I think this structure makes, an othernwise commom story, something really interesting as we are interreupted by Mrs Dean reminding us it is her story and that it is a story since the present is different.
@Dr Octavia Cox Is there a genuine inference that Heathcliff got rich as a slave trader? I love how Austen named Mrs Norris after the slaver Robert Norris in Mansfield Park:) It seems only fitting as she treats Fanny like A slave.
I like how the beginning of the novel starts with the first 2 visits of Mr Lockwood in 1801. It sets up the whole mystery and intrigue about the place. In the first place why is there so much animosity between all the inmates? Why are they all so uncivil to Mr Lockwood on both visits? Why so much hatred between Mr Heathcliff and his daughter in law Cathy Heathcliff, nee Linton? Why were they so unhelpful to Mr Lockwood when he was snowed in for the night. During the night in the bedroom when Mr Lockwood is visited by the ghost of dead Cathy this sets up more mystery and intrigue for the reader. Who was Catherine Eàrnshaw/Linton? Why does she come back to haunt the place? Why was Heathcliff so distraught to miss this apparition and why in his anguish he called after her? These are some of the questions raised in Mr Lockward's account which spurs the reader on to learn more about the place, its inhabitants and the history which led up to the present state of affairs in 1801. Readers are then eager to read Ellen Dean's account of the history of events up until then. I don't think it would have worked so well if the novel began with Mr Earnshaw returning from Liverpool with the gypsy boy. As to much later when Mr Lockwood returns to wuthering heights in sept 1802, when Ellen Dean tells him of Heathcliff's death BEFORE the readers read her account of the events that lead up to it does indeed make his death an anti climax. The reader is then robbed of all the mystery and intrigue as they already know what is going to happen and are left dissatisfied. I find interesting your reflection of this dissatisfaction of that of Heathcliff and of Catherine enough for them to not want to go on living. It all makes sense.
@@markteltscher9746 I like your explanation of Mrs Norris' name in Mansfield Park. As to how Heathcliff got rich abroad, I always guessed it was through gambling as he managed to clean Hindley out of property and wealth good and proper. He probably found a way of cheating at cards without being found out, as luck always seemed to be on his side when playing against Hindley. Howevet slave trading is also a possibility which may explain why Heathcliff kept it all a dark secret and took it with him to the grave. As to slave trading, it also may be possible Heathcliff as a child may have been captured by slave traders and brought to Liverpool sea port and some how escaped. He was seen initially by the Earnshaws as being foreign. In the latest film of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is black. It was certainly make Ellen Dean's fantasy story to Heathcliff about him being an oriental prince captured by Pirates most ironic.
Beautifully put. He's kept alive by hatred, and a desire for revenge, and then when that ceases to be he can't find the energy to stay alive any more: "“It is a poor conclusion, is it not?” he observed ... “an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives: I could do it; and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don’t care for striking: I can’t take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case: I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing." (ch.33)
HC has matured. He sees the futility of revenge. He has lost the reason to exist. So he dies. HC was actually barely alive- he "died" when Cathrine died. Shell of a man
@@DrOctaviaCox Hello! Are you planning on making more videos about this novel? As much as I love Jane Austen's characters, the characters of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw have a raw, elemental force about them that I haven't seen in Jane Austen's writings. I find it funny how some movie adaptations completely drop the story of the second generation, even though that part is actually longer, I think. I would love to see your take on the rest of the characters and story elements.
I can think of another reason for the deadpan way in which Heathcliff's death is made known to the reader. Heathcliff is a fascinating character - to the reader, to himself, to Catherine Earnshaw, to Hindley and to Isabella. But not to Nelly Dean. She has some sympathy for him during his unhappy childhood, but very little afterwards. She doesn't understand the way he is driven by the desire for vengeance. In Nelly's eyes Heathcliff is a servant like herself and his histrionics lead to a mixture of irritation and bafflement. To her as a servant 'the master' naturally means the current master of the house. Who is a person she does regard with affection and whom she has always considered the natural master of Wuthering Heights - Hareton Earnshaw.
Heathcliff's death is what I remember most about Wuthering Heights. For me, the style of the revelation only heightened my sense of relief. I literally felt as if a weight had been lifted off of me! It was as if the exhausting, gut-wrenching melodrama of the story had suddenly died with Heathcliff, bringing us back into the lighter, gentler, "real" world.
So so true, we get tired of Heathcliff constant self torturing and torture of others. It's very much like certain people of real life. You just can't breathe next to them. Peace simply doesn't exist and they weigh heavy on others. I have a couple of family members just like that (although not violent and mean, but tortured, demanding, unstable, and with important attachment issues like Heathcliff seems to have) . It's very difficult. Wuthering heights provides a bit of solace to my plight with these people. I am grateful this novel exists. There are no other character like Heathcliff I know of in any book or film. Except maybe Brando as Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar named desire for the violence and wild nature. So thank you Emily Brontë for writing such a character.
Just to be cheeky, I tell people that Wuthering Heights is actually science fiction. They're all stuck in a causality loop and the same things keep happening, to people with similar names, over and over. =D
That is the best take on Wuthering Heights I have ever heard. Maybe that's why I love it even though everyone in it is terrible to one degree or another: it feels like science fiction.
@@sharragamez1318 Right? Right?! And now, with this video, I have even more material to cheek people with on this whole anochrony/analepsis/prolepsis, the future of the past that is the past of the present.
For me, the structure emphasises the fact of the past will always haunt the present. The past haunts the present in the novel through Cathy’s ghost for example or the inter-generational trauma portrayed. The structure simply emphasises the prevalence of the past and how it is so intertwined and inextricable from the present.
Wonderful analysis. I have always thought of Wuthering Heights as first and foremost a ghost story, and ghost stories are always told from a comfortable distance of time, only to come up and grab you in the present!
Oh, thank you! Well, certainly the novel ends on a note that the 'sleeping' Cathy and Heathcliff might reanimate and haunt future generations (and perhaps haunt the mind of the reader's imagination too): the final line ends with Lockwood wondering, as he looks on their graves, "how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth" (ch.34).
@@DrOctaviaCox I always thought that WH is a Gothic/Romantic story, perhaps with the exception of characters like Lockwood and Nelly Dean. Nelly sems to be more balanced than the violent, passionate Hindley, Cathy and Heathcliff or the inconsolable Linton. Nelly's character seems to be leaning towards Realism compared to the majority of the characters. And perhaps the ending of the novel ia the "triumph" of Realism over Romanticism? Am I reading too much into it?
Never mind. In a few years, probably after a Netflix series, it will be back in fashion again. And all the YT influencers will say they "always" loved it.
It’s because 21st century humans think they we have progressed so much farther in human behavior than those of the past. They refuse to see that humans are the same throughout the whole course of our history and often repeat the same offenses of those who have gone before.
I think the objections are now that W/H was always portrayed as a romance. I think it has elements of romance but its a dark and dysfunctional relationship. I think the novel can withstand some critical analysis and if that means its no longer sold as a love story as a consequence so be it.
@@becbrown212 Yes! I have read it roughly once a year for over fifty years. The first time I was 12, and read it the day after seeing the 1939 movie. At age 12 I thought it was a romance (probably because the movie was), but now I realize it's more a psychological thriller with a psychopath as the central character. And at my age now I find that much more interesting than a romance.
For me Heathcliff's death is such a release... It's like waking up from a bad dream when you are suddenly told that he is dead and there's just no threat anymore. This huge inescapable force is just gone. The way the young people start resolving things is similar. There's not a whole lot of buildup. We just come back and they're getting along well and on their way to happy lives. To me it builds a sense of how small Heathcliff actually is in the flow of time. With all his planning, scheming, hatred, and the feeling of him as an all powerful force spanning multiple generations, he finally just dies and fades away. It's comforting, because he's not as all powerful as we thought, and sort of threatening because it makes Heathcliff's story the kind of thing that could happen anywhere and just be swept away and forgotten. It also gives the impression of how useless all his revenge was. He achieved everything he wanted to in terms of revenge, and still just dies his inevitable death and none of other matters anymore. He's not satisfied and all his plans are swept away as soon as he dies.
A million years ago I wrote an undergraduate essay in which I posited that Heathcliff becomes unnecessary when Wuthering Heights again has a Catherine Earnshaw living in it. Hence he dies. Cathy will marry Hareton, and so resolve the issue of the ghost child on the moors who longs to come home, and Catherine's dream of being kicked out of heaven because of her longing to be home. When Heathcliff enters the Earnshaw family he replaces the gifts their father was bringing for them - in Catherine's case, that was a whip. Heathcliff becomes a kind of tool to return the Heights to its proper state, with a Catherine Earnshaw as the lady of the house. I've always felt that Hareton is basically Heathcliff's double, but sweeter and less damaged, so when he and Cathy marry there will be a sort of resolution of the relationship between the original two playmates. Well, unless one or both of them dies all of a sudden before the wedding, which is highly possible for these poor blighted people. Nelly: "oh yes they died last year, would you like a cup of tea?"
Is it weird that I found all the dissatisfaction in this novel immensely satisfying? Thanks for breaking all of this down. My professor when we studied it seemed to believe reader response was the only critical lens suitable for undergraduates, so we didn't discuss anything about the novel's structure or why the author might have chosen what she did...the whole class really felt like a missed opportunity. What I'm saying is, if you want to do a whole series on Wuthering Heights, I am here for that.
I never knew so much thought was put into the names "Wuthering Heights" and "Thrushcross Grange"! Another thing I just noticed about "Thrushcross Grange" is the "grrr" sound at the beginning, which, according to Anatoly Liberman is often found in words referring to "things threatening or discordant," like "gruesome," "grumble," "growl," "grouch," "grudge," "grin" (which used to denote scowling), "grimace," "groan," "grief," etc. Interesting that "Thrushcross Grange" should be the house to have the threatening, discordant name, when it was depicted as full of light and beauty when Heathcliff and Cathy were peering in the windows while rambling on the moor. It was the airily named "Wuthering Heights" that was dark and dismal. Why were the names chosen in that way? Maybe the video will explain later - I'm only five minutes in!
That's a great point! Perhaps Thrushcross Grange has the more menacing name, in terms of language, because it's after Cathy's visit there that her relationship with Heathcliff begins to sour?
Thrushcross Grange does sound threatening. Interesting reference with the "gr" sound. But for me (and my perspective from the states), Wuthering Heights doesn't sound like a chill or casual name for a home at all. It may not be a threatening name, but the word, "Wuthering," in particular gave me weathered, weeping willow vibes before I knew a thing about this book
I enjoyed this lecture so much! I've read WH pretty much every year since 1968, when I was 12. I had been fascinated by my parents' leather-spine edition with the haunting drawings by Nell Booker. I asked my mom about it, and she said she thought it would be too hard for me to read at my age, because of all the time changes and nested narrators (Lockwood recording Nelly recording Isabella at one point.) But then the 1939 movie was on TV and we watched it. It had the same kind of opening as the book. So the next day I devoured the book. I didn't find the time changes or changes of narrators confusing at all, maybe because the movie had prepared me. I was shocked to discover that the movie ended halfway through the book, and that Heathcliff wasn't quite the romantic hero Laurence Olivier had portrayed. (Side note: I've always wondered how that movie would have been if Olivier had been able to play against his wife Vivian Leigh as Cathy. She was busy making Gone With the Wind at the time and couldn't do it. But I think their chemistry would have been amazing.) At age 12 I still thought of the book as a romance, but as an adult I realized that it's more of a psychological thriller, and much more interesting than a romance (though I'm glad there's a bit of a genuine romance near the end.) As far as the narrative structure, it's so old and familiar after all these decades that it seems really natural. It's a great hook having the reader encounter a ghost early on and then find out the story. The ghost draws you into it. I never thought much about the introduction of Heathcliff's death being another kind of hook. But by that time the reader is so oppressed by him that it's a relief to hear that he's gone, and it makes the rest of the book bearable to read. As others have said, I'd love to hear you talk about the unreliable narrator. The reader wants to strangle Nelly at every turn (at least I do.) On every other page she seems to make a disastrous decision that furthers the tragedy. I still love her, but my goodness. And she seems to misunderstand both Catherines all the way through. And this last is totally off topic, but since I've rambled so far, I wanted to mention that another book I've read about every year for five decades is The Secret Garden. It and Wuthering Heights are stored together in my brain and heart, and they have some surprising similarities, even though the stories are very different: One's a kind of horror story, and the other is a healing children's story. I was ten when I first read The Secret Garden, and it was in that book that I learned the word ""wuthering." Both books have fathers whose wives die while delivering a child. And two of them, Hindley and Archie, are really warped by the experience. Both books have cousins whose eyes are similar, and a man from the previous generation who can't bear to look at those eyes. Both have lyrical descriptions of the moor on a sunny day, with bees and larks. Both have the ghost of a dead mother, calling in a dream (or is it a dream?) And on my most recent reading I was struck by the scene with young Catherine reciting a ballad to Linton, to calm his fretful complaining. It made me think of the first encounter between Mary and Colin, when she sings him to sleep. And there's the illiterate Hareton and the mostly illiterate Dickon. All totally coincidence, because the authors knew the moor so well, but it has always made me love both stories, more for the setting than anything. And now that I think about it, Mary's story starts a little bit in media res: we're told that when she came to Misslethwaite, everyone said she was the most disagreeable child they'd ever seen (rather like Lockwood seeing the adult Heathcliff being disagreeable), and then we go back bit and see how her early childhood shaped her before she got there. It only takes a chapter or two to get us up to the present, and from there the book is linear. But it does have that kind of beginning. Anyway, I hope you don't mind the rambling, and I hope you'll do more on Wuthering Heights, because I love your insights.
