Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights

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Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights

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1citygirl
Oct 16, 2007, 8:09 pm

I've read both in the last month. JE was a re-read for the first time in nearly 20 years. WH was the first reading. I loved Jane Eyre, but am left mostly cold by Wuthering Heights, except for what I suspect will be a lingering irritation at the actions of the main characters. This seems to be the response opposite to the majority.

I was surprised to find the two books so different: after all both were written by insulated and isolated sisters inexperienced in the world who died young. But it is clear that cool Charlotte's temperament is quite different from Emily's.

WH was overblown, overwrought, and is Heathcliff seriously supposed to be a romantic hero? Ugh! Give me Mr. Rochester any day. And I'd ten times rather spend an afternoon in Jane's company than Catherine's.

To be fair, the WH characters do find themselves in unfavorable circumstances (who else is Catherine supposed to marry but Edgar and Heathcliff couldn't catch a break once his benefactor died), but still, couldn't Heathcliff have found a better outlet for his emotions than abusing anyone who dares wander near? Actually, I found the story more implausible than your average work of fiction. If Heathcliff truly loved Catherine, why would he be so evil to Catherine Jr? Who purposely deprives a child of education as revenge on his dead father? Why bring your unloved and extremely irritating weakling son to live under your roof if there are other relatives willing to take him? And does anyone else think that the only way Isabella would have conceived Linton is through rape?

I wonder what Charlotte thought of WH.

2margad
Oct 16, 2007, 8:47 pm

My sentiments exactly. I have reread Jane Eyre many times over the years, and always found it gripping, and Charlotte Brontë's insight into human nature keen. I've read Wuthering Heights more than once, the second time because I decided I must have missed something in it, given all the critical praise for it. But I found Heathcliff repellent. Yes, I could muster sympathy for him. But understand why a woman like Cathy might fall in love with him? Or share her emotional state while reading the novel? No and no.

I'd be very interested to hear from someone who did enjoy Wuthering Heights. What are we missing that makes it special?

3Nickelini
Modifié : Oct 18, 2007, 9:50 pm

Okay, I'll speak up in defense of Wuthering Heights. I think that the flaws in the novel are legion, and I agree with almost all the criticism of it that I hear. Yet, I still prefer it to Jane Eyre (a novel that I also like). It's based purely on emotions . . . Wuthering Heights is overwrought and brooding and rich with passion. I think Cathy and Heathcliff's relationship is bizarre and twisted, and I find that interesting. I wish Bronte had explained Heathcliff in more detail, because I find him fascinating. I found the novel so surprising--I hadn't read much pre-20th century writing when I picked it up, and I was expecting it to be all stodgy and didactic, so its disturbed strangeness was unexpected.

I wouldn't want to spend time with either of the main characters. I think Cathy needed someone to tell her snap out of it and grow up. I'd much rather spend the day with Jane. Mr. Rochester I can do without--I find that man somewhat slimy. If Jane got out more, I think she could have done better. (I realize when you spend all your time stuck in a mansion your choices are somewhat limited.)

So, yeah, I prefer WH on a strictly emotional level, because logically it is the weaker of the two novels.

Hope that helps!

Edited to correct horrendous grammatical error

4Nickelini
Oct 17, 2007, 10:32 am

#2: But I found Heathcliff repellent. Yes, I could muster sympathy for him. But understand why a woman like Cathy might fall in love with him?

------------

Cathy fell in love with him because she was attracted to his darkness. Have you ever had a female friend who was attracted to bad boys? They know their danger, but they can't help themselves. Think of Heathcliff as the Jack Sparrow of the 19th century.

5citygirl
Oct 17, 2007, 11:49 am

I dunno, Nickelini, at least Capt. Jack has a sense of humor (and I can't separate him from J. Depp, so there's that). Maybe if Depp played Heathcliff I could find something to like. And sure, I know brooding boys and bad boys can be attractive. I'll jump on that bandwagon, but animal cruelty, spousal abuse, refusal to get medical help for your own dying child? Too much for me.

I agree that Rochester could be viewed as a bit slimy, but there was always an explanation for his actions, even if they were the product of faulty decision-making.

6margad
Oct 17, 2007, 5:12 pm

Thanks, Nickelini. These are good insights. I've been attracted to bad boys, myself, so I can appreciate that angle. But Heathcliff came across as dull-witted to me, and the bad boys I used to be attracted to were brilliant in one way or another, in addition to their defiance of authority. One of the things that appealed to me about Mr. Rochester was his keen intellect and his appreciation of Jane's mind.

