WHY I LOVE WUTHERING HEIGHTS | Brontë Book Club
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- Опубліковано 27 лис 2024
- I talk about Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë!
This video is sponsored by the Brontë Society and Brontë Parsonage Museum as part of my role as Brontë Society Young Ambassador.
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Heathcliff's story is a prime example of the saying 'treat people like scum and they'll start acting like scum'
yes, the abused can become the abuser without proper help
I kept wondering why H wasn’t put off this place. “Abused”? Are you kidding? Anyone behave that way to my loved ones, and he’s going to mumbling for C thru a split jaw.
Guy was jacked up from Day 1. That’s how to read him.
I just read it for the first time. So dark, so wonderful. I actually really love Nelly Dean, which doesn’t seem to be a super popular opinion, but I thought I would throw it out there. She’s an amazing narrator, and I think it’s so unique for this time period to have the whole plot narrated by a servant.
I definetely agree with you!! And she is so ahead of her time! For us her opinion might seem like the common sense but nelly (and emiliy) are very clever and unique. And she's the one that keeps most of the caracters alive. She is the light in the middle of so much darkness.
Daniel Fletcher I agree on that. Nelly Dean is such a powerful character, for she witnessed many brutal moments in her life yet she emerged as a strong and reliable companion.
Oh I hated Nelly more than anyone, even though she help Catherine (both) in very needed moment of their lives, she just hide and do things she is not supposed to hide or do. I wanted to kill her for discovering Cathy and Linton's letter, like what Nelly its her business!!! Also lying that heathcliff 's in stable when he was eavesdropping on her n Cathy!! So was at many points simply annoying to me and kept secret she was/wasn't supposed to keep
@@krishafyme she didnt even inform edgar linton when cathy was dying.
i dont like her too.
i think she never liked cathy.
and ohh she used to torcher poor little headcliff too in his childhood.
she is a bitch😑
She was the most vile character of them all. Spoiled, double crossing, meddling, entitled, and absolutely obnoxious.
I swear Emily was going into some serious sh*it when she wrote it.
@Franco Chávez I mean, just WHY? Why are the characters the way they are? They're all mean, do unreasonable acts and just the overall darm sullen mood of the novel.
Oh yeah
agreed lmao
@@flanbenflen9069 because in reality people are mean and do unreasonable acts.
nothing unreasonable in it
My second read and Catherine is still the most selfish character I’ve ever read. Which is why she’s great.
Anthony Todhunter
Then Cathy becomes unselfish
She’s right after Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind in my opinion!
For me, she just loses to Emma Bovary
I mean it would be hard to chose between rich, handsome, respectable Edgar and heathcilff, we can't fill stomach or live good , happy life with passion, I think she was practical and selfish, but...
@@abbiel7566 Scarlett was worse, in my opinion. Although Cathy was somewhat selfish, I think she also was being practical. With Scarlett, I could really never forgive her for stealing her sister’s beau, nor for her cruel treatment of Rhett when he loved her so much.
I love the character of Joseph too. I love how he’s such a religious zealot but at the same time is such a hypocrite and shows absolutely no true Christian values. Probably reflects how Emily viewed some of the preachers and clergymen in Yorkshire in her time
Totally agree with you! I think Joseph is how Emily saw the Church in that time
I just hated him though, and Nelly would be the most annoying character of all time, I loved Hearton and Edgar Linton character much but heathcliff remains as most complex and dangerously eccentric character
@@crazynerdlover7982 I think Joseph was great comic relief
i cant understand what he is saying half of the time LMFAO
Yes, and in Charlotte's Jane Eyre there are 2 religious zealots too: Saint John and Jane's cousin (the girl but i forgot the name)
I feel that the book finished the way it started. Hareton and Cathy were able to live what Catherine and Heathcliff never did. I share the same thoughts that you do about the topics, I've just realized that now.
I've read the book for the first time and finished it in 3 days! I agree, Edgar Linton deserves better. It's just so unfortunate that he landed himself in the middle of the most destructive and obessive love affair that the moor has ever known 😢
He was far too wet. He could have asserted himself/his wife/his daughter a little better
I literally finished the book in 5 months lol ... not that I didn't like it but I am not a regular reader... but it's a great book
In 3 days!!!!!!? Wow!
One thing, he's the one that punched Heathcliff out, for all of Heathcliff threats. He was good at abusing women, and sick children.
I finished it in 4 and honestly the book was too complex to me and I didn’t like how much perhaps hysterics for me
to me hareton and Cathy are the conclusion of "Catherine" and heathcliff idealized,, it's almost like heathcliff treated hareton in parallel to his own treatment to "groom" him to live out his unfulfilled life and loves, even the same first initial of their names, the whole of the metaphor of hareton not being able to read his name, he doesn't know who he is either in the same way as heathcliff the heights defines who he is and who he becomes. Cathy parallels to her mother in description and metaphor as well , to heathcliff she becomes her mothers ghost, and I believe he grooms her also to be with hareton, I think that it is an underlying part of the narrative that this was his intention the orphaned hareton is more his son and more like he than his own son in the same way as hindley was estranged from his father who embraced heathcliff. Edgar dying was in a way a metaphor for giving Cathy back to heathcliff and Linton dying gave heathcliff back to "Catherine" to her falling in love with his metaphoric shadow Hareton, it's such a beautiful way to express that heathcliff and Catherine could have loved if they had not been separated by harsh circumstances through hareton and Cathy. I could go on and on with this ideal it's absolutely perfect in resolution and rich with details that reveal themselves with every read.
