Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Episode 5 - Redemption, Forgiveness and Overcoming

WH- Episode 5

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.

I’m Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love lit Podcast. If you have made it this far into Wuthering Heights, I feel like you deserve an award or something. This is our fifth episode analyzing this book, taking five episodes on a single work is something we have only done with two other authors- Hawthorne with the Scarlet Letter, our first series, and then again with our Shakespeare plays. But my goodness-navigating through Wuthering Heights is nothing short of brutal- I’ve gone back and looked at those initial harsh criticisms we read in episode one- and I have to admit, they weren’t wrong in recognizing this.

Well, you are right about that. It IS brutal- but honestly, how could a book about generational abuse be anything except brutal- exposing the brutality of abuse is in many ways at the heart of this book, but honestly, an even more important purpose- and for me the reason to suffer the experience of reading this book, is because Emily offers hope. There is literally NOTHING anyone can ever do to undo any abuse anyone has suffered in the past- and Bronte highlights that very clearly- however, she suggests that even under terrible circumstances, there is a way to be free of the curse of abuse and move into a future of new beginnings- and yet she absolutely parallels with this idea that it is also possible and perhaps in some ways easier to live and die in the victimhood of the past- this week we will end this journey and for me she concludes in an almost fairy tale-like way- which is alright with me!

My first question about this book when I read it was this- why does Bronte give the girls the exact same name? It’s SO confusing. Even if one had been Catherine and the other Cathy that would have helped= but she even mixes the nick names up- deliberately trying to get us the confuse the two women.

Mine too- actually- Of course, it now occurs to me, as I really believe great authors don’t do things accidentally or whimsically- that this confusion is for us to undeniably understand that the journeys of the catherines is perhaps the same journey- the experiences are the same- and yet she juxtaposes two opposite postures in life and two very different outcomes: one a tragedy the other a comedy- one ends in death, the other a wedding. And this last episode absolutely leaves us with a feeling we haven’t felt as we’ve left parts of the book- this last episode leaves us with a feeling of hope, security and empowerment- it also clarifies Emily Bronte’s heterodox religious views- which I will say are very Christian in tradition, but not traditional in their Christianity (that, btw is a chismus- I’m proud of that sentence structure- that’s hard to do.

HAHAHA- chiasmus it is- but let me say that hope, security and empowerment are great emotions to carry forward especially this time of year and particularly this year, if you are listening to this episode in real time- this is the first weekend of December, which in the Western tradition is the month where we do focus on hope, peace on earth and good will toward men- and it is the year 2020. So happy December 2020! as we round out the tumultuous or wuthering year of 2020, Christy and I have thought about how WE could use our small voice to give hope, peace and good will to the different communities that we connect with through this podcast and we came up with a small idea. 2020 has been SO brutal to everyone, we thought, if we could do nothing else, we could at least give some recognition and a shout-out to small entrepenuers out there who are braving our 2020 storm, opening their businesses, serving their communities and connecting people. So, this is what we want to propose, if you are a small business or if you have one you love and want to support- email us a picture or a shout out at garry@howtolovelitpodcast.com- and that is garry with two R’s not one R G-A-R-R-Y.

Or just go to our website. We will promote your business and your community on our social media accounts, recognizing and giving respect to all of us pulling together this year in a unique way.

Okay- back to the story- let’s give a little recap as how we’ve tried to organize this book. In episode one, we covered chapters 1-3 as we were introduced to the estate and residents of WH. Episode 2 we made it into chapter ten- discussing the childhood years of Catherine and Heathcliff and reading out that most famous, “I am Heathcliff” speech Catheirne gives as she decides to marry Edgar. This is the speech Heathcliff doesn’t hear because after hearing that she thinks it would degrade her to marry him he runs away.