A more problematic difference between the two novels is that Rochester was Jane's social superior, while Heathcliff was Cathy's social inferior. This suggests a disturbing degree of class consciousness on my part, but I've always been a sucker for Cinderella stories. I wonder if I would think differently about Wuthering Heights if it were told from Heathcliff's point-of-view rather than Cathy's.

7nperrin
Oct 17, 2007, 6:13 pm

I think you also have to think of Cathy's attraction for Heathcliff coming from spending their childhoods together - they were companions for years, before either one was very mature, and were sort of paired up against Hindley.

I've also heard some people read Heathcliff as being the illegitimate son of Cathy's father, which is why he is the favorite and why there is such conflict between Heathcliff and Hindley. It also adds a nice touch of incest to the whole love story. I haven't re-read the book since hearing that interpretation, but it doesn't seem implausible to me.

8citygirl
Oct 17, 2007, 6:40 pm

I understood Cathy's attraction to Heathcliff. But after reading the whole story, it's hard for me to imagine H. as a romantic ideal.

And, margad, you're right. One huge difference between the books is that JE's love affair is based on intellectual attraction and WH tells the story of an amour fou.

As for the incest angle (as if there wasn't enough of that for those poor inbreds), maybe so. After all, Rochester's ward was very possibly his own child, so Emily may have used the same device in WH.

9VictoriaPL
Modifié : Oct 17, 2007, 7:02 pm

I too prefer WH to JE, but just barely. It's hard to nail down why exactly. I like both of them. Any of those Byronic Heroes are right up my alley. I like the setting, the brooding, the angst. I'm not saying that JE doesn't have angst too, (hello, crazy wife in the attic). I also like WH because it has several passages of beautiful lyrical prose.

BTW, has anyone read Heathcliff: The Return to Wuthering Heights? I don't want to steal the thread's thunder... but what do you think of modern authors writing "sequels" or "prequels" to 'classic' lit?

10citygirl
Oct 17, 2007, 7:11 pm

I must admit, I did prefer WH's wild moors to JE's civilized English countryside.

Sorry, Victoria, I've got Wide Sargasso Sea waiting TBR, but other than that, all I have to go on is the Eyre Affair, which isn't a sequel. The Eyre Affair was much fun, I really enjoyed the liberties Fforde took with Jane's story. I read Scarlett many years ago and was not impressed.

How's Heathcliff: The Return to Wuthering Heights? As awful as it sounds?

11VictoriaPL
Modifié : Oct 17, 2007, 8:51 pm

Citygirl,
Actually I enjoyed it very much. It bridges WH and JE together... if you can imagine. It takes place during Heathcliff's 3 year absence in WH. I don't want to give away too much. But you should definitely borrow or Mooch a copy to read.

12fannyprice
Oct 17, 2007, 8:59 pm

>5 citygirl:, Hear, hear, citygirl! Johnny Depp would make almost any repellent literary character more attractive. I was kind of put off by both books in the end, but the thing that struck me about the two books was that each is, in its own way, very much about challenging social conventions, but the roots of that behavior lie in very different things. WH seems so bizarre to me, while JA is so 'conventional' with its Christian morality (applied in a rather unconventional way, I guess).

13heinous-eli
Oct 18, 2007, 1:28 pm

I first read WH when I was twelve and was in love with Heathcliff. Upon reading it a few years later, I was appalled that I felt that way. He's a manipulative, vengeful asshole... but damn, is he dark and brooding. As for JE, it's still one of my favorite books. I admire Jane as a character quite a bit. So I guess my main personal comparison can be summed up thus: I want a life like Jane's, spent with someone I love, but an afterlife like Cathy's, dancing wildly on the moor with my love.

As for the works themselves, WH is delightful when you read it for its unreliable narrator and for Nelly rather than for the ridiculous dramatics of the Heathcliff/Cathy dynamic. The narrator hates people yet delights in gossip, and Nelly is pretty much smitten with Hindley, which of course messes with her telling of the family's tale. It's one of my favorite unreliable narrations in literature. JE is much more straightforward and so I read it more for plot and for the characters directly involved in the plot.

14Nickelini
Oct 18, 2007, 9:58 pm

Speaking of these two books, what do you all think of the movie versions?

I kinda like the Wuthering Heights with Juliette Binoche as Cathy and Ralph Finnes as Heathcliff. At least I thought the casting was good. The problem with WH, book or movie, is that all the story happens in the first half of the book, and the second half is "just words" (as someone here at LT once said).