Great comment, Karen. You and I have similar thoughts and favorite books (see my comment above). While it's out of time for either Wuthering Heights or Secret Garden (loved that story since I was very young), Du Maurier's Rebecca is another book I read over and over again. I'm often bored with many "light" historical romances, and even took a while to warm up to Jane Austen, having spent more time with the Bronte sisters, Dickens, high quality historical murder mysteries, Poe, Conan Doyle, and German Fairy Tales. I find characters such as Heathcliff and Rochester not to be romantic heroes, but flawed, tragic figures who are endlessly fascinating. I am glad to understand Austen's novels on a deeper level now (favorite is Persuasion), and have Dr. Octavia to thank for that. I also had fun reading Mysteries of Udolpho, and Evelina, by Fanny Burney, as background for Northanger Abbey. The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), by Goethe, has been called the first psychological novel in Western Europe. It was hugely popular. I found the main character's obsession with the woman he loves interesting to compare with Heathcliff's. And Dangerous Liaisons definitely provides a broad choice of unreliable narrators, many of whom are morally challenged. I think my favorite aspect of these period novels is the clear picture they paint of human nature; despite the centuries that have passed, people have not changed in their motivations.
When Nellie says about 'her master'; "He's gone out at present, and won't return soon.", the reader assumes she is talking about Heathcliff. Later when Nellie clarifies that Heathcliff has died, this sentence gave me a chilly feeling, because if you correlate this sentence to Heathcliff as a dead person, it opens up the possibility of Heathcliffs ghost haunting the moors and returning some day. That's what I thought when I read the sentence. I love your videos!! Keep up the good work please!!
Thank you so much for this analogy. I have just read this astonishingly fantastic story and am just blown away. It left me speechless and far off among the wet dreary moors and lost in my own wandering directionless mind. Wuthering heights is a absolute Masterpiece. Thank you for helping me understand it.
What an interesting lecture, and what a privilege to attend it! I never got to go to university but this gives me a taste of the pleasures I missed - a taste RIGHT NOW, it's not too late! And I had a front-row seat in a lovely setting; I wasn't stranded in the midst of two hundred students in some big old anonymous lecture hall. It was like receiving private tutoring! Plus, I was having a tea while I watched, in a real china cup! We ARE so privileged nowadays, what with the Internet and UA-cam. (But no, on second thought, I'm sure I would have grown FOND of some lecture halls if they'd become the regular scene of such lectures!)
Thank you for this analysis of WH's time structure, it was illuminating and really gave me insight into a difficult novel. I would definitely be interested in a further analysis on the dual narrative in terms of the 2 narrators in this novel - the unreliable narrator is such a fascinating construct.
Excellent! - glad to have added some illumination about the structure. I agree - the unreliable narrator (and its challenge to ideas of representing narrative truth & perspective) are so interesting. How do we know what's 'real' or not if we can't trust the character telling us about it?
Not related to the time structure, but i just realized when listening to this analysis that the story is set in the winter at the begining of a new century. At the present the characters are in turmoil, in a bleak moment of their lives which can be represented by the winter and as winter will be over with spring, so might their misfortunes. There is also the new generation and the new century. There is hope. Heathcliff dies in the spring.
Great point - the seasons and boundaries in the novel are a really interesting aspect to consider. Hareton and Catherine Linton, we're told, will get married on New Year's Day (1 January 1803): "“They are going to the Grange, then?” I said. “Yes,” answered Mrs. Dean, “as soon as they are married, and that will be on New Year’s Day.”" (ch.34)
Cycles of indirect revenges which resulted to relationships that recreated the past thru alter-egos. Edited: This piece is about TRAGEDY. Pivoting thru a gothic scene. Not tragedy of a romance, but of tragedy resulting to new romances. Hindley being jealous, revenged to Heathcliff. Heathcliff being heartbroken revenged to Edgar's sister. Heathcliff taking advantage stripped off Hindley who is on a personal vendetta, resulting to abandonment of Hareton. (another orphan) The two Catherine are the soft spot of the story. Catherine is the hope of Heathcliff. Cathy is the hope of Hareton. ... do you see the similarities (Heathcliff & Hareton growing up as servants/orphans) ALTER EGOS: There are obvious recurrence of events from the 2nd gen to the 3rd (1st gen are the Earnshaws & Lintons). And Cathy evidently took succession of events in the 3rd gen. (as the love interest of the story) Catherine choosing Edgar for social rank instead of her love Heathcliff. Cathy in love with Linton who is already on a social rank, yet still ended up with Hareton. Heathcliff despite of being divisive is slowly in cognizance of the repetition of the past, which I conclude started his madness. He witnessed Cathy's affection to Linton. Like Catherine to Edgar. And later on witnessing Cathy as the comfort/solace of Hareton. Like Catherine to Heathcliff. He avoided Cathy & Hareton because he can see his past, and maybe deep inside know that eventually they will end up together. IRONY: He died thinking he is with Catherine. Their alter ego Cathy & Hareton lived and plans to be together in marriage. Cathy and Hareton is the could have been of Heathcliff. 🤷🏼♀️ ************************ 1st Entry: I believe that Bronte's purpose of writing WH is to explore human emotion, to bring scandal and despair, that passion will often result to disappointment. The story is about the cycle of abuse. Hindley did not feel loved. Hindley abused to Heathcliff to Isabella, but Heathcliff can never make Edgar and Hindley suffer directly. He wants revenge but indirect. It is dragging, really and frustrating as if no hope is left for anyone who is controlled by Heathcliff. Heathcliff, despite accomplishing his devises, never experienced gratification. After Linton's death, he knew that there's no sense for all of it (Linton as his only pawn). Heathcliff may have had the control of all the people around him (even Nelly) never came to have control over his wishes of being with Catherine. All that's left are the legacy of 2 of his most hated persons, Hareton the son of the abusive Hindley, and Cathy child of his rival Edgar.
This is fascinating. I just finished Wuthering Heights for the first time, and I was struck by how the generations interact. This analysis brings it to a whole new level. Thank you!
I think that the frame of Lockwood drowsing over Cathy's books and then seemingly encountering her ghost serves to show Heathcliff's wild grief in such a way as to force empathy from the reader before we hear Nelly's negative view of Heathcliff or read about the terrible things he does. It's a little similar to the way we read Nelly's retelling of Cathy's "I am Heathcliff" speech although Heathcliff does not, and before her self-destructive actions that are somewhat explained by her self-identification with Heathcliff. (I paused the video to type this, so I hope it isn't just repetition of what you are going to say.)
Yes, fabulous point, beautifully articulated. One of the questions that the novel poses, I think, is 'Is the love of Cathy and Heathcliff enough to justify their actions?' To themselves, if not to readers. And your point about showing Heathcliff's continuing wild grief (Cathy's been dead for nearly 18 years by this point) early in the novel ties into this question that hangs over the rest of the book.
@@DrOctaviaCox I heard the novel described as "psychopaths in love" and it seems a fairly accurate description. Cathy feels her own behavior makes sense; Heathcliff's makes sense to himself. But when he breaks into her bedroom to confront her when she's near death, he makes clear that her behavior doesn't make sense to *him*.
Thank you once again for an excellent literary lecture! I think that the curious coexistence of ordinary and extraordinary is the reason for the uniqueness of the Wuthering Heights - and of Emily Bronte’s personality. Her work is like no other, at first sight wild and chaotic, but as you so clearly demonstrated, created by a well-ordered mind quite conscious of the wide technical apparatus of a first-class writer.
OMG! I finished wuthering heights on wednesday and I searched for a vidoe of yours about it, and now you have one! I love ur channel, love from Ecuador :3.
Watching this yet again on 9/11/22 and missing you so much Dr Cox! Hoping your new adventures are bringing you joy and will eventually lead you back to making more wonderful, informational videos about literature. 💜💜💜
Excellent video! I’d never given serious consideration to the anachronic structure, but I think it does a wonderful job of perpetuating the ghostly atmosphere of the book. The characters seem to be stuck in the past, controlled by Heathcliff who is unwilling to move past Catherine’s death. Once he dies, it’s as if a spell is lifted and Cathy and Hareton are finally able to become themselves. When I first read it, I found the anticlimax of Heathcliff’s death to be satisfying. To me, it felt like justice that the man who caused so much chaos should die relatively quietly and fade from memory. I’d love to see more videos on this book!
Octavia, any student who has you as their professor is incredibly lucky. You're an outstanding teacher-absolutely fabulous. Thank you for uploading this video. I learned a great deal from it. 👏
After watching this video I was struck by how similar Cathy and Heathcliff are to Daisy and Gatsby. Both stories are told by a narrator, and in both stories I find my empathy with Gatsby and Heathcliff far more than with Cathy and Daisy. That's a whole other topic, but its something I wouldn't have considered without your insight.
They do feel very similar, both men despite success will never be accepted by society and the woman they love because they weren't born into high society
This was so interesting, thank you Dr Octavia! I have a strange relationship with Wuthering Heights. One moment it horrifies and frustrates me (perhaps because I'm someone who finds conflict particularly distressing and I get immense satisfaction from seeing emotional problems solved - rather like in Shakespeare's comedies, where we can enjoy seeing everything unravel with the security of knowing that the characters must pick up the pieces and mend the story). However, with this book I feel like the savageness of the characters is rather fascinating and I love that Emily B wasn't afraid to explore how much we humans can and will wound the ones we love the most. I would absolutely love to hear more of what you have to say on this novel!
I stumbled on this video and decided to watch for just a couple of minutes. Instead, I watched it all the way through, totally engrossed. So interesting, so informative! Thank you so much.
Another really enlightening video! I'll admit I did get a little lost with the description of how prolepsis & analepsis was being used simultaneously, but I think I understand it enough to get Emily's purpose for using it. Wuthering Heights isn't really my favorite (more of a Jane Eyre person) but I appreciate it more as I come to understand the craft of it better! ^-^
Many thanks for watching (especially given that WH isn't a favourite of yours! - you're not alone, lots of readers find it quite hard work). I'm sorry if I was confusing - I meant that the simultaneous analepsis and prolepsis mean that 'past', 'present', and 'future' come into play in the same scenes. I hope that explains my point, in as succinct a way as I can put it.
@@DrOctaviaCox Oh! That paints a much clearer picture to me. I was imagining some sort of pretzel of time and meaning when it's a lot simpler. ^-^' Thank you!!
I don't have too much time for reading so I usually read books very slowly but I read WH in 2 days, I could not put it down, it was so dramatic. I think you've explained some of the frustration I felt with the novel and now it makes so much more sense!
Great video! As a spanish speaker, I´ve always found extremely difficult to pronounce "Thrushcross grange" (I can´t say it quickly and I always mispronounce) but I´d never thought It could be a rather inaccessible word and It could be related to the plot and the purposes of the author. Your analysis about the structure is so interesting! Wuthering Heights is a very complex novel and every time I read I find new things to look at. Emily Brontë uses so many techniques in order to bring us the story... an amazing novel and an amazing author! Thank you for your analysis
Professor Cox - the Kate Bush song! I was listening to it yesterday and sought out your video to refresh my memory of WH. I am a retired professor of English lit (medieval and Renaissance), and I love watching your videos as your focus on the texts you discuss is always so intelligent and illuminating and never weighed own by theoretical jargon. Thank you!
What a wonderful analysis. What strikes me (and I am very fond of folk-lore and also had a large extended Yorkshire family when young) is that this is how Emily Bronte received her own information within her local environment, as it were through reported interactions, and she turned it into a literary device. Incidentally I always loved the use of dialect in some of the characters. The wild passionate scene between Cathy and Heathcliff when he visits her secretly at Thrushcross Grange after her illness (when her husband is conveniently at church) is with hindsight, besides being one of the most powerful interchanges in literature, a touching description of a brain injured person.
These are my personal thoughts on the ending, which I shared on my Tumblr blog several months ago: princesssarisa.tumblr.com/post/639180754984845312/a-defense-of-the-ending-of-wuthering-heights
Almost an hour of exellente material. May I ask you to examine "The turn of the screw"? I studied it at university, but still don't get it! And my teacher made it as difficult and boring as possible.
Isn't it awful what dry teaching can do to Henry James' work? He's marvelous, and "The Turn of the Screw" is his most exciting and accessible piece, in my opinion. A suspense story that is still effective in a time when people are practically raised on psychological thrillers and ghost stories? It should be easy to engage students in it! I was lucky enough to have a high school literature teacher who loved Henry James. My interest in and appreciation of "The Portrait of a Lady" was entirely due to her marveling over the scene in which Isabel realizes her husband is unfaithful because he does not stand up when his mistress enters the drawing room. It's a tiny, but so significant moment; a lack of etiquette that speaks of familiar intimacy with their visitor, and it turns Isabel's world upside-down. Anyway, seconding the request. I'd love to hear what Dr. Cox has to say about "The Turn of the Screw." Or pretty much any piece of classic literature, with the exception of "Moby Dick." I am surrounded by Melville Scholars, including my dad, so I'm all set on that.
