faulty - after having his choice:

As an instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought a couple of colts at the parish fair, and gave the lads each one. Heathcliff took the handsomest,but it soon fell lame, and when he discovered it, he said to Hindley--'You must exchange horses with me: I don't like mine; and if you won't I shall tell your father of the three thrashings you've given me this week,and show him my arm, which is black to the shoulder.' Hindley put out his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears. 'You'd better do it at once,'he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable): 'you will have to: and if I speak of these blows, you'll get them again with interest.' 'Off, dog!' cried Hindley, threatening him with an ironweight used for weighing potatoes and hay. 'Throw it,' he replied,standing still, 'and then I'll tell how you boasted that you would turnme out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you out directly.' Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it. 'Take my colt, Gipsy, then!' said young Earnshaw. 'And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and be damned, you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards show him what you are, imp

.

and quite pointedly the roles are reversed in the 1939 movie production of Heathcliff ( which I found much watered down). In that it is Hindly who tries to blackmail Heathcliff, so that the more popular version of Heathcliff being painted the romantic is complete.

And much later the ailing Lynton Heathcliff is portaited thus by his father:

But Linton requireshis whole stock of care and kindness for himself. Linton can play thelittle tyrant well. He'll undertake to torture any number of cats, iftheir teeth be drawn and their claws pared. You'll be able to tell hisuncle fine tales of his "kindness", when you get home again, I assureyou.'

This suggests that Heathcliff's tyrincal nature is present even in his son, even in his invalid state. To me, Heathcliff has bad blood in him, and this was recognized by Cathy who says, Heathcliff is more myself than I, In fact I am Heathcliff.

Your take on this ?

 

[Polly Parrot]

I think Heathcliff does start out troubled but isn't cruel from the get-go. I think the colt incident illustrates how he has had to fend for himself as he was brought into the home as a stray.

Cathy (the older one) is a bit mad and very manipulative from the start of the novel, however, like Heathcliff, she has some likable qualities.

I recently watched Andrea Arnold's take on Wuthering Heights. I didn't like it all that much. Arnold did a great job of making the moors and the house look depressing and all the characters to be mental, but like many other versions of the film, she also leaves out the second half of the novel with Cathy jr. and the older Heathcliff and his sons. Which is a shame.

 

[pontalba]

Finally read it last year and didn't like it a bit. That's not to say it isn't a good book, just not my cuppa by a long shot. I hated the way Cathy and Heathcliff tore at each other and everyone around them. I saw no redeeming features in any of the characters.
Now true it's been over a year since I read it, but I can't think of anyone in the book that was not either cruel, crazy, twisted or downright stupid. gak

I can relate to the professor up thread that said he'd rather choke on vomit than reread it. heh