On Wuthering Heights

It seems that everything takes place somewhere in the highlands of England, a

territory where strangers are not welcome: they are regarded as strangers. Such
behavior is not to be considered as abnormal; it is, in fact, a very common feature
of every large indigenous population everywhere.

The Earnshaw family did not seem to be a very hostile one, but they end up on the
opposite side. The cause was the arrival of Heathcliff, and it is not easy to state if it
was Heathcliffs, fault or someone else. Anyway, it is possible to begin by telling
that jealousy is the essence of the tragedy. Mr. Earnshaw took home that poor
gypsy homeless boy because of good will. He treated the boy as if he were his own
son; but he did not take into account neither Hindleys jealousy nor Catherines
infatuation.

Whenever sex and jealousy are involved in any situation, difficulties will arise: love
and hatred. Madness, disease, death are only the results of such kind of mixture.
In Wutheirng Heights appear these elements; their combination creates the whole
dramatic misshapenness. The novel deals about Heathcliffs attempt to reach
Catherines heart. Every single situation portrayed in Bronts work is enclosed in
the increasing distance between Heathcliff and Catherine. Since the very moment
they start loving each other, they start also being separated: a gap opens gradually,
dividing their common feeling. Although Hindley makes the first cut, different
circumstances will contribute to definitely separate them.

It is interesting to remark that all Heathcliffs violence is defensible: he was turned

into that tough man because of the way he was treated by those who despised
him. He was not a spoiled boy as Hindley and Linton were. Violence and
despotism of the environment slipped into his soul. The behavior we find in the first
chapters is nothing but the mirror image of the others behavior. Heathcliffs nature
was love and respect; he could not behave exactly the same as Catherine, Hindley
or Linton because, in the end, he was different. Unfortunately, even the servants
were willing to mistreat him since the very beginning.

Wuthering Heights stands as a heartbreaking and hopelessness- story because

of, at least, two different conditions. One of them belonging to reality; the other
belonging to the field of fiction, but also being an echo of reality. In the first case, it
is hopeless because it is the story of an incomplete love. What Heathcliff and
Catherine had longed is never fulfilled. It is possible to say that their love is finally
achieved in death for their bodies, at last, rest in the same parcel of soil. However,
The dead know nothing, as it could be read on the pages of Josephs Bible. Many
of the novels characters die as the plot develops, including the central characters.
All of Emily Bronts siblings included herself- died from consumption. None of
them lived beyond thirty one. It is not by chance that death and hopelessness play
the main role of a story which takes place in such wuthering and high place.