A good observation here. I totally agree.
Spot on!! 👍👍
Wow, great!
I can feel you, dude, its just so true and great!!
I would have been happy for young Catherine and Hareton being together at the end, except for remembering that they are actually first cousins, and therefore should not marry.
I feel like not enough people appreciate Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff is such a great character.
a great character but a horrible human being
For me, wuthering heights are too cold and dark, I don't really like.
You mean horrible
Loved this book but fuck Heathlicff dude straight up locked Cathy (young Cathy) inside and hit her ! #teamEdgar
Buttercup baby I’m in the minority for preferring part II over the first part, but yes that is what makes this book so good ... I was feeling that way in the first part. I need to re read this book again.
I think it’s a great literary work, in spite of the darkness and the cruelty in it, it holds your attention. But when you contrast it with Jane Eyre, written by her sister, you can see how Charlotte was more optimistic about the goodness of human nature than was Emily.
I don’t think it goodness of human nature. It’s about displaying human nature the way it is. Emily was far ahead of her time.
I didn't like Jane Eyre, tbh. Emily was superior.
It's interesting to note that Emily lived mainly at home with Branwell, who could be like Heathcliff, in a way, in his drunken and drug-addled rants. She also saw the downside of the obsessive love he had with Mrs. Robinson, who coldly cast him aside later on when she could have married him, with an elaborate excuse, which, of course, gets found out eventually. Also, though Charlotte wanted to write a story that rang true, she also very much wanted to be commercially published, partly for financial reasons, which was quite understandable considering her perilous financial position at the time. Emily, however, didn't care about such things, so under a pseudonym, she could write exactly the novel she wanted to, public opinion be damned.
I read WH when I was 15 and at the time I had never read anything like WH, and that book blew my mind. It's actually my favorite book now, great video btw 😘
Loved this discussion! So much to think about. WH is less a romance, than a romance thwarted. Cathy & Heathcliff are cosmically destined to be together, & when that falls apart all hell breaks loose & the book becomes a Gothic horror revenge story unto the next generation. You're right, I like that we're left with a bit of hope at the end after so much suffering, fear, & pain that came before.
i’ve never seen a book approach the topic of love the way Wuthering Heights did. an amazing and criminally underrated book
I recently gave another chance to Wuthering Heights thanks to you (the first time I approached it I expected a great love story as many people wrongly do and I was too shocked and appalled by how horrible some characters are to appreciate it) and thank God I did because I LOVED it this time! I have no words to describe how incredible this novel is. It’s just so profound and the characters’ study is amazing. I think it’s just become my favourite book!
I love Hareton too! I felt so bad for him throughout the whole book and was so happy to see him have a happy ending :,) I loved the scene where he touched Catherine’s hair. He is such a gentle, sweet pea. I also love how he truly understands and deeply cares for Heathcliff.
I read the book when i was 14 years old and i loved it so much that i have never forgotten it.Heathcliff to me is special because he never asked anything from life..except to be with his Cathy.Life didn`t even give him that.It makes the whole story even more tragic.
My all time favorite book. The depth of psychological and philosophical themes and characterizations is enthralling. I love your explicit review of this book.
I liked the fact eventhough Emily Bronte didn't travel a lot (so her perceptions of the world were limited) had the imagination to create such a complex story in short distances between one house and another.
It's a complex book to read though, my mother tongue is not english so when I read Wuthering Heights I doubted of my skills, but natives of the english language have told that they don't get to the point to comprehend the book in its whole context, which is kind of relieving lol.
I could understand the beginning, and the end of the book, what is in the middle it's a seesaw of stories, words, feelings, etc
Emily had been to school in Brussels for two years.
I love Wuthering Heights, its theme of love, longing and desire really touches my soul. The title itself is attractive more than anything else.
Edgar is the only likeable character in the whole of this book.
The other characters? I love them .