You opened my eyes. I will now 1. Listen to your analysis again & take notes 2. Reread WH. What a gift you give me. I was always half-irritated with the novel. I think I will enjoy it now.
I don't think I ever noticed that be story is set 50 years before the publication date. I was startled to realize that even in the case of people reading the newly published first edition, not only is all of Heathcliff's generation gone (besides Heathcliff in the present time when the novel begins), but everybody in the story would be gone in the reader's time. Both of the narrators are surely gone. Even Hareton Earnshaw and Cathy Linton Heathcliff would be elderly or deceased. That adds to the feeling of otherworldliness; the story has few anchors to the reader's reality. Setting the story in the moors adds to the sense of being lost in time; while the small details of the moors are constantly changing, the macro landscape is the forever the same. I always assumed the jumbling of time and narrators was an attempt to immerse the reader in Heathcliff's madness and the way the all-different-ages ghost of Catherine Earnshaw Linton dominates his present. It reminds me of "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead," where the time line is more of a scribble, except "Wuthering Heights" is less metaphysical. Regarding the names of the estates, could this have been a further contrast between two cultures? Thrush Cross Grange has harsh consonants, very British sounds, while Wuthering Heights is more reminiscent of the flow that Gaelic has. In terms of both architecture and inhabitants, TCG is a very proper, organized (tamed), high-society estate imposed upon the landscape without compromise, while WH is presented as chaotic, rustic, organic and blending in with its surroundings. WH is fey, in a sense.
Thanks for offering us such an insightful analysis of Wuthering Heights ! I studied it both in high school and at university, and it's always been one of my favorite classic, and really enjoyed learning more with your video. Please make another one on the unreliable narrator(s)s !
I must re-read this novel - I haven't read it for ages. You have made the point that Emily Bronte's use of a particular literary technique is somewhat more complex than usual, but isn't a similar technique used by Anne Bronte in "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" - and (although less complex than either "Wuthering Heights" or even "The Tenant etc") by Mary Shelley in "Frankenstein"? It would be interesting to hear your comments on why these different techniques (eg linear storytelling, anachronic narrative, first person retelling their own story as in "Jane Eyre", or "Moby Dick") were used - and what the advantages and disadvantages of the different techniques might be. Sorry, I forgot to say a really big thank you for another fascinating talk.
That's a great question. Yes, all three use frame narratives - that is, an outer narrative that 'frames' an inner one (or two in the case of Frankenstein). But I think there are a couple of differences. In the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Helen's diary forms the central narrative - so it was written down, or set down, in the past, which is different to Nelly Dean's narrative, which is told in the 'present' about the past, and which self-refers to 'future' events that have happened (whereas Helen worries in her diary about what might happen). Also, Lockwood is present when Nelly is telling her narrative, whereas Gilbert reads the narrative along with the reader (there aren't the interruptions from Gilbert as there are from Lockwood, which I mentioned in the video). In Frankenstein, there are not the same 'interruptions' between the narratives either - each is quite discrete. Yes, Walton does reveal to his sister first that he has "lost" Victor and then explains how (anachronic narrative) - "I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour to detail these bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted towards England and towards you" (ch.24) - but this does all happen in the final chapter. Also to me Walton's narrative reads as more congruent than the way Heathcliff's death is presented in WH. And the ending of Frankenstein is left more ambiguous (it seems to me) - we don't even really know what happens to the creature: "He sprang from the cabin-window as he said this, upon the ice raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance" (ch.24). Does he die?
@@DrOctaviaCox oh this is great! My friend and I will be reading Frankenstein on our individual holidays this summer, then talking about it afterwards, and this will give me some additional themes to consider. Dr Kat just did a great video on Mary Shelley.
Thank you for defining anachrony, prolepsis and analepsis all new to me! But I must disagree with your statement @13:41 that “first time we encounter Catherine Earnshaw as readers is when she is a ghost.” Not so-Cathy speaks rather directly to us (albeit briefly) through her diary which Lockwood reads. This is the only time Cathy isn’t being described by Nelly, who “owns she did not like her (Cathy) after infancy.” Chap. 8
Patty- I have never been able to get past the halfway mark of this book. I've tried 3 times and failed. I think your analysis has helped me get a better grasp. I will try once more to finish the book. Thank you!
You make me want to read Wuthering Heights. I have seen it many times in the library as I read books by Raymond Chandler and books like Wall Street Noir. I only got through undergraduate school and took a few classes at Columbia University. Mathematics was my first serious home study, starting at eighteen before I became a grammarian. Professors got me into the Virginia Commonwealth University partly because of my literary evaluations. I shared your video with a friend who has just returned to America after being reared in South Africa and living in Lagos, Nigeria. Her father's best friend reportedly had he mother and father assassinated when she was 14 years old. For the past five years, I have been trying giving her instructions in grammar and everything. I told her that literature is just as challenging as mathematics to encourage her to read. Of course, I shared your video with her. Thanks for your lecture.
I don’t think any actor yet has totally captured Heathcliff, in my humble opinion:) Tom Hardy was probably the best of the bunch with the passionate side. Lawrence Oliver and Ralph Fiennes both appear too much like proper English gentleman and are WAY too old to portray him except for at the end of the story. My biggest pet peeve is all of these actors are white and don’t have the dark complexion that affects the way Heathcliff is treated through out his entire life. I would be absolutely thrilled if they ever cast a Romany gypsy in the role who looks like Heathcliff is described in the book, while capturing the wildness of Tom Hardy’s performance and the coldness of Fiennes and Olivier when he’s older🙏
I loved all your videos about the novels of Jane Austen but absolutely cannot put up with any of the Brontes. Although I have read them all at various stages of my life and have tried time and again to go back to them and see if I cannot like them a tad more, this has not worked and I find them so very unpalatable that I have given up even trying. What I love about Austen is the clarity of her vision which is never clouded by heaving romanticism for even when romantically inclined, reason wins the day. It is one of her most appealing features but the Brontes live in a vortex of heaving emotions that alienates them from me completely.
When you said that the narrative is designed "not to satisfy but to unsettle and to frustrate," you reminded me of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. That, too, was intended to unsettle, and, in some way, frustrate the reader. When it was published, many people didn't know what to do with it, what to make of it. (My favorite short story, by the way.)
Wow. That is so complex. I could never pick that out without your help. One time I would like to hear you talk about Emily’s personality and why she wrote in this convoluted way.
Regarding the title question I think it is because the mutual passion of Heathcliff and Cathy #1 represents the storm. When Hareton and Cathy #2 get together the storm blows itself out. Calm returns as in the poetically stunning last sentence. Calm after storm is by definition an anticlimax.
WH is one of my favourite books and it is precisely because it is more about how and why things happened than the event itself. Due to the reader already having the knowledge that the characters are going to die, you can just ‘sit in’ the story.
By not starting the novel when the characters were children but when the tenant visits his landlord at the Wuthering Heights, the story places the house in the center, not exactly the characters. The Earnshaws are part of the house ( their name is inscribed above the door) not characters on their own. We learn first about the houseb, thenbof its inhabitants and only later on the chacters on Nelly's story. The Heights are the main character of the story and Heathcliff, Earnshaws and Lintons are the character in Nelly's narrative. We learn the death of Heathcliff in the kitchen of the house, where ppl live happier now.
Thank you Dr. Cox for your brilliant analysis. To me this tragic story clearly shows the unnecessary suffering we humans endure when we make bad choices in life. To CHOOSE revenge, hatred, and unforgiveness over and over again by several of the characters, it just illustrates how destructive those choices are and in the end no sense of satisfaction or joy - ever. In the end it's just useless pain and suffering - when quite the opposite can occur when we chose forgiveness.
Thank you for the wonderful discussion! And thank you for minimizing the ads so I could really get into it. As a classic literature obsessive I've always thought something must be truly defective in me in that I really don't like Wuthering Heights! I actually love the structure, but the main protagonists are just such awful people, with no redeeming qualities, in my opinion. I only felt compassion for Hareton and Linton Heathcliff. I also wondered if perhaps the anti-climax of Heathcliff's death is retribution for all his evil deeds. He cared for no one except Kathy, and even then he wanted to punish her. His death is almost an afterthought. No one spared a moment to mourn him. No one (aside from Hareton--which is so tragic) will miss him. I would love for you to do an analysis of Vanity Fair! Thank you for the great content!
Well, this investigation into anachronym, prolepsis, & analepsis was extremely interesting. I never thought of the nonlinear timeline having anything to do with it but I have often wondered why Cathy’s ghost appeared to Lockwood and not Heathcliff in the first place. (Even though in Kate Bush’s song Cathy famously calls for Heathcliff-- the ghost in the novel never does.) It made no sense to me if their love was so great why not reach out to Heathcliff instead of this stranger, Lockwood? Your explanations made sense of this in that the literary structure Emily Bronte used made this ghostly event our first dramatic introduction to Cathy by a neutral narrator. I’ve always thought Emily’s timeline wrapped around itself. In the beginning of their story, we have the Lintons and Earnshaws. Later comes the lone Heathcliff with no family connections. At the end we have a Linton, an Earnshaw and the lone Heathcliff leaving with no family connections. Then all we have living are Lintons and Earnshaws as in their beginning. I do not find Wuthering Heights a romantic or satisfying novel. It is, as you say, a novel where not many main characters get satisfaction, the least of all in love. Only in death do Heathcliff and Cathy find a lasting union in two of three graves on the moors. What will Heathcliff be to future generations? Sadly, just a strange tombstone beside their ancestors. And that musing is the least satisfying of all. Thanks again for your post! Very enlightening!
Exactly, the timeline does seem to wrap around itself. And I think we know that Heathcliff's "cuckoo" (ch.4) will be cast out of the nest when we remember the first time that Lockwood enters Wuthering Heights: "Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date “1500,” and the name “Hareton Earnshaw”" (ch.1). We might not realise the significance of it in the moment, but it becomes clearer later when we read that Hareton begins to read his own name (well, both his own name and the name of his ancestors, of course) above the door ("He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name-‘Hareton Earnshaw.’" (ch.24).
Heathcliff is not a sibling, he's a changeling, a ghoul disguised as a vulnerable child that beguiles the master of Whutering Heights and begins his course of destruction of a formerly balanced community, coming from outside, settling above as some kind of supernatural, unnatural and unhuman power. He doesn't study but becomes more intelligent, an eloquent silver tongued man, he comes from misery but becomes stronger, he is dirty and toils the land but is ultimately more handsome, exerting almost irresistable fascination on females. He earns seemingly endless riches in a rather short period of time, in some mysterious way. The mystery of his vampire-like figure is beyond comprehension, represents the impending chaos from the outside world that rattles and shakes every himan sense bringing utter anarchy.
This video has made me appreciate this novel so much more. When I first read it I felt very let down by the lack of climax but now I now see the beauty in this unconventional style. Thank you!
I agree that she points out the inevitability of Heathcliff's death by revealing it almost flippantly. I have always thought that she tells us the way she does in order to express a bit of the senselessness of it all. Another way to say it, the meaningless of it all. It just all ends like a regular Tuesday afternoon. That feeling that it is almost insignificant. It was all for nothing. It almost doesn't matter enough to mention. All the pain and anguish is just a story that we all know the sad ending to. It is like she is saying, don't fool yourself. We all know it won't end well. For me, it always added to the sadness of it all. The hopelessness that it could never have been what it might have been. Also, when we are given a story in a more time linear fashion, we often do know what will happen. We think we are being built up in anticipation then satisfied, but we often already know how it always ends. She plays with time to help give us the sense that we can pretend these actions lead to something different in the end (like stories often like to deceive), but this is what really happens, she keeps reminding us, and it is not surprise. It shouldn't shock you. In the end, she just tells us what we already know, what the wise person knows. It is almost like a sarcastic compliment. Like she is saying, "Oh, I trusted you already understood."
Thank you very much indeed. Quite brilliant. You explained everything really well and yes, it makes sense. By the way, I love your necklace of watches set at varying times. It is in keeping with the theme of your talk.
Great analysis, as always! Makes me curious about that book again. I was way too young when I tried reading it, learning English in school and being a bit too confident with my skills as well. The detail with the names completely flew over my head, they were all so difficult to pronounce... I mostly remember a bunch of people in the countryside making life terrible for each other, while claiming to do so out of love. The death of Heathcliff just seemed like a logical consequence for the story arc at the point where it happened, making room for the younger generation to break through these circles of hurt and revenge... I remember being relieved that the main characters were gone, which was a weird experience for a young reader. Not very hero's journey! I guess it's time for a re-read :)
Just finished Wuthering Heights as part of my studies. A masterfully written story. Nelly's account sweeps you up with her emotions to a point where you want to avenge everyone that Heathcliff has wronged, fancying Lockwood to be Cathy's saviour when he gives her Nelly's correspondence, only to be disappointed and reminded of how much of a buffoon he is around women. His rebuke of Heathcliff "Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now". Was about as close as we get to satisfaction, which Heathcliff quickly diffuses ""No, no" he replied cooly". Leaves you quite deflated. Heathcliff's deterioration and subsequent death comes with it a sense of calm that makes you chastise yourself for essentially mirroring his intentions while reading. Pure genius.
