Wuthering Heights: Midnight Reflections
As I write this it’s late, I’m tired, and I have nothing original to say about the novel that’s been causing a stir since 1847.
But I had to write something after finishing Wuthering Heights, so here are my amateur reflections.
Hatred Begets Hatred
As I closed Emily Brontë’s magnum opus, I felt a lot of things. But the predominant impression swirling in my gut upon completion of the story was that hatred begets hatred. Evil breeds evil. Trauma creates more trauma.
Despite often feeling disgust toward Heathcliff while reading, I also felt sorry for him.
What if he hadn’t been abandoned by his biological family as a child?
What if his foster brother, Hindley, hadn’t been jealous and set out to make his life miserable, robbing him of everything Heathcliff’s adopted father intended to give?
What if Catherine hadn’t been too proud to give Heathcliff a chance, and hadn’t been so prone to flattery in her acceptance of Edgar Linton’s proposal?
I could go on, with “what ifs” for each character, and each one would lead to another “what if” for someone else.
Of course, Heathcliff had agency. They all did, at least at times, and to varying degrees. But Wuthering Heights drives home the truth that no person is an island; everyone’s actions affect the lives of others. And the potentially negative effects of your actions to another won’t necessarily stop there. Generations will deal with the fallout. An excellent review I read on Goodreads noted that Brontë paints a vivid picture of generational trauma, and of the abused becoming abusers.
There is Redemption
Warning, spoilers ahead. I know the book has been out for 178 years, but if you’re like I was and have never read it and want to experience the journey unspoilt, proceed cautiously.
About two-thirds of the way through I was convinced this would not only be a tale of tragic love but end in utter tragedy. I braced myself for it.
“Instead of simply being told that you shouldn’t mistreat others, by reading Wuthering Heights, you feel what happens when you do. ”
That’s why I was so pleased with the very ending with regard to young Catherine and Hareton. I held out hope that Catherine would eventually reclaim her sweet nature (she was yet another example of someone twisted by mistreatment). I was about to give up that hope, till the very end. And it was satisfying. The two men Heathcliff purposed to destroy even after their deaths via their progeny end up avenged. The children of Hindley and Edgar reclaim their rightful inheritance and find joy in the house long darkened by their families’ bane.
It’s telling that near the end of his own life, Heathcliff acknowledges that hate has left him empty. “I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing,” he tells Nellie. What a waste to have lived his entire life for revenge, especially when all his schemes came undone upon his death. (Save, perhaps, his aim to be reunited with a certain someone, which leads me to my next observation…)
Loose Ends
From a literary perspective, I appreciated how Brontë leaves the spectral elements of her novel up to reader interpretation. Ghosts (one in particular) are a central theme, or presence, throughout the whole book. But we never encounter one directly. We’re told of encounters, second or even third-hand. We see the effects of supposed encounters, and these effects drive major plot points. But the encounters we are told about are either during sleep, when they could be mistaken for a dream, or reported by one or more unreliable sources. (Is Heathcliff just crazy or truly haunted? Is Nellie in the right or is she blind to the spooky truth?) We’re never really told one way or the other whether the ghosts themselves are real.
I know some people prefer hard, cold, answers when they finish their stories. If there is any mystery along the way, they want it solved undisputedly by the end. That’s fine. But I don’t mind a few loose ends—or, if not loose ends, something to ponder after the story’s all said and done.
Dark and Worth It
Wuthering Heights, while gripping, is not a light read. It’s heavy and it’s dark. There is toxicity. There is abuse. There is death. But that, to me, is part of what makes it worthwhile. Instead of simply being told that you shouldn’t mistreat others, by reading Wuthering Heights, you feel what happens when you do. You comprehend, in a deeper way, the stark difference between love and hatred, forgiveness and revenge.
And if you make it to the end, you see that even after trauma, there is hope for healing and wholeness.