It's an incredible book, in many ways probably quite misunderstood, and a good part of TWO centuries later it still leaves us with so many questions, superficially being a story of thwarted love, but one which ultimately deals with much weightier themes like individual destiny, moral degradation, the eventual possibility of redemption and the importance of being true to oneself. I definitely feel that Emily placed a lot of herself into her novel, and used a setting almost completely removed from any other human society to allow the main characters to reflect ideas that really mattered to her. Important subjects include the influence of parental authority, the devastating consequences produced by a loveless or destructive family environment, how a single choice can have terrible multi generational effects (especially when a character like Heathcliff becomes so darkened in mind as to want to exact a terrible vengeance) and how our ultimate desire for transcendence above the material and societal gnaws deep within our being until we are finally, truly free. Cathy as a personality type does seem to be an embodiment of those rare individuals who possess a true connection with self, with nature and with the unseen, and who suffer terribly if swayed off course, especially if it be by their own hands. An air of the supernatural also hangs heavily over the book and infuses it with a sense of unquantifiable mystery, with Cathy foreseeing both her future destiny and the price to be paid for self betrayal, being condemned after death to roam restlessly on the very land that should have been her personal heaven until her true love might possibly join her. Does she really walk the Heights, or is that just what Heathcliff wants to console himself with after 18 long years of waiting? Could it instead be a phantom or devil cursing him with the illusion of a hope? Heathcliff's drastic change late in the book always intrigued me. Was his letting go of his desire to destroy what finally made Cathy visible to him and were they allowed to have THEIR heaven, at last. Will we ever know? But that is the wonder of Emily's beautiful words and ideas and it has been for many years my favourite book of all time. Masterpiece.
@@Nina5144 Or maybe it's the Eastenders' stories that are similar to Wuthering Heights' story. Don't forget that this book is about 170 years old now, and differentiates from a lot of novels at the time.
I’m currently reading Wuthering Heights for the first time and have already started the book over twice because the narration just goes right over my head. I found your video super helpful !!
From after the 3rd or 4th chapter you should be able to whizz through it. I had the same problem when i first started it but by the end god damn the book gave me so many feels and so many unanswered questions.
Of course the plot is great but what I really enjoy about the novel is the use of the language, the depiction of the characters and the description of situations .....it makes feel I almost there..as if I were in the novel myself...excellent
My favourite book, i love the characters bc aren't perfect more complex as in life. The way wrote it Emily was reflection of her own soul and of the world.I find it very realistic. Not all are love and light even in love. It shocked me the first time it's raw when it comes to emotions, very bold but eventually i fell in love with it.I think the scene of Heathcliff digging up Cathy's grave saws that their love was deep beyond the physical like death for some is obsessive love.Very good video
Wuthering heights and thushcross grange are said to be situated on either side of a small hill. I think is symbolic of a divide between the two families.This divide is overcome twice during the narrative. In the beginning catherine and heathcliff are confined to their own side of the divide. Once during their rambling they cross this divide and enter thuscross grange. The second time catherine (junior) crosses that divide out of curiousity.
I felt that the ending given to young Cathy and Hareton was what Emily Bronte wanted Heathcliff and Catherine to get. The latter went tragically apart but for the former couple, Hareton is sometimes portrayed as having characteristics of you Heathcliff as Cathy didn't feel him worthy of her earlier. And Cathy although doesn't have much similarities with her mother but she is also passionate about Hareton and eventually falls in love with him and realises his value before it gets late, and she also has a pint of a temper like her mother's. It is further evident when Heathcliff scolds both Hareton of going along with Cathy and raises a hand at her but doesn't molest her and that something had stopped him, maybe it was him and Catherine he saw in both of them and wanted them to accomplish their love, like his never did. Also later, when Hareton asked him for company he told him he wondered how he could want to be any one's company other than his partner's because he knows how it feels and what it is like to know your soulmate. I think it's very fascinating and also a little comfort given to the reader!💫
I just now finished the book and though I wanted a little bit more from the ending yet I found myself in love with the story. This story is depressing, full of revenge and hatred all because of Heathcliff who is projected as a powerful character and those who betray him are never left rewarded. The darkness brought by him in the story is something you witness in each character and how he affected their lives. My favorite characters were Nelly and Edgar Linton. Nelly emerged as a strong and reliable companion in the book, the only hope of light when things were miserable. Egdar on the other hand justifies the role of a true lover, father and master and it was his death which left me heartbroken more than Catherine’s death.
I totally agree. Edgar and Nelly were by far my favorites and they get way too much hate. Were they flawed? Of course. I think the beauty of it though is that they represented a more pure kind of love rather than that of a character like Heathcliff. I also think that Edgar's character shows that you can be raised spoiled and bratty but still grow up to love your family and do what you think is best for them. I was heartbroken over his death but it satisfied me that he passed without suffering and next to Cathy, who was the one he loved more than anything in the world.
I don't think its a romance necessarily but more of a story of characters who are soul-mates or who have soul-tides, people tied by fate and their lives.
I can’t stop singing the song every time I hear the title
Yesssss
Wuthering Heights is also my favorite book. You can find something similar in Phantom of the Opera as you read Wuthering Heights. Erik and Heathcliff have a lot in common (how they are mistreated and how they plan to revenge). Maybe that's something we have in common even in different human societies.
nice review.... ❤️ I am in love with wuthering heights.. When I read it for the first time ; shivers went through my spine specifically when Heathcliff digs Cathy's grave oh my god what a display of his love for Cathy. After reading wh I fell in love with Emily... I feel she is still breathing inside wuthering heights.. She just wrote Wuthering heights with passion , passion and only passion .... She lived wuthering heights.. She was born to write wuthering heights...I love her and I love wuthering heights..