Maybe you would find my article published in Bronte Studies several years ago of interest: "The 'Awful Event' in Wuthering Heights." The title is the clue to the thesis of the article that Bronte's novel is more an exploration of death and mourning than a love story or anything else, expressed in many ways including numerology.
I think you can take the idea of analepsis one stage further. The opening of the text "1801" firmly plants the notion to the original contemporary reader in 1848 that the narrative is already places firmly in the distant past. The narrations give the story a 'fireside' quality which is prevalent in ghost and mystical tales. Also, I think the premature demise of Heathcliffe was necessary, too. The book opens with Lockwood's violent encounter with Cathy's ghost and ends with Lockwood's line "...and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth" undermining his earlier experience. This for me is the climax of the novel, particularly given that Emily Bronte's bedroom overlooked the church graveyard when she was writing the novel in 1847.
Your video is both thought provoking and interesting. It’s been almost a lifetime since I read WUTHERING HEIGHTS. I’m neither an intellectual nor a literary scholar, so no sarcasm is intended when I ask if you’ll every do any analysis on Dame Agatha and her mysteries. When you spoke about timelines as a narrative device, it reminded me of reading some Lady Mallowan’s mysteries. After reading some of the comments, it occurred to me that there are some similarities in JANE EYRE and REBECCA by Dame Daphne. Maybe there aren’t that many unique plots and most are variations of one sort or the other. To those who may find my questions rather lowbrow, please understand that if I don’t ask, I won’t know and can’t grow. Meanwhile, I’ll watch the Jane Austen videos. Thank you for enlightening me.
Off topic but i have to say I've never read more morally grey characters before, it was incredible how i just couldnt bring myself to hate heatcliff nor liking him. The same goes for cathy, too; selfish but broken, manipulative but lonely, cheating but passionate.. oh, and the untrustworthy but insightful narrator nelly dean -partially responsible of cathy's death by downplaying her mental breakdowns and letting the others know about her situation too late- how jelous she was of cathy but how loving towards hareton and baby cathy, guided them towards each other... i love the book, such an experience.
I think it's because the characters are so human and flawed, as we all are but don't always admit. Heathcliff's love for Cathy is pure, but he is tormented by his social status and adopted brother. He is so bitter and vengeful because he loves Cathy so deeply. He runs off to make his fortune and gain status all because he overheard part of a conversation between Cathy and Nelly.
I hung on til the end of the video to hear the reason & omigoodness, I never thought of that! You have a point, Dr. Cox. When I was a young woman I thought WH was a love story. That's only a small fraction of it.
This was a wonderful review. Thank you for the discussion regarding the pronunciation of Thrushcross Grange. I had always assumed, that because I was American, I couldn't say those words smoothly. Because thrush and grange are not words commonly used here. I'm glad to know I’m not alone!!
English literature is something that I have never wanted to study formally/get a qualification in. I'm a philosophy, languages, law, and chemistry person. I love to learn, though, and Wuthering Heights is one of my all time favourite novels. Thank you so much for making this available for those of us who love English literature but don't have access to academic materials
EXTRAORDINARILY WELL DONE AND AN EXTRAORDINARY VIDEO!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!! FOR ME, WUTHERING HEIGHTS IS THE MOST POWERFUL NOVEL REGARDING LOVE, BECAUSE HEATHCLIFF AND CATHERINE ARE LIKE TWO SOULMATES WHO HAVE LIKE ONE HEART DIVIDED IN HALF IN TWO BODIES!!!! ONE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT THE OTHER!!!!
very interesting analysis. I would add the novel takes away catharsis as well through troubling morally questionable characters on BOTH sides of conflict (often)
When test audiences saw the first version of the 1939 movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights, they certainly found it unsatisfying -- they hated the gloomy ending. Producer Samuel Goldwyn pasted in a shot at the end of Cathy and Heathcliff (using stand-ins for the unavailable actors) walking off together into the clouds, and suddenly they had a hit. But director William Wyler always hated it for going against the novel's intentions.
Do you teach any online courses in English Literature? I already love these novels, and it would be fun to learn some things to give them greater meaning. The one course I took in college was awful and had no empathy or understanding for female authors' stories. It would also be fun to 'discover' new old authors and stories. But not any Dickens.
I love this, just recently discovered this channel and it is a great one! Would love to hear you talk about Charles Dickens and his characters. Especially from Great Expectations. Thanks for doing this!
These illustrations are almost as famous as Wuthering Heights itself. They are by a wonderful illustrator named Fritz Eichenberg. He did them to illustrate a gorgeous boxed set of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights published in 1943 by Random House Publishers.
I have an original copy of the set given to me by my mother. It is 88 years old and still glorious! I took some pictures of a few of the illustrations, but there seems to be no way for me to upload one to a UTube reply.
Have you considered publishing your excellent videos as a podcast too? I find them very interesting, but have a hard time watching them in this format. I would love to listen to the analysis as I do my shopping.
This is an excellent suggestion. I am actually looking into podcasting ideas for the future. Many thanks for listening to / watching the videos as they are at the moment.
Thank you for the brilliant lecture. It makes me wonder at the ability of humans to think in so many time frames. I read that the Tales of Genji was written in tenses no longer spoken, or perhaps understood. Old Japanese had a historic tense. And the Aboriginal Australians had "dream time" which is extremely complex and perhaps also impossible for us to understand. How did people get that way? Survival? or just the product of problem solving abilities?
Out on the wily, windy moors We’d roll and fall in green You had a temper like my jealousy Too hot, too greedy How could you leave me? When I needed to posses you I hated you, I loved you too ( insert weird but equally haunting interpretive dance) 💃 Sorry, really feeling the Kate Bush vibe for some reason..
I read the novel as a teenager. I hated it because it was so depressing. All the characters were so mean and nasty, and destructive to self and others. There was not a single character I sympathized with. Of course, I did not understand all the implications, nor did I appreciate the other aspects of the novel. Yes, you are right, I continued to read to the end because I wanted to know what happened. My youthful self was satisfied that everyone got his/her just desserts, and I moved on to other classics that provided more simplistic views of good and evil and therefore more uplifting. What do I think of the anachronic structure? I generally do not like non-chronological narrations because I find it sometimes makes the plot unnecessarily complicated. However, Wuthering Heights was not too overwhelming even for a teenage mind. The novel I that I found very confusing even reading it as a mature adult was the English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. The steam of consciousness technique confused the sequence of events, at least for my simple mind.
Thank you! There are many older books that can be read too early, and WH is one. But schools like to push it -- maybe because it's fairly short, and involves mostly children and teenagers? I think the impression that it is a romance causes disappointment in people who "hate" it.
In applicatin to the visual television and cenema media, the anachronic structure became a new twist it seemed then to me in the early 2000s, as a different way to tell a story. I remember watching the TV show "Lost" and how the back story or flashback was told in this structure. I have to give credit to E. Bronte and other writers centuries ago, with this way of storytelling.
I've read Wuthering Heights four times. I love the dark aspects of it, specifically the examination of obsession, and the consequences thereof. I do think Lockwood's encounter with the ghost of Cathy sets the tone of the novel, then the analepsis puts the reader in a more comfortable place with Heathcliff's introduction into the novel. I agree with the comment that after the stagnating horrors of Heathcliff's trail of revenge, his death brings relief to the reader as well as the surviving characters in the novel. I used to watch the Olivier/Oberon film with my mom when I was a teen, but didn't understand how dark the story was until I read the novel. I love aspects of the Fiennes/Binoche version, but after comparing it with the Hardy/Riley film, I find the younger Cathy with the Northern accent to be my favorite. I do find it interesting how the narrative order is handled with these two films. I love your presentations, Dr. Octavia!
So what I am hearing is that everything that the reader learns about Heathcliff and Cathy is through the retelling of events. I see that as the only way that Heathcliff and Cathy are able to “be together” - It would not make sense in a narrative sense to have Heathcliff die in “real time” when everything else we learn about him is relayed through flashback. At least that is how it seems to me. Thank you so much for such a detailed analysis- I learn so much from your videos! I teach middle school English, and while your analysis is of course way above the level of my own students, your analysis makes me a better teacher because of the detail. My own background is not literature, so the detail is fascinating!
Dr. Cox, first of all THANK YOU for such a great analysis of WH. I was 17 when I read this novel and I was truly blown away by its intensity. So much that after I finished it, I decided that what I wanted to do in the future was to study English Literature. So for me WH was a pivotal book in my life. Now. Fast forward to 2023. I've recently came across a snippet of a new adaptation of WH where Heathcliff is portrayed as having Afro physical traits and I was quite puzzled by this because I had always imagined Heathcliff like a tall, dark, olive-skinned man (very like Timothy Dalton but with darker skin). So I'd like to ask you: what do you think Heathcliff looked like? More like an "eastern European gypsy" or like a creole/Afro man? Thank you in advance if you'll answer my question.
I think your discussion helped me understand more about the reason why an author would deploy anachrony. As you stated, the standard narrative form is successful because the audience is concerned with what happens next (and caught in a cycle of anticipation and satisfaction). How anachronic stories shift away from the "what/how" to the "how/why." Some of my favorites stories have been prequels and/or tragedies where the end is already provided to the audience (and, thus "anti-climatic"). Nevertheless, knowing an end can heighten the importance of each character's actions or reactions as we slowly start to see the present we know emerge, i.e., the proverbial dominos put in place before they fall. I haven't read Wuthering Heights in many years, but I enjoyed its ending, because to me it was not a romance--it is a tragedy--wherein Heathcliff passed on his pain and suffering to the next generation who in turn seem to be on the path of spiritually healing the past mistakes of the prior generations.
Thank you in advance for this analysis. I would like to know whether there is any connection between Bronte's poem 'Remembrance' with Heathcliff and Catherine
Interestingly enough, Anne Bronte has exactly the same narrative structure in The Tennant of Wildfell Hall. Two Narrator's and two time periods, with the opening narrator bracketing the Central narration. Worth exploring the similarity (and potentially the differences)?
Yes, absolutely - both use frame narratives (that is, an outer narrative framing an inner one), which, one imagines, can hardly have been coincidental. I do think there are key differences though. One being that Lockwood interrupts Nelly's recitation of her narrative, whereas readers are simply presented with Helen's diary without interpolations from Markham.
@@DrOctaviaCox And in the Tennant, both are first person narratives from the perspective of Central Characters, while in Wuthering Heights, neither narrator is Central to the story. They are just conveniently placed so the reader might be able to believe that the Central Characters are not completely fictitious. Equally, in WH, the apparently objective nature of the narrators seems to give a "warts and all" sense of main characters, whereas, in The Tennant, it's only by implication that we begin to see the flawed nature of the main characters, because they excuse their own actions.
What do you think about the anachronic structure of Wuthering Heights?
I think this structure makes, an othernwise commom story, something really interesting as we are interreupted by Mrs Dean reminding us it is her story and that it is a story since the present is different.
@Dr Octavia Cox Is there a genuine inference that Heathcliff got rich as a slave trader? I love how Austen named Mrs Norris after the slaver Robert Norris in Mansfield Park:) It seems only fitting as she treats Fanny like A slave.
I like how the beginning of the novel starts with the first 2 visits of Mr Lockwood in 1801. It sets up the whole mystery and intrigue about the place. In the first place why is there so much animosity between all the inmates? Why are they all so uncivil to Mr Lockwood on both visits? Why so much hatred between Mr Heathcliff and his daughter in law Cathy Heathcliff, nee Linton? Why were they so unhelpful to Mr Lockwood when he was snowed in for the night.
During the night in the bedroom when Mr Lockwood is visited by the ghost of dead Cathy this sets up more mystery and intrigue for the reader. Who was Catherine Eàrnshaw/Linton? Why does she come back to haunt the place? Why was Heathcliff so distraught to miss this apparition and why in his anguish he called after her?
These are some of the questions raised in Mr Lockward's account which spurs the reader on to learn more about the place, its inhabitants and the history which led up to the present state of affairs in 1801. Readers are then eager to read Ellen Dean's account of the history of events up until then. I don't think it would have worked so well if the novel began with Mr Earnshaw returning from Liverpool with the gypsy boy.
As to much later when Mr Lockwood returns to wuthering heights in sept 1802, when Ellen Dean tells him of Heathcliff's death BEFORE the readers read her account of the events that lead up to it does indeed make his death an anti climax. The reader is then robbed of all the mystery and intrigue as they already know what is going to happen and are left dissatisfied.
I find interesting your reflection of this dissatisfaction of that of Heathcliff and of Catherine enough for them to not want to go on living. It all makes sense.
@@markteltscher9746 I like your explanation of Mrs Norris' name in Mansfield Park.
As to how Heathcliff got rich abroad, I always guessed it was through gambling as he managed to clean Hindley out of property and wealth good and proper. He probably found a way of cheating at cards without being found out, as luck always seemed to be on his side when playing against Hindley. Howevet slave trading is also a possibility which may explain why Heathcliff kept it all a dark secret and took it with him to the grave.
