Always, after reading this classic peice of gothic literature, I feel like there's a sadness that settles over my soul. The only thing that makes Heathcliff and Cathy into some semblance of a romantic couple is the passion with which they love each other. They have not a single other redeeming quality. Cathy is an awful person: selfish, concieted, and uncaring. Heathcliff is not any better, he is vengeful and can definitely hold a grudge. Why, then, do we hold them with some of the greatest love stories of our time? Why are they seen in the same light as some of the most romantic couples in literature, like Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. I think that they love each other because they know no other way. They see their love for each other as the only thing that is holding them to this frail world.
Lord, I love this book. It is passionate and somehow sad at the same time. Each character feels with such intense emotion that it is impossible for them to be ignored. Even the younger generation of Cathy, Hareton, and Linton feel emotions much more strongly than could be believed possible. everything is so intense that it cannot be stifled for any reason. Sometimes I wish life was like this. That love and emotion is more powerful than life itself.
"I've no more business 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." -Wuthering Heights, p. 79
"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and her were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like a foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary." -Wuthering Heights, p.80
"Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" -Wuthering Heights, p.164
No comments:
Post a Comment