I’m reading Wuthering Heights for the second time...so beautiful.. I’m reading and thinking of Emily Bronte writing it...
My grandmother lived in Keighley and when I was young I spent my summer school holidays there. We were 15 minutes by car from the Bronte parsonage. I visited it a few times but didn't really appreciate it until later in life. I'm fascinated by the Brontes and Emily in particular. Never mind Wuthering Heights what a story the Brontes themselves had.
You mention pagan, that's what I'm getting also. You get the impression that Emily believed, like some cults, that we all have two souls separated into the corporeal and the divine. You get this when Cathy is talking about how she is Heathcliff inferring that they are co-joined souls. She hates him in the same way she hates herself sometimes. What does Cathy say
"My love for Linton is like the foliage on the trees 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. Nellie I am Heathcliff - he's always in my mind - not as pleasure any more than I am a pleasure to myself - but as my own being."
This is an interesting thing for an author, especially an early 19th century woman, daughter to a clergyman, to come out with. It is clear that Emily preferred animals to humans and she was clearly anorexic, her coffin was only 38 cm wide. She tragically died young but I believe that Emily would never have married had she lived Charlotte and Anne would have. There was something special about Emily Bronte and you only have to read her poetry to realize this. Her poetry is awesome and she seems to be fascinated by nature and death. She lived her life in her head. She was a mystic. Read No Coward Soul is Mine. ua-cam.com/video/qM-5B62fqvQ/v-deo.html
Wuthering Heights is heavy going. It's definitely not a romance, it has a high body count. One comment I heard was that Wuthering Heights has so much edge you can cut yourself on it. The only nice character in the book is Nellie, everyone else is flawed., perhaps as direct result of the life in harsh times they were living.
Wuthering Heights is one of the best books ever written, they say Jane Austen was good at dialogue but Emily Jane Bronte is at least her equal if not better.
I just finished reading the book for the second time and loved it. I perceived of your analysis that you think the narration is biased, however, i think this usage of different narrators was really smart move from Bronte. Even though their point of views might be biased but at the end the reader is completely familiar with the characters and can anticipate their actions in different situation. Just imagine that there was only one narrator and you realize that the novel and the narration would not be as trustworthy as it is now.tnx
First time I watched movie I love it so much then I come to read the original Book , I was stuck by some difficult words but I love this book and story so much. Wuthering Heights is really a masterpiece.
This book is so amazing! Heathcliff is one of the best characters
I find it interesting how at the end of the book Heathcliff has an epiphany of sorts and finally decides to stop seeking revenge and inflicting misery on the people around him. It is as if ever since Cathrine died he tried to not feel so alone in his suffering by dragging everyone else around him down to his level. However, when he sees Cathrine and Hearton’s bond he remembers the hope he had for his future as a younger man and sees that perhaps that hope can be realised, although only through his surrogate son Hearton.
I always took this book for a great love story (just based on snippets I’d heard from others who had read it). However, Heathcliff has got to be one of the most evil, unfeeling, and vindictive characters I’ve ever encountered. I truly do hate him.
Same :D I hate both of them
That's what makes this character soooo wonderful!!
Catherine and Heathcliff are horribly selfish, and I think that may have been the point. Imho
many critics argue whether he is a victim of his environment and consequently he became a villain or a true villain by nature
And to this day, he still walks those moors.
I sometimes think that the whole point was that we were not supposed to like him. We were just supposed to find him interesting, because sometimes we are fascinated with with the dark side of human nature. But we also feel some degree of sympathy for him, because he felt that Catherine was the only person who could truly love him, and that’s what made him so possessive of her, and when he lost her the only way he knew how to deal with loss was to lash out in revenge. We’re horrified by how cruel that lust for revenge made him.
This is my favorite book ,I first read it when I was 11.It ruined me for real life, but I still love it.
I'm reading Wuthering Heights for the first time. I grew up not knowing much about Brontë sisters and their work. I knew they existed and what their main novels are but I knew nothing about what they are about. When it came to Wuthering Heights I had this general knowledge of what I heard people said about it being a tragic romance so that's all I had going into the book.
I'm almost 80% into the book and I am honestly really confused to how Heathcliff and Catherine are tragic lovers? I never got from their interactions any impression they genuinely loved each other. Yes, they grew up together and yes they were very similar in character but that's all there is to them for me. If anything, they have some twisted idea of love and they don't really nurture each other, but are often very rude to one another and do things in spite.
Maybe it should be taken from the perspective of time when it was written, but I'm honestly horrified at the way children are raised, especially Hareton.
I don't really understand how and why people view the novel as some tragic romance when there's a lot of abuse mentally and physically from all of the characters and all the romantic relationships (so far!) are really toxic.
I still have to read the book to the end, so maybe my impression changes. Another thing why I slightly dislike the book is that Bella and Edward (Twilight series) claim it's their favorite book and I can really see them (and Stephanie Meyer) romanticizing the toxicity and reflecting it in their relationship.