As to slave trading, it also may be possible Heathcliff as a child may have been captured by slave traders and brought to Liverpool sea port and some how escaped. He was seen initially by the Earnshaws as being foreign. In the latest film of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is black. It was certainly make Ellen Dean's fantasy story to Heathcliff about him being an oriental prince captured by Pirates most ironic.
@@markteltscher9746 I didn't know that and I think it's perfect.
I really love that in a discussion so preoccupied with time you wore a necklace made of watches.
I didn't even notice. How eclectic and interesting!
I couldn’t take my eyes off of it! So creative
agree!
So creative!
Love it! 🥰 Beautiful, Meaningful Jewelry (my favourite).
Heathcliff rages across the novel like a storm and fades away like one. He just ceases to be.
Beautifully put. He's kept alive by hatred, and a desire for revenge, and then when that ceases to be he can't find the energy to stay alive any more:
"“It is a poor conclusion, is it not?” he observed ... “an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives: I could do it; and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don’t care for striking: I can’t take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of magnanimity. It is far from being the case: I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing." (ch.33)
HC has matured. He sees the futility of revenge. He has lost the reason to exist. So he dies.
HC was actually barely alive- he "died" when Cathrine died. Shell of a man
@@DrOctaviaCox Hello! Are you planning on making more videos about this novel? As much as I love Jane Austen's characters, the characters of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw have a raw, elemental force about them that I haven't seen in Jane Austen's writings. I find it funny how some movie adaptations completely drop the story of the second generation, even though that part is actually longer, I think.
I would love to see your take on the rest of the characters and story elements.
I can think of another reason for the deadpan way in which Heathcliff's death is made known to the reader. Heathcliff is a fascinating character - to the reader, to himself, to Catherine Earnshaw, to Hindley and to Isabella. But not to Nelly Dean. She has some sympathy for him during his unhappy childhood, but very little afterwards. She doesn't understand the way he is driven by the desire for vengeance. In Nelly's eyes Heathcliff is a servant like herself and his histrionics lead to a mixture of irritation and bafflement. To her as a servant 'the master' naturally means the current master of the house. Who is a person she does regard with affection and whom she has always considered the natural master of Wuthering Heights - Hareton Earnshaw.
Beautiful description! That's Heathcliff in a nutshell
Heathcliff's death is what I remember most about Wuthering Heights. For me, the style of the revelation only heightened my sense of relief. I literally felt as if a weight had been lifted off of me! It was as if the exhausting, gut-wrenching melodrama of the story had suddenly died with Heathcliff, bringing us back into the lighter, gentler, "real" world.
I can see that.
This was a very good point. As my native language is Spanish a lot of details are lost in translation
So so true, we get tired of Heathcliff constant self torturing and torture of others. It's very much like certain people of real life. You just can't breathe next to them. Peace simply doesn't exist and they weigh heavy on others. I have a couple of family members just like that (although not violent and mean, but tortured, demanding, unstable, and with important attachment issues like Heathcliff seems to have) . It's very difficult. Wuthering heights provides a bit of solace to my plight with these people. I am grateful this novel exists. There are no other character like Heathcliff I know of in any book or film. Except maybe Brando as Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar named desire for the violence and wild nature. So thank you Emily Brontë for writing such a character.
Just to be cheeky, I tell people that Wuthering Heights is actually science fiction. They're all stuck in a causality loop and the same things keep happening, to people with similar names, over and over. =D
It does rather feel like that!
That is the best take on Wuthering Heights I have ever heard. Maybe that's why I love it even though everyone in it is terrible to one degree or another: it feels like science fiction.
@@sharragamez1318 Right? Right?! And now, with this video, I have even more material to cheek people with on this whole anochrony/analepsis/prolepsis, the future of the past that is the past of the present.
That's brilliant!
victorian Groundhog Day! Love it!!
For me, the structure emphasises the fact of the past will always haunt the present. The past haunts the present in the novel through Cathy’s ghost for example or the inter-generational trauma portrayed. The structure simply emphasises the prevalence of the past and how it is so intertwined and inextricable from the present.
Wonderful analysis. I have always thought of Wuthering Heights as first and foremost a ghost story, and ghost stories are always told from a comfortable distance of time, only to come up and grab you in the present!
Oh, thank you! Well, certainly the novel ends on a note that the 'sleeping' Cathy and Heathcliff might reanimate and haunt future generations (and perhaps haunt the mind of the reader's imagination too): the final line ends with Lockwood wondering, as he looks on their graves, "how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth" (ch.34).
WH- captures the cruelty of family life- who belongs- who is the outsider- who rules
@@DrOctaviaCox I always thought that WH is a Gothic/Romantic story, perhaps with the exception of characters like Lockwood and Nelly Dean. Nelly sems to be more balanced than the violent, passionate Hindley, Cathy and Heathcliff or the inconsolable Linton. Nelly's character seems to be leaning towards Realism compared to the majority of the characters. And perhaps the ending of the novel ia the "triumph" of Realism over Romanticism? Am I reading too much into it?
Yes, I agree🙏👏
It's nice to finally find someone who's discussing this masterpiece on UA-cam without bashing it
Never mind. In a few years, probably after a Netflix series, it will be back in fashion again. And all the YT influencers will say they "always" loved it.
All WH bashers should try to write a better one.
This would humble them all.
I read WH in bed on boxing Day night every year.
It’s because 21st century humans think they we have progressed so much farther in human behavior than those of the past.
They refuse to see that humans are the same throughout the whole course of our history and often repeat the same offenses of those who have gone before.
I think the objections are now that W/H was always portrayed as a romance. I think it has elements of romance but its a dark and dysfunctional relationship. I think the novel can withstand some critical analysis and if that means its no longer sold as a love story as a consequence so be it.
@@becbrown212 Yes! I have read it roughly once a year for over fifty years. The first time I was 12, and read it the day after seeing the 1939 movie. At age 12 I thought it was a romance (probably because the movie was), but now I realize it's more a psychological thriller with a psychopath as the central character. And at my age now I find that much more interesting than a romance.
For me Heathcliff's death is such a release... It's like waking up from a bad dream when you are suddenly told that he is dead and there's just no threat anymore. This huge inescapable force is just gone.
The way the young people start resolving things is similar. There's not a whole lot of buildup. We just come back and they're getting along well and on their way to happy lives.
To me it builds a sense of how small Heathcliff actually is in the flow of time. With all his planning, scheming, hatred, and the feeling of him as an all powerful force spanning multiple generations, he finally just dies and fades away. It's comforting, because he's not as all powerful as we thought, and sort of threatening because it makes Heathcliff's story the kind of thing that could happen anywhere and just be swept away and forgotten.
It also gives the impression of how useless all his revenge was. He achieved everything he wanted to in terms of revenge, and still just dies his inevitable death and none of other matters anymore. He's not satisfied and all his plans are swept away as soon as he dies.
A million years ago I wrote an undergraduate essay in which I posited that Heathcliff becomes unnecessary when Wuthering Heights again has a Catherine Earnshaw living in it. Hence he dies. Cathy will marry Hareton, and so resolve the issue of the ghost child on the moors who longs to come home, and Catherine's dream of being kicked out of heaven because of her longing to be home. When Heathcliff enters the Earnshaw family he replaces the gifts their father was bringing for them - in Catherine's case, that was a whip. Heathcliff becomes a kind of tool to return the Heights to its proper state, with a Catherine Earnshaw as the lady of the house. I've always felt that Hareton is basically Heathcliff's double, but sweeter and less damaged, so when he and Cathy marry there will be a sort of resolution of the relationship between the original two playmates.
Well, unless one or both of them dies all of a sudden before the wedding, which is highly possible for these poor blighted people. Nelly: "oh yes they died last year, would you like a cup of tea?"
Is it weird that I found all the dissatisfaction in this novel immensely satisfying? Thanks for breaking all of this down. My professor when we studied it seemed to believe reader response was the only critical lens suitable for undergraduates, so we didn't discuss anything about the novel's structure or why the author might have chosen what she did...the whole class really felt like a missed opportunity.
What I'm saying is, if you want to do a whole series on Wuthering Heights, I am here for that.
I never knew so much thought was put into the names "Wuthering Heights" and "Thrushcross Grange"! Another thing I just noticed about "Thrushcross Grange" is the "grrr" sound at the beginning, which, according to Anatoly Liberman is often found in words referring to "things threatening or discordant," like "gruesome," "grumble," "growl," "grouch," "grudge," "grin" (which used to denote scowling), "grimace," "groan," "grief," etc. Interesting that "Thrushcross Grange" should be the house to have the threatening, discordant name, when it was depicted as full of light and beauty when Heathcliff and Cathy were peering in the windows while rambling on the moor. It was the airily named "Wuthering Heights" that was dark and dismal. Why were the names chosen in that way? Maybe the video will explain later - I'm only five minutes in!
That's a great point! Perhaps Thrushcross Grange has the more menacing name, in terms of language, because it's after Cathy's visit there that her relationship with Heathcliff begins to sour?
Not to mention Cathy being bitten by a -- grrr! -- bulldog incites the conflict between the two families.
Thrushcross Grange does sound threatening. Interesting reference with the "gr" sound. But for me (and my perspective from the states), Wuthering Heights doesn't sound like a chill or casual name for a home at all. It may not be a threatening name, but the word, "Wuthering," in particular gave me weathered, weeping willow vibes before I knew a thing about this book
I enjoyed this lecture so much! I've read WH pretty much every year since 1968, when I was 12. I had been fascinated by my parents' leather-spine edition with the haunting drawings by Nell Booker. I asked my mom about it, and she said she thought it would be too hard for me to read at my age, because of all the time changes and nested narrators (Lockwood recording Nelly recording Isabella at one point.) But then the 1939 movie was on TV and we watched it. It had the same kind of opening as the book. So the next day I devoured the book. I didn't find the time changes or changes of narrators confusing at all, maybe because the movie had prepared me. I was shocked to discover that the movie ended halfway through the book, and that Heathcliff wasn't quite the romantic hero Laurence Olivier had portrayed.
(Side note: I've always wondered how that movie would have been if Olivier had been able to play against his wife Vivian Leigh as Cathy. She was busy making Gone With the Wind at the time and couldn't do it. But I think their chemistry would have been amazing.)
At age 12 I still thought of the book as a romance, but as an adult I realized that it's more of a psychological thriller, and much more interesting than a romance (though I'm glad there's a bit of a genuine romance near the end.) As far as the narrative structure, it's so old and familiar after all these decades that it seems really natural. It's a great hook having the reader encounter a ghost early on and then find out the story. The ghost draws you into it. I never thought much about the introduction of Heathcliff's death being another kind of hook. But by that time the reader is so oppressed by him that it's a relief to hear that he's gone, and it makes the rest of the book bearable to read.
As others have said, I'd love to hear you talk about the unreliable narrator. The reader wants to strangle Nelly at every turn (at least I do.) On every other page she seems to make a disastrous decision that furthers the tragedy. I still love her, but my goodness. And she seems to misunderstand both Catherines all the way through.
And this last is totally off topic, but since I've rambled so far, I wanted to mention that another book I've read about every year for five decades is The Secret Garden. It and Wuthering Heights are stored together in my brain and heart, and they have some surprising similarities, even though the stories are very different: One's a kind of horror story, and the other is a healing children's story.
I was ten when I first read The Secret Garden, and it was in that book that I learned the word ""wuthering." Both books have fathers whose wives die while delivering a child. And two of them, Hindley and Archie, are really warped by the experience. Both books have cousins whose eyes are similar, and a man from the previous generation who can't bear to look at those eyes. Both have lyrical descriptions of the moor on a sunny day, with bees and larks. Both have the ghost of a dead mother, calling in a dream (or is it a dream?) And on my most recent reading I was struck by the scene with young Catherine reciting a ballad to Linton, to calm his fretful complaining. It made me think of the first encounter between Mary and Colin, when she sings him to sleep. And there's the illiterate Hareton and the mostly illiterate Dickon. All totally coincidence, because the authors knew the moor so well, but it has always made me love both stories, more for the setting than anything.
And now that I think about it, Mary's story starts a little bit in media res: we're told that when she came to Misslethwaite, everyone said she was the most disagreeable child they'd ever seen (rather like Lockwood seeing the adult Heathcliff being disagreeable), and then we go back bit and see how her early childhood shaped her before she got there. It only takes a chapter or two to get us up to the present, and from there the book is linear. But it does have that kind of beginning.
Anyway, I hope you don't mind the rambling, and I hope you'll do more on Wuthering Heights, because I love your insights.
Great comment, Karen. You and I have similar thoughts and favorite books (see my comment above). While it's out of time for either Wuthering Heights or Secret Garden (loved that story since I was very young), Du Maurier's Rebecca is another book I read over and over again. I'm often bored with many "light" historical romances, and even took a while to warm up to Jane Austen, having spent more time with the Bronte sisters, Dickens, high quality historical murder mysteries, Poe, Conan Doyle, and German Fairy Tales. I find characters such as Heathcliff and Rochester not to be romantic heroes, but flawed, tragic figures who are endlessly fascinating. I am glad to understand Austen's novels on a deeper level now (favorite is Persuasion), and have Dr. Octavia to thank for that. I also had fun reading Mysteries of Udolpho, and Evelina, by Fanny Burney, as background for Northanger Abbey. The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), by Goethe, has been called the first psychological novel in Western Europe. It was hugely popular. I found the main character's obsession with the woman he loves interesting to compare with Heathcliff's. And Dangerous Liaisons definitely provides a broad choice of unreliable narrators, many of whom are morally challenged. I think my favorite aspect of these period novels is the clear picture they paint of human nature; despite the centuries that have passed, people have not changed in their motivations.