Yes- in Episode 3- we’ve jumped three years. Edgar and Catherine are married and then six months later, Heathcliff is back- a changed man- he’s good-looking and rich. He’s also a man on a mission- and it seems as the story develops this mission is revenge. In episode 3, Heathcliff moves back into Wuthering heights. Hindley degrades himself through alcoholism and gambling, and HC begins the process of buying WH from Hindley while at the same time seeking to destroy Hindley’s son Hareton by treating him the same way Hindley treated Heathcliff as a child- an obvious and perhaps understandable revenge sequence.

Yes- and while this is going on in the background- the focus of this section of the book is not on HC’s revenge towards Hindley- Episode 3 really centers of the deterioration of Catherine and the love triangle between her, HC and Edgar. She wants to have both Edgar and HC in her life, and when it becomes evident this absolutely will not happen, she dies in this bizarre way- perhaps suicide, perhaps insanity- perhaps both. Right before dying however, Catherine gives birth to a child, also named Catherine. But Heathcliff also gets married and has a child with his wife, Edgar’s sister, Isabella, a young woman who he also deliberately and viciously abuses. Eventually after throwing a knife at her head, she leaves him, moves to London and raises a child six months younger than little baby Cathy. Her son’s name is Linton Heathcliff. Linton being her maiden name, and obviously Heathcliff being her married name.

There are so many plot twists, but the main thing to notice is all the parallels and doubles in the story. Eveyrhting everything is happening twice. Everything has a double- everything has an opposite too- from the weather- storm versus calm- to the houses- WH- chaotic to TG- peaceful- to most importantly the characters – of generation one to generation 2- they paralle but they are not the same. And of course, today we will juxtapose outcome number one to outcome number 2.

Let’s not forget last week’s episode, before we jump to today- in that we leave generation one for the most part- and focus on this second generation. The generation of little Cathy, little Linton and hareton-all three victims of abuse. Arguably Hareton, the most abused of them all- no one in his life has loved him- unlike the other two.

One a child of Edgar, one a child of Hindley, one a child of Heathcliff. Is that confusing enough for you?

It really does require me to slow down in my thinking and draw the family tree in my head or I’ll get lost.

Last episode I think focuses on the most difficult chapters of the book to read- even though I’ve found this book difficult to read from the beginning. We see so much abuse and evil at the hand of Heathcliff.

Where there is no doubt that Heathcliff and even Catherine suffered a great deal of abuse, neglect and trauma in their childhood, Heathcliff takes his childhood pain and seeks to inflict it in a grotesequely magnified way on helpless innocent children. In this section, Heathcliff is all powerful. He manipulates his son Linton. He physically hurts all three children. He dominates Edgar, Catherine One’s husband, Catherine Two’s father, by stealing his property through the manipulation of property law of Victorian England, but also by seeking to deny him his daughter’s presence at Edgar’s moment of death. The revenge of Heathcliff birthed out of childhood abuse drives the action, destroys everything in its wake, and progresses to the third generation in the person of his own son, Linton, who is also abusive to his wife Catherine TWO.

Yes- that is all true- yet, I want to point out a subtly of technique that is very important to understand- if we want to get to where Emily Bronte is taking us in the conclusion of her novel. We, as readers, are very much aware the entire time that Heathcliff’s cruelty rises from his personal misery. His hatred is destructive to everyone and that includes himself. It’s not that he hates everyone else, he hates himself and that’s what’s driving his indiscriminate hatred outward. The self-hatred is there to see, but also it’s there for readers to feel, and thus we don’t entirely ever stop sympathizing with him- even at his cruelest moments.

Of which there are many- the cruelest perhaps is where we start this episode with the death of his son Linton here in chapter 29. Edgar Linton is dead. He’s buried with his wife Catherine- although Heathcliff does try to block that, nelly interjects herself and makes sure his will is legally followed. But little Linton Heathcliff has done something at the end of chapter 28, pretty much the only kind thing he ever does in his entire miserable life, but this one act of kindness and bravery, will turn the rest of his life into an even greater livi...