Love happened with feeling when they were together, they felt love for each other I guess, it not toxic tbh, its how mostly things are in world , I mean no one has ideal relationships , there's fight and argument sometimes leading to something even bigger, mostly their relationship seems like toxic is because of circumstances not themselves, Catherine spent some of the best or only best times of her life with heathcliff!! If they would have married earlier without hindley's oppoes, things would have been so better and smooth for everyone, including themselves, they would have got change to embrace their love or find out if they truly are compatible together as they claim to be perfect for each other, but unfortunately they never got chance, just kept to dwell on their illusionistic but true love of each other, without meeting or seeing each other for very long time, forever!!!
Are you saying that since there's no such thing as an ideal relationship, the relationships between these characters is passable, normal and healthy?
Just read WH first time, and I love it so much. I love that setting is only in two houses, and I love the dark atmosphere. I also liked Catherine's wit and their brutally powerful love, which could kill you. That's the kind of love I want to feel and I do feel about my own soulmate. This book made me feel so powerful emotions and it was genious that maid told the story.
Love this video! Wuthering Heighs is a masterpiece, I’ve read it twice, and I will read it again. Thanks for the video, I enjoyed the way you share your enthusiasm.
Great video! Well done tackling this book.
I feel that wuthering Heights is so divisive exactly because the characters are so grey. In my opinion this is what makes it a wonderful story - the characters are nearly all despicable but very human. I also was under the false impression it was a romance 🙈 it's more of a tragedy so that could disappoint people also. But if you take it for what it is, it is incredible and certainly leaves an impression on the psyche!
i NEED to read something with the same atmosphere as it. it's been weeks since i've finished it and i can't pick anything back up bc other books simply can't stand the comparison😭
The first time I read it, I found it really hard to keep track of all the characters and their relationships to each other. All those Earnshaws and Lintons, some by birth and some by marriage. Then starting it over again, I got to the part where Lockwood is reading Cathy’s writing in the books he finds while staying overnight and he reads, ‘Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff and Catherine Linton’ and I thought, okay, Emily wants us to be confused! Disturbed, irritated!
Emily's poetry is stunning. Easily my favourite poet.
I just finished the book, and you said it (almost) all I thought about it. So nice to see someone who read in english (I read in brazilian portuguese) and had a similar POV. I also loved, inspite hating pretty much everyone.
I read it for the first time bc of you and your book club and I loved it. I was amazed by Emily’s writing, it’s so beautiful and poetic. It was quite hard for me since English is not my first language (specially Joseph’s dialogue ! I was struggling so hard!) but I was so engaged with the story that it was completely worth it!! I thought that this thing of not knowing exactly what is fiction and what is not it’s really interesting and makes the book even better for me, specially with that final. It’s almost like the story of these characters became a legend and you don’t know exactly what’s real. Heathcliff is one of my favourite characters for his complexity and construction. Another favourite is Hareton, he has a spot in my heart, I just love him as a character and as a person.
I like this type of discussion. More like what you liked or disliked and your perspective on the book instead of a more academic type.
I hope I can read Agnes Grey again with the book club. Let’s hope I love it as well.
i found this book through twilight (it is bella swan’s favourite book) so i bought it, it’s now one of my favourites ❤️❤️
I found this book through after ( it is Hardin Scott's fav book)
Sameee!!!
Very, very impressive response/analysis of Wuthering Heights. You're a Pro! Thank you, and keep it up.
I am starting Wuthering Heights today for the first time! I can't wait :)
Emily's gothic writing is more up my alley. I've always loved gothic ghost stories.
you know I dont like reading I am reading wuthering heights just because of my holiday homework but when i started reading wuthering heights I think i like reading now thanks for the video you motivates me alot
"...but not in an academic, jargony way." :-) This is so you.
I hope you mean that in a good way! My motto is always to make classics fun and accessible. So all I do is ramble in front of a camera about why I love them for half an hour at a time!
Good way. That's why the :-) .
Lucy is A-OK. I can't say I love Lucy 'cause that's a classic TV show. :-D I wish you could make some classics fun & accessible, but Joyce, Faulkner, Sterne, Spenser, some post-modern novels et al are just tough nuts. Then you have *talent*, so who knows?
No but it's presented in a way which makes no sense.
Wuthering Heights is definitely my favourite of the Brontë's novels.
Good choice!!
@@lucythereader that’s also one of my grandfather’s favorite books and this is his all time favorite Brontë novel.
I first read it many decades ago, but I never forgot that Bronte made Heathcliff into a great hero. Kicked and beaten as a child, he never cried, just rubbed the bruises. Catherine was no better because she was a lady, and could not marry someone like Heathcliff even though she loved him. Catherine's brother convinced his friends that Heathcliff was bad, even though it was he who was so despicable. Of course Heathcliff succumbed to hate showed him, just like you and I would. Unless you truly know who Heathcliff is at the beginning, you shan't appreciate his end.
Okay i think...emily wrote these characters out of pure emotions...those impulsiveness you find in the love ,every feeling being brought to action. Every innocent to every dark thoughts. And those actions follows results. Of course she doesn't tell every answer and lot of mystery is there just like as in life it is. Not every thing is known ...and the ending is fantastic. It's like a whole one situation where you converted every feeling to action though the situation turned bad due to following the dark thoughts ...in that worse situation everything still sees the light of hope.