When Nellie says about 'her master'; "He's gone out at present, and won't return soon.", the reader assumes she is talking about Heathcliff.
Later when Nellie clarifies that Heathcliff has died, this sentence gave me a chilly feeling, because if you correlate this sentence to Heathcliff as a dead person, it opens up the possibility of Heathcliffs ghost haunting the moors and returning some day.
That's what I thought when I read the sentence.
I love your videos!! Keep up the good work please!!
Speaking of going, Heathcliff slowly detaching from the world more and more, kind of gives the impression of him leaving.
Thank you so much for this analogy. I have just read this astonishingly fantastic story and am just blown away. It left me speechless and far off among the wet dreary moors and lost in my own wandering directionless mind. Wuthering heights is a absolute Masterpiece. Thank you for helping me understand it.
What an interesting lecture, and what a privilege to attend it! I never got to go to university but this gives me a taste of the pleasures I missed - a taste RIGHT NOW, it's not too late! And I had a front-row seat in a lovely setting; I wasn't stranded in the midst of two hundred students in some big old anonymous lecture hall. It was like receiving private tutoring! Plus, I was having a tea while I watched, in a real china cup! We ARE so privileged nowadays, what with the Internet and UA-cam. (But no, on second thought, I'm sure I would have grown FOND of some lecture halls if they'd become the regular scene of such lectures!)
Thank you for this analysis of WH's time structure, it was illuminating and really gave me insight into a difficult novel. I would definitely be interested in a further analysis on the dual narrative in terms of the 2 narrators in this novel - the unreliable narrator is such a fascinating construct.
Excellent! - glad to have added some illumination about the structure. I agree - the unreliable narrator (and its challenge to ideas of representing narrative truth & perspective) are so interesting. How do we know what's 'real' or not if we can't trust the character telling us about it?
Yes please! I would live for you to do a video on the trustworthiness (or lack thereof) of the narrators in Wuthering Heights!
Noted!
Not related to the time structure, but i just realized when listening to this analysis that the story is set in the winter at the begining of a new century.
At the present the characters are in turmoil, in a bleak moment of their lives which can be represented by the winter and as winter will be over with spring, so might their misfortunes.
There is also the new generation and the new century. There is hope.
Heathcliff dies in the spring.
Great point - the seasons and boundaries in the novel are a really interesting aspect to consider. Hareton and Catherine Linton, we're told, will get married on New Year's Day (1 January 1803):
"“They are going to the Grange, then?” I said.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Dean, “as soon as they are married, and that will be on New Year’s Day.”"
(ch.34)
Cycles of indirect revenges which resulted to relationships that recreated the past thru alter-egos.
Edited: This piece is about TRAGEDY. Pivoting thru a gothic scene.
Not tragedy of a romance, but of tragedy resulting to new romances.
Hindley being jealous, revenged to Heathcliff.
Heathcliff being heartbroken revenged to Edgar's sister.
Heathcliff taking advantage stripped off Hindley who is on a personal vendetta, resulting to abandonment of Hareton. (another orphan)
The two Catherine are the soft spot of the story.
Catherine is the hope of Heathcliff.
Cathy is the hope of Hareton.
... do you see the similarities (Heathcliff & Hareton growing up as servants/orphans)
ALTER EGOS:
There are obvious recurrence of events from the 2nd gen to the 3rd (1st gen are the Earnshaws & Lintons).
And Cathy evidently took succession of events in the 3rd gen. (as the love interest of the story)
Catherine choosing Edgar for social rank instead of her love Heathcliff.
Cathy in love with Linton who is already on a social rank, yet still ended up with Hareton.
Heathcliff despite of being divisive is slowly in cognizance of the repetition of the past, which I conclude started his madness.
He witnessed Cathy's affection to Linton. Like Catherine to Edgar.
And later on witnessing Cathy as the comfort/solace of Hareton. Like Catherine to Heathcliff.
He avoided Cathy & Hareton because he can see his past, and maybe deep inside know that eventually they will end up together.
IRONY:
He died thinking he is with Catherine.
Their alter ego Cathy & Hareton lived and plans to be together in marriage.
Cathy and Hareton is the could have been of Heathcliff. 🤷🏼♀️
************************
1st Entry:
I believe that Bronte's purpose of writing WH is to explore human emotion, to bring scandal and despair, that passion will often result to disappointment.
The story is about the cycle of abuse. Hindley did not feel loved. Hindley abused to Heathcliff to Isabella, but Heathcliff can never make Edgar and Hindley suffer directly. He wants revenge but indirect.
It is dragging, really and frustrating as if no hope is left for anyone who is controlled by Heathcliff.
Heathcliff, despite accomplishing his devises, never experienced gratification. After Linton's death, he knew that there's no sense for all of it (Linton as his only pawn).
Heathcliff may have had the control of all the people around him (even Nelly) never came to have control over his wishes of being with Catherine.
All that's left are the legacy of 2 of his most hated persons, Hareton the son of the abusive Hindley, and Cathy child of his rival Edgar.
In other words- The Earnshawes beat HC again. They won. HC remind the outsider
This is fascinating. I just finished Wuthering Heights for the first time, and I was struck by how the generations interact. This analysis brings it to a whole new level. Thank you!
I think that the frame of Lockwood drowsing over Cathy's books and then seemingly encountering her ghost serves to show Heathcliff's wild grief in such a way
as to force empathy from the reader before we hear Nelly's negative view of Heathcliff or read about the terrible things he does. It's a little similar to the way we read Nelly's retelling of Cathy's "I am Heathcliff" speech although Heathcliff does not, and before her self-destructive actions that are somewhat explained by her self-identification with Heathcliff. (I paused the video to type this, so I hope it isn't just repetition of what you are going to say.)
Yes, fabulous point, beautifully articulated. One of the questions that the novel poses, I think, is 'Is the love of Cathy and Heathcliff enough to justify their actions?' To themselves, if not to readers. And your point about showing Heathcliff's continuing wild grief (Cathy's been dead for nearly 18 years by this point) early in the novel ties into this question that hangs over the rest of the book.
@@DrOctaviaCox I heard the novel described as "psychopaths in love" and it seems a fairly accurate description. Cathy feels her own behavior makes sense; Heathcliff's makes sense to himself. But when he breaks into her bedroom to confront her when she's near death, he makes clear that her behavior doesn't make sense to *him*.
Thank you once again for an excellent literary lecture! I think that the curious coexistence of ordinary and extraordinary is the reason for the uniqueness of the Wuthering Heights - and of Emily Bronte’s personality. Her work is like no other, at first sight wild and chaotic, but as you so clearly demonstrated, created by a well-ordered mind quite conscious of the wide technical apparatus of a first-class writer.
OMG! I finished wuthering heights on wednesday and I searched for a vidoe of yours about it, and now you have one! I love ur channel, love from Ecuador :3.
Greetings! Ha - well in that case the two 'presents' should be very fresh in your mind! I'm very happy that you like my channel. Thanks for watching.
I love that you said that it's a novel where no one is satisfied... not even the reader.
Watching this yet again on 9/11/22 and missing you so much Dr Cox! Hoping your new adventures are bringing you joy and will eventually lead you back to making more wonderful, informational videos about literature. 💜💜💜
Excellent video! I’d never given serious consideration to the anachronic structure, but I think it does a wonderful job of perpetuating the ghostly atmosphere of the book. The characters seem to be stuck in the past, controlled by Heathcliff who is unwilling to move past Catherine’s death. Once he dies, it’s as if a spell is lifted and Cathy and Hareton are finally able to become themselves. When I first read it, I found the anticlimax of Heathcliff’s death to be satisfying. To me, it felt like justice that the man who caused so much chaos should die relatively quietly and fade from memory.
I’d love to see more videos on this book!
Octavia, any student who has you as their professor is incredibly lucky.
You're an outstanding teacher-absolutely fabulous. Thank you for uploading this video. I learned a great deal from it. 👏
After watching this video I was struck by how similar Cathy and Heathcliff are to Daisy and Gatsby. Both stories are told by a narrator, and in both stories I find my empathy with Gatsby and Heathcliff far more than with Cathy and Daisy. That's a whole other topic, but its something I wouldn't have considered without your insight.
They do feel very similar, both men despite success will never be accepted by society and the woman they love because they weren't born into high society
This was so interesting, thank you Dr Octavia! I have a strange relationship with Wuthering Heights. One moment it horrifies and frustrates me (perhaps because I'm someone who finds conflict particularly distressing and I get immense satisfaction from seeing emotional problems solved - rather like in Shakespeare's comedies, where we can enjoy seeing everything unravel with the security of knowing that the characters must pick up the pieces and mend the story). However, with this book I feel like the savageness of the characters is rather fascinating and I love that Emily B wasn't afraid to explore how much we humans can and will wound the ones we love the most. I would absolutely love to hear more of what you have to say on this novel!
I stumbled on this video and decided to watch for just a couple of minutes. Instead, I watched it all the way through, totally engrossed. So interesting, so informative! Thank you so much.
Another really enlightening video! I'll admit I did get a little lost with the description of how prolepsis & analepsis was being used simultaneously, but I think I understand it enough to get Emily's purpose for using it. Wuthering Heights isn't really my favorite (more of a Jane Eyre person) but I appreciate it more as I come to understand the craft of it better! ^-^
Many thanks for watching (especially given that WH isn't a favourite of yours! - you're not alone, lots of readers find it quite hard work). I'm sorry if I was confusing - I meant that the simultaneous analepsis and prolepsis mean that 'past', 'present', and 'future' come into play in the same scenes. I hope that explains my point, in as succinct a way as I can put it.
@@DrOctaviaCox Oh! That paints a much clearer picture to me. I was imagining some sort of pretzel of time and meaning when it's a lot simpler. ^-^' Thank you!!
I don't have too much time for reading so I usually read books very slowly but I read WH in 2 days, I could not put it down, it was so dramatic. I think you've explained some of the frustration I felt with the novel and now it makes so much more sense!
Great video! As a spanish speaker, I´ve always found extremely difficult to pronounce "Thrushcross grange" (I can´t say it quickly and I always mispronounce) but I´d never thought It could be a rather inaccessible word and It could be related to the plot and the purposes of the author. Your analysis about the structure is so interesting! Wuthering Heights is a very complex novel and every time I read I find new things to look at. Emily Brontë uses so many techniques in order to bring us the story... an amazing novel and an amazing author! Thank you for your analysis
Professor Cox - the Kate Bush song! I was listening to it yesterday and sought out your video to refresh my memory of WH. I am a retired professor of English lit (medieval and Renaissance), and I love watching your videos as your focus on the texts you discuss is always so intelligent and illuminating and never weighed own by theoretical jargon. Thank you!
Please, make a video about the unreliable narrator!
Noted!
What a wonderful analysis. What strikes me (and I am very fond of folk-lore and also had a large extended Yorkshire family when young) is that this is how Emily Bronte received her own information within her local environment, as it were through reported interactions, and she turned it into a literary device. Incidentally I always loved the use of dialect in some of the characters. The wild passionate scene between Cathy and Heathcliff when he visits her secretly at Thrushcross Grange after her illness (when her husband is conveniently at church) is with hindsight, besides being one of the most powerful interchanges in literature, a touching description of a brain injured person.
These are my personal thoughts on the ending, which I shared on my Tumblr blog several months ago: princesssarisa.tumblr.com/post/639180754984845312/a-defense-of-the-ending-of-wuthering-heights
This is so cool! I was just looking up Wuthering Heights on your channel a few days ago and was sad it wasn't there and it popped up today! Yay!
Ha! How serendipitous!
I just found your channel and now I am obsessed.
Bonus points for singing the song, Professor.
Ha! - well, I couldn't resist.
I ADORE this song but I didn't know it was Kate Bush. I only know it from Pat Benatar's Crimes of Passion, I think, album!
Wonderful video as always. I appreciate the apt use of jewellery to talk about time.
Almost an hour of exellente material.
May I ask you to examine "The turn of the screw"? I studied it at university, but still don't get it! And my teacher made it as difficult and boring as possible.
Thank you! Much appreciated.
I shall add James' The Turn of the Screw to my list. Ugh - difficult AND boring - a terrible combination!
Isn't it awful what dry teaching can do to Henry James' work? He's marvelous, and "The Turn of the Screw" is his most exciting and accessible piece, in my opinion. A suspense story that is still effective in a time when people are practically raised on psychological thrillers and ghost stories? It should be easy to engage students in it!
I was lucky enough to have a high school literature teacher who loved Henry James. My interest in and appreciation of "The Portrait of a Lady" was entirely due to her marveling over the scene in which Isabel realizes her husband is unfaithful because he does not stand up when his mistress enters the drawing room. It's a tiny, but so significant moment; a lack of etiquette that speaks of familiar intimacy with their visitor, and it turns Isabel's world upside-down.