I didn't mind the version of Jane Eyre with Charlotte Gainsbourg, but I hated William Hurt as Rochester. There's something about American actors playing period European roles that irks me (unless the American actor is someone I don't know). Last winter I recorded a new version that played on TV, but I lost the tape before I watched it. Does anyone know if it was good?

15margad
Oct 19, 2007, 12:56 am

Oh dear, I may have to read WH yet again. I love unreliable narrators. Both times that I read it before, I was hoping to plunge into a wildly romantic swirl of emotion, and was naturally disappointed.

I haven't seen the Juliette Binoche-Ralph Fiennes movie, but am intrigued. Both are among my favorite actors.

I do recommend the Masterpiece Theatre version of Jane Eyre. It was faithful to the novel and quite well acted.

** SPOILER ALERT ** When I first read Jane Eyre, I too felt her Christian morality was too conventional for my taste, although I appreciated that it reflected the period in which the novel was written. (Actually, the novel was criticized for being scandalous when it first came out.) I did want Jane to run off with Rochester. But now I think she made the right decision. Though it reflects well on Rochester that he did not consider Jane to be his inferior, either socially or intellectually, it was also quite disrespectful to Jane for him to ask her to marry him while keeping the truth about his situation a secret from her - perhaps an echo of the episode in which he disguises himself as a gypsy fortune-teller in order to trick Jane into revealing her feelings about him.

16fannyprice
Oct 19, 2007, 7:46 pm

>13 heinous-eli: and 15, The unreliable narrator/story-within-a-story was one of the few things I enjoyed about WH.

Haven't actually seen any film versions.

>15 margad:, Oh, I totally agree with you on the point about Rochester being an a** asking Jane to marry him when he was keeping things from her. I just think that he sort of always remained an a** and she would have done better to never be with him again. I'm vengeful like that. :)

17sqdancer
Oct 20, 2007, 12:06 am

>16 fannyprice:
Oh, I totally agree with you on the point about Rochester being an a** asking Jane to marry him when he was keeping things from her. I just think that he sort of always remained an a** and she would have done better to never be with him again. I'm vengeful like that. :)

And so am I. :)

I was beginning to think that I was only person that had that opinion.

18Nickelini
Jan 4, 2008, 9:35 pm

I just watched the Masterpiece Theatre Jane Eyre that was televised last winter (takes me a while to view those tapes I make!). I hate, hate, hate Rochester. I know this is a movie and not the book, but it just reminded me of how condescending he is . . . speaks down to her all the time. And arrogant. And deceitful--that whole thing with the gypsy fortune teller. I've only watched the first half of the movie, and I can't count how many times I hissed at him on the screen. Nasty man. Heathcliffe may be a wicked psycho, but Rochester isn't any prize, either. Give me Mr. Darcy, any day.

19margad
Modifié : Jan 11, 2008, 7:45 pm

** SPOILERS **

Actually, the Masterpiece Theatre Jane Eyre was pretty faithful to the book. The main departure I noticed was that in the book, it's Rochester himself who dresses up and pretends to be the gypsy fortune teller, while in the movie they have him bring a woman in while he hides behind a screen.

Rochester was indeed sexist, viewed from the perspective of our own time. However, in the context of Brontë's time, he was extraordinarily broad-minded, not only to consider marriage with his governess, but simply to converse with a woman on intellectual topics. He is condescending indeed - a teacher rather than an equal intellectual partner, but in his time women were not considered capable of learning the kinds of subject matter he discusses with her. Jane Eyre is decidedly not a romance novel; Brontë depicted her characters, including Rochester, realistically, and his selfishness is integral to his character - he gets his just deserts at the end when his first wife finally succeeds in burning his house down; his blindness, which makes him dependent on Jane to a degree, balances the superior education he has had that their society would never allow Jane to have.

Charlotte Brontë, who worked as a governess herself and was miserably unhappy with the way the family she worked for treated her, resisted marrying for a long time, but finally married when she was around 30. She died of severe morning sickness after becoming pregnant. Rochester represented her dream of what a relationship with a man who respected her intellect and independence could be like.

It's interesting that Jane Austen never married. Perhaps she would have been as unhappy as Charlotte Brontë if she had. I wonder if Darcy is really less sexist than Rochester, or if Elizabeth was simply more accepting than Jane Eyre of the social structure of her society, so that the conflict does not loom as large in Pride and Prejudice as it does in Jane Eyre.