The whole novel is just one statement one world ...but different world within ...one action but many different RESULTS going on.
Wuthering Heights fascinates and scares me. My first experience was decades ago watching the 1939 version on late, late night TV. Thank you for your insights here. 🙏🏻🌹
I'm agnostic, but I like the image of Emily's spirit wandering eternally on her beloved moor.
i have to agree in everything you said!! I LOVED this book so much& it’s my all time fav. i felt so sorry for cathy and heathcliff, i think both of them were sure good people in heart, but cathy was neglected by her father and heathcliff was mentally and physically abused. i definitely don’t think of this book as ‘love story’ or ‘romance’ but more as a reality of what it is like when 2 abused, broken and traumatised people love each other, bc they only had each other the whole life. in the end i loved cathy and hareton! i think hareton was like ‘advanced’ heathliff, we was more self aware and was really trying to be nice to cathy, maybe to impress her and stuff. cathy was in my opinion a little similar to her mother, bc of her energetic personality, she was so full of life and empathetic. i loved the hopeful ending too!!!
I read it recently and I must say: I was PISSED when I got to the part where it's said that Heathcliff ends up with Catherine because they were awful and I'm usually not the type of person who will be angry when bad characters don't get a bad ending but this time I was bewildered and so angry. Because Heathcliff got all he wanted in the end, even with all his bad decisions and all the bad things he did. He never really paid for all the wrong he did (though as a child who had done nothing wrong he did suffer). Still, as pissed as I was, it only made me love the book more.
Must add, the one I truly viciously hated was Linton, and like you, I got a soft spot for Hareton too
@@bleepbloop6234 up until that point he suffers, I agree. I was taking more of the layer part of the book, and how he played with the younger generation all he wanted until he lost interest and became obsessed with the first of Catherine and stuff. He let Gareth and Cathy do whatever because he didn't care anymore. He let people have the impression he was a monster and armed rather pleased about it (hits motives for that are rather traffic, I agree). He lost interest, but he did all he wanted, and would have kept on doing anything he pleased however he pleased, but he just stopped because it became pointless (he wasn't going to have Catherine back, no matter what he did) but then... He did get her, in death. She did come back to him. As a ghost, surely, but she did, and she took him with her. I don't think his whole life is his punishment. He has punishment when he was innocent, then decided to punish everyone else. That's why I don't think his whole life is his punishment. I think, in the end, he got what he wanted, only in a very twisted way. I think he enjoyed his suffering (again, I'm only speaking of his later years). But that's only my opinion anyway :)
Just came across this older video. I enjoy Wuthering Heights a lot, although I still have to work hard to keep the characters straight - so many characters with the same first names! I first read this as a graphic novel when I was in my teens, and enjoyed it so much, I went on to read the full novel. It is not a yearly reread like Jane Eyre or P&P or Northanger Abbey, but is still a much cherished book in my library.
Reporting back on WH...Bronte did a remarkable job writing it. The atmosphere is so vivid that one is truly transported to the moors and the creepy Thrushcross Grange and WH itself. But...
I have trouble appreciating the deathless love between Heathcliff and Cathy. I do accept his feeling of rejection, but...perhaps I’m not romantic enough. Anyway, it’s a book that I love still. The only real weakness I see is that the end is a bit rushed and facile. I would have like to see more about the developing relationship between the younger pair of lovers.
Omgosh there's soo many amazing passages in this book. I've never forgotten the one that you mentioned where she says heaven wasn't her home and she'd be flung back to the heath. Also, the one where she talks about dreams that are like water through wine that they stay with you forever. I too read this book during a very down period in my life. I'm absolutely obsessed with Victorian Gothic and Neo Victorian gothic. Would love to see you do a video about Gothic Vic novels!! Do you have any other good suggestion for similar books?
I just finished reading it and I want to read it again it shocked me at times so I was surprised it must have been scandalize when it first came out the ending was up lifting I agree both for the living and the dead the moors was one of the main charters I was touch by nellys servitude
I’m trying to read it but it breaks my brain. I have two read each page twice
Wonderful video! I’ve probably read WH three or four times over the years, with another read coming up this month. Sometimes I love it, sometimes not. But it’s always fascinating and beautifully written. Lovely discussion.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS IS MY ABSOLUTE FAV
Wuthering heights is a very good novel. It looks some complexive at the beginning but when goes on to read it by heart it catches our interest and we can't give it up till the end. I enjoyed this novel very much.
And I Like the way you speak about the characters and themes. It's very informative.
🤘
I feel only the first 3 chapters were complex. From there on after i whizzed through it.
I've re-read this book along with your Bronte Book Club. This was my third read and I see something new this time. This time I read Nelly as an unreliable narrator (like the Mrs. Danvers of WH!). My first read was when I was 14 and thought it romantic, I re-read in 2010 and loved it, but thought Catherine and Heathcliff awful. This go I thought that maybe we don't get the whole story from Nelly.