Anyway, seconding the request. I'd love to hear what Dr. Cox has to say about "The Turn of the Screw." Or pretty much any piece of classic literature, with the exception of "Moby Dick." I am surrounded by Melville Scholars, including my dad, so I'm all set on that.
You opened my eyes. I will now 1. Listen to your analysis again & take notes 2. Reread WH. What a gift you give me. I was always half-irritated with the novel. I think I will enjoy it now.
I don't think I ever noticed that be story is set 50 years before the publication date. I was startled to realize that even in the case of people reading the newly published first edition, not only is all of Heathcliff's generation gone (besides Heathcliff in the present time when the novel begins), but everybody in the story would be gone in the reader's time. Both of the narrators are surely gone. Even Hareton Earnshaw and Cathy Linton Heathcliff would be elderly or deceased. That adds to the feeling of otherworldliness; the story has few anchors to the reader's reality.
Setting the story in the moors adds to the sense of being lost in time; while the small details of the moors are constantly changing, the macro landscape is the forever the same.
I always assumed the jumbling of time and narrators was an attempt to immerse the reader in Heathcliff's madness and the way the all-different-ages ghost of Catherine Earnshaw Linton dominates his present.
It reminds me of "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead," where the time line is more of a scribble, except "Wuthering Heights" is less metaphysical.
Regarding the names of the estates, could this have been a further contrast between two cultures? Thrush Cross Grange has harsh consonants, very British sounds, while Wuthering Heights is more reminiscent of the flow that Gaelic has. In terms of both architecture and inhabitants, TCG is a very proper, organized (tamed), high-society estate imposed upon the landscape without compromise, while WH is presented as chaotic, rustic, organic and blending in with its surroundings. WH is fey, in a sense.
Thanks for offering us such an insightful analysis of Wuthering Heights ! I studied it both in high school and at university, and it's always been one of my favorite classic, and really enjoyed learning more with your video. Please make another one on the unreliable narrator(s)s !
Many thanks for watching! - I'm glad you found it illuminating.
I must re-read this novel - I haven't read it for ages.
You have made the point that Emily Bronte's use of a particular literary technique is somewhat more complex than usual, but isn't a similar technique used by Anne Bronte in "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" - and (although less complex than either "Wuthering Heights" or even "The Tenant etc") by Mary Shelley in "Frankenstein"?
It would be interesting to hear your comments on why these different techniques (eg linear storytelling, anachronic narrative, first person retelling their own story as in "Jane Eyre", or "Moby Dick") were used - and what the advantages and disadvantages of the different techniques might be.
Sorry, I forgot to say a really big thank you for another fascinating talk.
That's a great question. Yes, all three use frame narratives - that is, an outer narrative that 'frames' an inner one (or two in the case of Frankenstein). But I think there are a couple of differences. In the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Helen's diary forms the central narrative - so it was written down, or set down, in the past, which is different to Nelly Dean's narrative, which is told in the 'present' about the past, and which self-refers to 'future' events that have happened (whereas Helen worries in her diary about what might happen). Also, Lockwood is present when Nelly is telling her narrative, whereas Gilbert reads the narrative along with the reader (there aren't the interruptions from Gilbert as there are from Lockwood, which I mentioned in the video). In Frankenstein, there are not the same 'interruptions' between the narratives either - each is quite discrete. Yes, Walton does reveal to his sister first that he has "lost" Victor and then explains how (anachronic narrative) - "I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour to detail these bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted towards England and towards you" (ch.24) - but this does all happen in the final chapter. Also to me Walton's narrative reads as more congruent than the way Heathcliff's death is presented in WH. And the ending of Frankenstein is left more ambiguous (it seems to me) - we don't even really know what happens to the creature: "He sprang from the cabin-window as he said this, upon the ice raft which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance" (ch.24). Does he die?
Oh, thank you! My pleasure. Thanks for listening.
@@DrOctaviaCox oh this is great! My friend and I will be reading Frankenstein on our individual holidays this summer, then talking about it afterwards, and this will give me some additional themes to consider. Dr Kat just did a great video on Mary Shelley.
Thank you for defining anachrony, prolepsis and analepsis all new to me! But I must disagree with your statement @13:41 that “first time we encounter Catherine Earnshaw as readers is when she is a ghost.” Not so-Cathy speaks rather directly to us (albeit briefly) through her diary which Lockwood reads. This is the only time Cathy isn’t being described by Nelly, who “owns she did not like her (Cathy) after infancy.” Chap. 8
Patty- I have never been able to get past the halfway mark of this book. I've tried 3 times and failed. I think your analysis has helped me get a better grasp. I will try once more to finish the book. Thank you!
You make me want to read Wuthering Heights. I have seen it many times in the library as I read books by Raymond Chandler and books like Wall Street Noir. I only got through undergraduate school and took a few classes at Columbia University. Mathematics was my first serious home study, starting at eighteen before I became a grammarian. Professors got me into the Virginia Commonwealth University partly because of my literary evaluations. I shared your video with a friend who has just returned to America after being reared in South Africa and living in Lagos, Nigeria. Her father's best friend reportedly had he mother and father assassinated when she was 14 years old. For the past five years, I have been trying giving her instructions in grammar and everything. I told her that literature is just as challenging as mathematics to encourage her to read. Of course, I shared your video with her. Thanks for your lecture.
Off point, but your necklace is unique & wonderful. I will never again think of Heathcliff without picturing the actor Tom Hardy.
Ha! - thank you. Chuffed to have had an occasion on which it is appropriate to wear a necklace made up of old watches!
@@DrOctaviaCox It's fabulous to wear any day.🙂
@Dexy Nash Yes and just scary enough!😄😁
@@vickinoeske1154 Sir Lawrence Olivier will always be Heathcliff.
I don’t think any actor yet has totally captured Heathcliff, in my humble opinion:) Tom Hardy was probably the best of the bunch with the passionate side. Lawrence Oliver and Ralph Fiennes both appear too much like proper English gentleman and are WAY too old to portray him except for at the end of the story. My biggest pet peeve is all of these actors are white and don’t have the dark complexion that affects the way Heathcliff is treated through out his entire life. I would be absolutely thrilled if they ever cast a Romany gypsy in the role who looks like Heathcliff is described in the book, while capturing the wildness of Tom Hardy’s performance and the coldness of Fiennes and Olivier when he’s older🙏
Thank you as always for sharing your expertise ❤️ I honestly think we have not yet begun to fathom what she did in this text . . .
Absolutely my pleasure!
I loved all your videos about the novels of Jane Austen but absolutely cannot put up with any of the Brontes. Although I have read them all at various stages of my life and have tried time and again to go back to them and see if I cannot like them a tad more, this has not worked and I find them so very unpalatable that I have given up even trying. What I love about Austen is the clarity of her vision which is never clouded by heaving romanticism for even when romantically inclined, reason wins the day. It is one of her most appealing features but the Brontes live in a vortex of heaving emotions that alienates them from me completely.
When you said that the narrative is designed "not to satisfy but to unsettle and to frustrate," you reminded me of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. That, too, was intended to unsettle, and, in some way, frustrate the reader. When it was published, many people didn't know what to do with it, what to make of it. (My favorite short story, by the way.)
Wow. That is so complex. I could never pick that out without your help. One time I would like to hear you talk about Emily’s personality and why she wrote in this convoluted way.
Regarding the title question I think it is because the mutual passion of Heathcliff and Cathy #1 represents the storm. When Hareton and Cathy #2 get together the storm blows itself out. Calm returns as in the poetically stunning last sentence. Calm after storm is by definition an anticlimax.
WH is one of my favourite books and it is precisely because it is more about how and why things happened than the event itself. Due to the reader already having the knowledge that the characters are going to die, you can just ‘sit in’ the story.
By not starting the novel when the characters were children but when the tenant visits his landlord at the Wuthering Heights, the story places the house in the center, not exactly the characters. The Earnshaws are part of the house ( their name is inscribed above the door) not characters on their own.
We learn first about the houseb, thenbof its inhabitants and only later on the chacters on Nelly's story.
The Heights are the main character of the story and Heathcliff, Earnshaws and Lintons are the character in Nelly's narrative.
We learn the death of Heathcliff in the kitchen of the house, where ppl live happier now.
Absolutely, yes - the house takes centre stage.
Thank you for another great video. I really enjoy listening to your insights, it makes me appreciate these novels even more!
Thank you Dr. Cox for your brilliant analysis. To me this tragic story clearly shows the unnecessary suffering we humans endure when we make bad choices in life. To CHOOSE revenge, hatred, and unforgiveness over and over again by several of the characters, it just illustrates how destructive those choices are and in the end no sense of satisfaction or joy - ever. In the end it's just useless pain and suffering - when quite the opposite can occur when we chose forgiveness.
Thank you for the wonderful discussion! And thank you for minimizing the ads so I could really get into it. As a classic literature obsessive I've always thought something must be truly defective in me in that I really don't like Wuthering Heights! I actually love the structure, but the main protagonists are just such awful people, with no redeeming qualities, in my opinion. I only felt compassion for Hareton and Linton Heathcliff. I also wondered if perhaps the anti-climax of Heathcliff's death is retribution for all his evil deeds. He cared for no one except Kathy, and even then he wanted to punish her. His death is almost an afterthought. No one spared a moment to mourn him. No one (aside from Hareton--which is so tragic) will miss him. I would love for you to do an analysis of Vanity Fair! Thank you for the great content!
Brilliant! I love your ways of breaking down some of my favorite books!! And I just love your necklace, love this small nod to the theme of time.
Well, this investigation into anachronym, prolepsis, & analepsis was extremely interesting.
I never thought of the nonlinear timeline having anything to do with it but I have often wondered why Cathy’s ghost appeared to Lockwood and not Heathcliff in the first place. (Even though in Kate Bush’s song Cathy famously calls for Heathcliff-- the ghost in the novel never does.) It made no sense to me if their love was so great why not reach out to Heathcliff instead of this stranger, Lockwood? Your explanations made sense of this in that the literary structure Emily Bronte used made this ghostly event our first dramatic introduction to Cathy by a neutral narrator.
I’ve always thought Emily’s timeline wrapped around itself. In the beginning of their story, we have the Lintons and Earnshaws. Later comes the lone Heathcliff with no family connections. At the end we have a Linton, an Earnshaw and the lone Heathcliff leaving with no family connections. Then all we have living are Lintons and Earnshaws as in their beginning.
I do not find Wuthering Heights a romantic or satisfying novel. It is, as you say, a novel where not many main characters get satisfaction, the least of all in love. Only in death do Heathcliff and Cathy find a lasting union in two of three graves on the moors. What will Heathcliff be to future generations? Sadly, just a strange tombstone beside their ancestors. And that musing is the least satisfying of all. Thanks again for your post! Very enlightening!
Exactly, the timeline does seem to wrap around itself. And I think we know that Heathcliff's "cuckoo" (ch.4) will be cast out of the nest when we remember the first time that Lockwood enters Wuthering Heights: "Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date “1500,” and the name “Hareton Earnshaw”" (ch.1). We might not realise the significance of it in the moment, but it becomes clearer later when we read that Hareton begins to read his own name (well, both his own name and the name of his ancestors, of course) above the door ("He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name-‘Hareton Earnshaw.’" (ch.24).
And thank you. Very glad you found it enlightening.
Heathcliff is not a sibling, he's a changeling, a ghoul disguised as a vulnerable child that beguiles the master of Whutering Heights and begins his course of destruction of a formerly balanced community, coming from outside, settling above as some kind of supernatural, unnatural and unhuman power. He doesn't study but becomes more intelligent, an eloquent silver tongued man, he comes from misery but becomes stronger, he is dirty and toils the land but is ultimately more handsome, exerting almost irresistable fascination on females. He earns seemingly endless riches in a rather short period of time, in some mysterious way. The mystery of his vampire-like figure is beyond comprehension, represents the impending chaos from the outside world that rattles and shakes every himan sense bringing utter anarchy.
This video has made me appreciate this novel so much more. When I first read it I felt very let down by the lack of climax but now I now see the beauty in this unconventional style. Thank you!
I agree that she points out the inevitability of Heathcliff's death by revealing it almost flippantly. I have always thought that she tells us the way she does in order to express a bit of the senselessness of it all. Another way to say it, the meaningless of it all. It just all ends like a regular Tuesday afternoon. That feeling that it is almost insignificant. It was all for nothing. It almost doesn't matter enough to mention. All the pain and anguish is just a story that we all know the sad ending to. It is like she is saying, don't fool yourself. We all know it won't end well. For me, it always added to the sadness of it all. The hopelessness that it could never have been what it might have been. Also, when we are given a story in a more time linear fashion, we often do know what will happen. We think we are being built up in anticipation then satisfied, but we often already know how it always ends. She plays with time to help give us the sense that we can pretend these actions lead to something different in the end (like stories often like to deceive), but this is what really happens, she keeps reminding us, and it is not surprise. It shouldn't shock you. In the end, she just tells us what we already know, what the wise person knows. It is almost like a sarcastic compliment. Like she is saying, "Oh, I trusted you already understood."
Thank you very much indeed. Quite brilliant. You explained everything really well and yes, it makes sense.
By the way, I love your necklace of watches set at varying times. It is in keeping with the theme of your talk.