Ooh I like the comparison between Mrs Danvers and Nelly! It's not something I'd thought of -- but I guess we could see Mrs D as a sinister version of Nelly, someone who affects and directs the plot rather than just being a spectator?
lucythereader yes! She would be like a less evil Mrs. Danvers. I think Nelly impacts the plot because there are times when she withholds key information and other times when she shares information.
Yesssssssss, this is why i say Joseph's view point was necessary to help balance things out as he was there from the beginning also.
Very interesting. I am reading Wuthering Heights and not entirely enjoying it, but can relate to all your points. I may well reflect differently upon it once I have finished. One theme that I have considered is the philosophy of "nature and nurture". Lives are molded in the story and used against other characters.
I'm commenting on this video by remembering the one time i read wuthering heights some years ago and typing my comments here now from off the top of my head.
Wuthering Heights is one of the most powerful and memorable novels i have read and i will revisit it again in future. The Bronte sisters are brilliant story-tellers. They, along with thomas hardy and stephen king are a few of my favourite authors.
Both Catherine and Heathcliff deserved one another. They both continued to manipulate and hurt one another and others around them with their decisions and pussyfooting around.
For me, there were only two significant characters in this book whose view points genuinely mattered. Nelly Dean's being the first. However, her narration may have been somewhat bias. The second most important character in this story, who i feel may be overlooked by many readers is joseph. The story does not include anything from his point of view. Joseph was there from the beginning just as long as Nelly Dean was and it would have helped balance things out if Joseph were to tell his side of the story from living with Heathcliff. He may have possibly helped answer questions regarding Heathcliff's behaviour.
Another thing which eats away at me regarding this story is does anybody have an idea where Heathcliff disappeared to just before he died? Is this story ranked as romance or gothic? The chapters where Heathcliff disappears and eventually dies i'd regard as gothic, and also at the beginning where Lockwood stays over night and hears the voice of Catherine Linton i'd regard as Gothic too.
I have only read Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Jane Eyre from the Bronte catalogue and i only enjoyed WH and the tenant. Jane eyre bored me dry. Only a handful of stories have left me shuddering, sad and given me the chills once finished. They are: wuthering heights, tess of the d'urbervilles, jude the obscure and howards end. Does anyone know of any other similar stories which would move me in the same way?
Wuthering Heights is my absolute favorite book. Great video!
i absolutly loved the book i think i have never cried so much reading scences with catherine's death then i have in it ends with us my favorite line is ' you said i killed you, then haunt me then' but 'do not leave me in this abyss' 'where i cannot find you' ahhh heart breaking this man deserved so much more than he got and he got treated like poo at the bottom of there shoes in in my mind hindley deserved worse than he got for doing so because in a way it ruined heathcliff.
I watched the movie with l. Olivier an m. Oberon and fell totaly in love with the story and actors........
wuthering heights has some shadows of Macbeth othello king leer and hamlet on Emily bronte mind
I like soooo much this book "weathering heights" by Emily Bronte, so thank you for this video 😍
my grandmother loved this book, so I decided to read it but wow i love it as well
Crime and punishment and wuthering heights are my favourite books of all time ❤
I’m hoping this is my set text for A2!!! I love this classic so much. I cried
Often i feel like Heathcliff wandering alone on the moores. My first love Katherine Married Edger Linton for security and damned me to a life of solitude and penance punctuated by sparce happy dreams where she communicates directly to me. You look like the young teacher Kathy so there is hope for the future.
I had never read a classic before reading Wuthering Heights and didn't know if I would like it or be able to get on with it given the style and language. I've heard this book isn't the best book for someone knew to classics to read but I didn't let that stop me embarking on the journey. At first I thought this is hard going and I am never going to be able to finish this but by the end I was willing the pages to multiply and was unable to put the book down. I didnt like any of the characters in the book. No one really appealed to me but I feel that was the intention. Each character had a hidden agenda and that made them unpleasant and totally despicable in some cases. However that said I felt the characters were almost forced into being horrible or nasty because of their situations and upbringings. I found the book very dark and felt that the environment became a big protagonist in the story along with the human characters. There was a definate feeling throughout the book of isolation and that came from both the landscape and the lives of the characters. I felt the story was tragic yet beautiful in many ways. I felt drained by the end of the book. It is very emotive in both good and bad ways. For me this book has left me feeling wow.
What a wonderful video :)
Loved listening to you and your commentary, well done.
Such a great analysis.
I am currently enjoying Wuthering Heights.
Now when people tell me that some of my favourite character couples are toxic and wrong, I won’t believe them because Damon Salvatore, Chuck Bass and even the Darkling are not as horrible as Heathcliff.
Notes in the Penguin Classics edition remind us that Emily’s brother Branshaw went to Liverpool in 1845, where emigres from the Irish famine were dying in the streets. Starving children were described (swarthy with tons of dark hair) in ways similar to the way Heathcliff is described. Many of these emigres spoke Gaelic, which Nelly suspects Heathcliff was speaking when he first arrived at Wuthering Heights. I’d have to research how many Roma were in Ireland at that time, but as they refer to him as a “gypsy,” that might make sense. But they also think of him as a cuckoo, so the gypsy slur could be about related stereotypes attached to the Roma, and not to do specifically with his ethnicity. Anyway-given English stereotypes of the Irish in the popular press at the time, and given the historical confluences for the Brontes specifically, my money is that Heathcliff is some flavor of Irish.
I love how in depth you go! I've gone off classics since sixth form...
I get so enthusiastic that I keep talking and talking and talking! Why do you think you've gone off them? I've heard that from lots of people. Is there anything you think could help you enjoy them again?
I'm 19 and and just started reading it and it's really good! It is a little hard to understand still but I really love it! My aunt went to Scotland and read the copy she gave me on the moors!! I need to find a movie version of it!!
Btw your review was fantastic!! You really dove in and explained everything so well :)
I just finished the book today and really enjoyed it. I hated Cathy (the older). At best, she's the perfect encapsulation of "first world/self-inflicted problems" and at worst, she's an outright sociopath who uses emotional manipulation and threats of working herself into ill health to get what she wants. Heathcliff started off sympathetically until he came back from his three-year absence hellbent on revenge, and as he got deeper and deeper into his pans, I was like, "No! Come on, man, she's not worth it! Go get some help and then find someone better." I don't think Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship should be thought of as romantic at all or sentimentalized in an "Oh, if only they could be together!" sort of way. It's clearly a very toxic, abusive attraction on both sides, each inflicting terrible emotional and psychological damage on the other. The notion that their ghosts end up haunting the local landscape together doesn't come across as a sweepingly epic, beautiful ending to me at all. If anything, I found it tragic, a dark take on "soul mates reuniting in the afterlife": In this case, they're not uniting for eternal bliss but rather, to continue torturing each other since they couldn't break the cycle in their former lives, and will probably have to play it out again in future lifetimes (presuming they're reincarnated) in order to get peace as individuals and as a pair.
And yeah, that scene where Heathcliff digs up Cathy's grave threw me off, especially since I read this story by listening to the audiobook. As the scene started to unfold, I literally went, "Whoa, wait--WHAT?" and rewound it to start over to be sure I'd heard right. It was like we suddenly switched to an Edgar Allan Poe story.
As someone who has been scorned and has vengeful fantasies, I don’t perceive Heathcliff to be that awful. He is a realistic product of his environment and his experiences. Not everyone learns positive behaviors from their struggles. Sometimes people learn an eye for an eye not oh I’ll be the better person. That is my favorite part about him. He did not get the woman he loved in the end and I’m sure he doesn’t feel all that satisfied with what he has done. But he did it because that’s the way some people interpret their experiences and I believe it’s important to show that side of people. To me, It’s humanizing. To know we all have darkness within us and if treated badly enough, it will come out.
I have to point out that Heathcliff made it very clear that he deliberately degraded Hareton making him stupid as part of his revenge on the Earnshaws/Lintons (the people who he believed had done the same to him, even though he also says Harenton's case was even worse because the kid couldn't even understand what happened and instead cherished brutality, which he himself apparently didn't).
As for Catherine, despite whatever we might think of it in terms of morals, it was her call and she made it very clear she married Linton because she would have been poor alongside Heathcliff (although I would argue deep down she also knew Heathcliff had an ill temper that also could make for a troublesome marriage in the future, but that's me speculating). It was her own decision and similar things still happen today, so it makes no sense to justify it completely on whatever were the social standards of that day and age.
I have just bought it. I can't wait to read it! I'd like to partecipe in this club.
Nelly to me was an unreliable narrator. She was severe in her criticism of Cathy and Heathcliff because she didn’t like them as much and extremely understanding of Linton. Upon second read I realised that Heathcliff was not villain upon arrival to Wuthering Heights rather became that way after being abused and that Cathy the elder was more of an Emily type of girl- misunderstood, free spirited and wild. After Heathcliff left her, she became Ill and this had an effect on her mental health too, something that Nelly didn’t manage to diagnose as a narrator. Furthermore, Nellys actions greatly affected the life of others especially Cathy who died of neglect because Nelly thought Cathy was egotistical and failed to inform Edgar about her state. Wuthering Heights is a very clever and unique book. Emily was a genius.
Lockwood also doesn't seem to judge people or situations correctly.. I always laugh when he calls Heathcliff a capital fellow and a kindred spirit; clearly not cluing in to what's taking place in front of him. So that also adds to the mystery of the narrations my opinion
Wuthering Heights is what happens when you live in a teeny, tiny village and don't look outside the neighbourhood when you want to date
this is a fantastic video! I've never read this book before but i'm planning to get to it at some point this year so hearing your thoughts makes me feel less intimidated.
This is safely one of the worst books I've ever read. I took me 3 or 4 attempts to make it to the end. The characters were all abhorrent (even Joseph, despite me not understanding a word he said) and it would have been more confusing than it was had it not been for a family tree I found online. I read all kinds of depressing stuff but this was not depressing, it was just nasty and unpleasant to read.