Yes please do another video on the dual narrative as a literary device. Thanks 😊 🌹♥🇺🇸🇬🇧💙
Great analysis, as always! Makes me curious about that book again. I was way too young when I tried reading it, learning English in school and being a bit too confident with my skills as well. The detail with the names completely flew over my head, they were all so difficult to pronounce...
I mostly remember a bunch of people in the countryside making life terrible for each other, while claiming to do so out of love. The death of Heathcliff just seemed like a logical consequence for the story arc at the point where it happened, making room for the younger generation to break through these circles of hurt and revenge... I remember being relieved that the main characters were gone, which was a weird experience for a young reader. Not very hero's journey! I guess it's time for a re-read :)
Just finished Wuthering Heights as part of my studies. A masterfully written story. Nelly's account sweeps you up with her emotions to a point where you want to avenge everyone that Heathcliff has wronged, fancying Lockwood to be Cathy's saviour when he gives her Nelly's correspondence, only to be disappointed and reminded of how much of a buffoon he is around women.
His rebuke of Heathcliff "Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now". Was about as close as we get to satisfaction, which Heathcliff quickly diffuses ""No, no" he replied cooly". Leaves you quite deflated.
Heathcliff's deterioration and subsequent death comes with it a sense of calm that makes you chastise yourself for essentially mirroring his intentions while reading. Pure genius.
Maybe you would find my article published in Bronte Studies several years ago of interest: "The 'Awful Event' in Wuthering Heights." The title is the clue to the thesis of the article that Bronte's novel is more an exploration of death and mourning than a love story or anything else, expressed in many ways including numerology.
Where can one find it?
I think you can take the idea of analepsis one stage further. The opening of the text "1801" firmly plants the notion to the original contemporary reader in 1848 that the narrative is already places firmly in the distant past. The narrations give the story a 'fireside' quality which is prevalent in ghost and mystical tales. Also, I think the premature demise of Heathcliffe was necessary, too. The book opens with Lockwood's violent encounter with Cathy's ghost and ends with Lockwood's line "...and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth" undermining his earlier experience. This for me is the climax of the novel, particularly given that Emily Bronte's bedroom overlooked the church graveyard when she was writing the novel in 1847.
Your video is both thought provoking and interesting. It’s been almost a lifetime since I read WUTHERING HEIGHTS. I’m neither an intellectual nor a literary scholar, so no sarcasm is intended when I ask if you’ll every do any analysis on Dame Agatha and her mysteries. When you spoke about timelines as a narrative device, it reminded me of reading some Lady Mallowan’s mysteries. After reading some of the comments, it occurred to me that there are some similarities in JANE EYRE and REBECCA by Dame Daphne. Maybe there aren’t that many unique plots and most are variations of one sort or the other. To those who may find my questions rather lowbrow, please understand that if I don’t ask, I won’t know and can’t grow. Meanwhile, I’ll watch the Jane Austen videos. Thank you for enlightening me.
Off topic but i have to say I've never read more morally grey characters before, it was incredible how i just couldnt bring myself to hate heatcliff nor liking him. The same goes for cathy, too; selfish but broken, manipulative but lonely, cheating but passionate.. oh, and the untrustworthy but insightful narrator nelly dean -partially responsible of cathy's death by downplaying her mental breakdowns and letting the others know about her situation too late- how jelous she was of cathy but how loving towards hareton and baby cathy, guided them towards each other... i love the book, such an experience.
I agree with your comment! An endlessly fascinating story. I read it and watch the Hardy/Riley version usually once a year.
I think it's because the characters are so human and flawed, as we all are but don't always admit. Heathcliff's love for Cathy is pure, but he is tormented by his social status and adopted brother. He is so bitter and vengeful because he loves Cathy so deeply. He runs off to make his fortune and gain status all because he overheard part of a conversation between Cathy and Nelly.
I hung on til the end of the video to hear the reason & omigoodness, I never thought of that! You have a point, Dr. Cox. When I was a young woman I thought WH was a love story. That's only a small fraction of it.
This was a wonderful review. Thank you for the discussion regarding the pronunciation of Thrushcross Grange. I had always assumed, that because I was American, I couldn't say those words smoothly. Because thrush and grange are not words commonly used here. I'm glad to know I’m not alone!!
English literature is something that I have never wanted to study formally/get a qualification in. I'm a philosophy, languages, law, and chemistry person. I love to learn, though, and Wuthering Heights is one of my all time favourite novels. Thank you so much for making this available for those of us who love English literature but don't have access to academic materials
EXTRAORDINARILY WELL DONE AND AN EXTRAORDINARY VIDEO!!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!! FOR ME, WUTHERING HEIGHTS IS THE MOST POWERFUL NOVEL REGARDING LOVE, BECAUSE HEATHCLIFF AND CATHERINE ARE LIKE TWO SOULMATES WHO HAVE LIKE ONE HEART DIVIDED IN HALF IN TWO BODIES!!!! ONE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT THE OTHER!!!!
very interesting analysis. I would add the novel takes away catharsis as well through troubling morally questionable characters on BOTH sides of conflict (often)
When test audiences saw the first version of the 1939 movie adaptation of Wuthering Heights, they certainly found it unsatisfying -- they hated the gloomy ending. Producer Samuel Goldwyn pasted in a shot at the end of Cathy and Heathcliff (using stand-ins for the unavailable actors) walking off together into the clouds, and suddenly they had a hit. But director William Wyler always hated it for going against the novel's intentions.
Yes, I kept thinking of the movie and when reading the book, it was beyond gruesome ending vs the movie. (Hollywood)
OMG!!!!
Do you teach any online courses in English Literature? I already love these novels, and it would be fun to learn some things to give them greater meaning. The one course I took in college was awful and had no empathy or understanding for female authors' stories. It would also be fun to 'discover' new old authors and stories. But not any Dickens.
I love this, just recently discovered this channel and it is a great one! Would love to hear you talk about Charles Dickens and his characters. Especially from Great Expectations. Thanks for doing this!
Loved this lecture. Fascinating.
Good Heavens! I had completely forgotten about that Kate Bush song and didn't even know that was what it was about!
Those illustrations are wonderfully brooding and stark, and so like the characters I have in my mind when I read. Who is the artist please?
These illustrations are almost as famous as Wuthering Heights itself. They are by a wonderful illustrator named Fritz Eichenberg. He did them to illustrate a gorgeous boxed set of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights published in 1943 by Random House Publishers.
I have an original copy of the set given to me by my mother. It is 88 years old and still glorious! I took some pictures of a few of the illustrations, but there seems to be no way for me to upload one to a UTube reply.
They're wonderfully evocative! And, yes, they're by Fritz Eichenberg.
@@katherinehageland5009 Yes, indeed.
@@katherinehageland5009 Oh wow! How wonderful. What a lovely, glorious book to be able to hold in your hands.
Dr. Cox would you ever consider making a literary analysis podcast?
Have you considered publishing your excellent videos as a podcast too? I find them very interesting, but have a hard time watching them in this format. I would love to listen to the analysis as I do my shopping.
This is an excellent suggestion. I am actually looking into podcasting ideas for the future. Many thanks for listening to / watching the videos as they are at the moment.
Thank you for the brilliant lecture. It makes me wonder at the ability of humans to think in so many time frames. I read that the Tales of Genji was written in tenses no longer spoken, or perhaps understood. Old Japanese had a historic tense. And the Aboriginal Australians had "dream time" which is extremely complex and perhaps also impossible for us to understand. How did people get that way? Survival? or just the product of problem solving abilities?
Out on the wily, windy moors
We’d roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me?
When I needed to posses you
I hated you, I loved you too
( insert weird but equally haunting interpretive dance) 💃
Sorry, really feeling the Kate Bush vibe for some reason..
I read the novel as a teenager. I hated it because it was so depressing. All the characters were so mean and nasty, and destructive to self and others. There was not a single character I sympathized with. Of course, I did not understand all the implications, nor did I appreciate the other aspects of the novel. Yes, you are right, I continued to read to the end because I wanted to know what happened. My youthful self was satisfied that everyone got his/her just desserts, and I moved on to other classics that provided more simplistic views of good and evil and therefore more uplifting. What do I think of the anachronic structure? I generally do not like non-chronological narrations because I find it sometimes makes the plot unnecessarily complicated. However, Wuthering Heights was not too overwhelming even for a teenage mind. The novel I that I found very confusing even reading it as a mature adult was the English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. The steam of consciousness technique confused the sequence of events, at least for my simple mind.
Thank you! There are many older books that can be read too early, and WH is one. But schools like to push it -- maybe because it's fairly short, and involves mostly children and teenagers? I think the impression that it is a romance causes disappointment in people who "hate" it.
In applicatin to the visual television and cenema media, the anachronic structure became a new twist it seemed then to me in the early 2000s, as a different way to tell a story. I remember watching the TV show "Lost" and how the back story or flashback was told in this structure. I have to give credit to E. Bronte and other writers centuries ago, with this way of storytelling.
I don't know about 'Lost' as I've not watched it, but certainly playing around with time was a key part of the development of the novel.
I love your videos! ♥️ Thank you so much.
Oh, thank you - very happy to spread the literary love!
I've read Wuthering Heights four times. I love the dark aspects of it, specifically the examination of obsession, and the consequences thereof. I do think Lockwood's encounter with the ghost of Cathy sets the tone of the novel, then the analepsis puts the reader in a more comfortable place with Heathcliff's introduction into the novel. I agree with the comment that after the stagnating horrors of Heathcliff's trail of revenge, his death brings relief to the reader as well as the surviving characters in the novel. I used to watch the Olivier/Oberon film with my mom when I was a teen, but didn't understand how dark the story was until I read the novel. I love aspects of the Fiennes/Binoche version, but after comparing it with the Hardy/Riley film, I find the younger Cathy with the Northern accent to be my favorite. I do find it interesting how the narrative order is handled with these two films. I love your presentations, Dr. Octavia!
So what I am hearing is that everything that the reader learns about Heathcliff and Cathy is through the retelling of events. I see that as the only way that Heathcliff and Cathy are able to “be together” - It would not make sense in a narrative sense to have Heathcliff die in “real time” when everything else we learn about him is relayed through flashback. At least that is how it seems to me. Thank you so much for such a detailed analysis- I learn so much from your videos! I teach middle school English, and while your analysis is of course way above the level of my own students, your analysis makes me a better teacher because of the detail. My own background is not literature, so the detail is fascinating!
Dr. Cox, first of all THANK YOU for such a great analysis of WH. I was 17 when I read this novel and I was truly blown away by its intensity. So much that after I finished it, I decided that what I wanted to do in the future was to study English Literature. So for me WH was a pivotal book in my life. Now. Fast forward to 2023. I've recently came across a snippet of a new adaptation of WH where Heathcliff is portrayed as having Afro physical traits and I was quite puzzled by this because I had always imagined Heathcliff like a tall, dark, olive-skinned man (very like Timothy Dalton but with darker skin). So I'd like to ask you: what do you think Heathcliff looked like? More like an "eastern European gypsy" or like a creole/Afro man? Thank you in advance if you'll answer my question.
I think your discussion helped me understand more about the reason why an author would deploy anachrony. As you stated, the standard narrative form is successful because the audience is concerned with what happens next (and caught in a cycle of anticipation and satisfaction). How anachronic stories shift away from the "what/how" to the "how/why." Some of my favorites stories have been prequels and/or tragedies where the end is already provided to the audience (and, thus "anti-climatic"). Nevertheless, knowing an end can heighten the importance of each character's actions or reactions as we slowly start to see the present we know emerge, i.e., the proverbial dominos put in place before they fall. I haven't read Wuthering Heights in many years, but I enjoyed its ending, because to me it was not a romance--it is a tragedy--wherein Heathcliff passed on his pain and suffering to the next generation who in turn seem to be on the path of spiritually healing the past mistakes of the prior generations.
I just finished the book! And whilst I did enjoy it, this helps to appreciate it even more :) Thank you!
I loved this book.
Wonderful book! Challenging & thought-provoking - as all good books are.
Truly excellent. Thank you
Thank you in advance for this analysis. I would like to know whether there is any connection between Bronte's poem 'Remembrance' with Heathcliff and Catherine
Interestingly enough, Anne Bronte has exactly the same narrative structure in The Tennant of Wildfell Hall. Two Narrator's and two time periods, with the opening narrator bracketing the Central narration.
Worth exploring the similarity (and potentially the differences)?
Yes, absolutely - both use frame narratives (that is, an outer narrative framing an inner one), which, one imagines, can hardly have been coincidental. I do think there are key differences though. One being that Lockwood interrupts Nelly's recitation of her narrative, whereas readers are simply presented with Helen's diary without interpolations from Markham.
@@DrOctaviaCox
And in the Tennant, both are first person narratives from the perspective of Central Characters, while in Wuthering Heights, neither narrator is Central to the story. They are just conveniently placed so the reader might be able to believe that the Central Characters are not completely fictitious.
Equally, in WH, the apparently objective nature of the narrators seems to give a "warts and all" sense of main characters, whereas, in The Tennant, it's only by implication that we begin to see the flawed nature of the main characters, because they excuse their own actions.
I love your necklace🥰 Great video as well!!!