20Nickelini
Jan 5, 2008, 8:07 pm

**Maybe Spoilers**

Thanks, Margad . . . that all makes so much sense. I *thought* that it was Rochester that dressed up as a gypsy, but I thought maybe I had misremembered. Actually, the way it was in the movie makes more sense. Would YOU fall for that trick? He interviewed all the guests too--someone would have recognized him.

Yes, everything you say is completely logical. However, I am thoroughly 21st century woman, and I still can't stand Rochester. In addition to all the logical comments you made, he also crossed class boundaries by falling in love with the hired help. So I give him a point for that too. But I still hate him.

21twacorbies
Jan 5, 2008, 11:51 pm

#1 citygirl - i agree with everything you said. WH baffles me. Have loved JE every time I've read it. Liked Wide Sargasso Sea much better than WH too.

22VictoriaPL
Jan 8, 2008, 9:22 pm

i finally received Wide Sargasso Sea from a BookMoocher and.... I didn't like it. I just couldn't get into the style of the prose.

Speaking of Jane Eyre, the 2006 Masterpiece Theater version was broadcast on PBS Sunday night (at least in the Carolinas). So I got to see it. I'm not familiar with the actor who was Rochester but I do prefer William Hurt's portrayal.

23citygirl
Jan 9, 2008, 5:29 pm

I have got to get some of these things from Netflix. Note to self.

24margad
Modifié : Jan 11, 2008, 7:56 pm

No, Nickelini, I don't feel like I could fall for the gypsy trick. I've always thought it the weakest scene in the book. However, in a time when male-female differences were so exaggerated, it's possible that merely dressing up in clothes of the opposite sex would be enough to completely fool people. We do rely more than we realize on superficial aspects of people's appearance. When I was in college, a friend of mine with a full beard shaved it off one night, and when I saw him in the breakfast line in the morning, I wondered who the new student was. Another time, I put my very straight hair up in rag-curlers before a party, and when I appeared with curly hair no one at the party recognized me until I told them who I was. It was weird.

Maybe if I'd hated Rochester, I would have had more satisfactory relationships when I was younger. Times have certainly changed for the better in many ways.

25janeajones
Jan 14, 2008, 9:47 pm

One of the fascinating things about Wuthering Heights is really the layers of narration in it -- Lockwood's story, Nellie's tales of the family, Cathy's diary, Catherine Linton's conversations, etc. What does the reader believe about all these people?? On one level this is a tale of abused and neglected children who inflict their pain onto the next generation, but it's also a tale of healing and redemption with the relationship of Hareton and Catherine. The problem with most of the films is that they only tell the story of Cathy and Heathcliff and ignore Catherine and Hareton. The second half of the novel with its growing understanding of what love actually is balances out the destructive passion (as attractive as all those bad boys) of the first half of the novel. Here we have the love of adults as opposed to the passion of adolescents. WH is the Sense and Sensibility of the end of the Romantic era.

26annakarina
Jan 20, 2008, 8:20 pm

Hmm, will have to re-read both of them.
My 10-year-old self definately went with JE - especially the first part, my cousins and I used to fantasise about being down-trodden orphans in a bleak, inhumane boarding school, which must have been so nice for our parents - but the 15-year-old me was 100% wild romantic Cathy (and I too blame the Heathcliff fixation for a lot of the dysfunctional relationships I later got into - Evil Bastard #1, Evil Bastard #2, Evil Bastard #3, etc).
Need to make a trip to the library - wonder what I will make of both books now at the giddy old age of 24 (currently "being" the narrator from Notes From Underground, btw).

27margad
Jan 20, 2008, 9:25 pm

LOL, Anna. I, too, used to play mistreated orphan with my friends, at about the same age. Maybe not liking Wuthering Heights saved me from a few evil bastards!

28NocturnalBlue
Jan 21, 2008, 11:43 am

Count me as another one of those who liked JE and hated WH. I was never fond of Rochester (and my sympathy for him dropped after reading Wide Sargasso Sea), but I felt I could understand him. Whether it was due to his own shortsightedness or circumstances, this was a man who felt trapped by circumstance and was trying to make the best of it, blundering every step of the way. Heathcliff on the other hand, just seemed to be malice incarnate.

However, after reading the group therapy scene in The Well of Lost Plots (I'm pretty sure it was in that Thursday Next novel), I figured out a way to appreciate WH: as Emily Bronte's way of making fun of her sister. She took the brooding hero, the passionate young woman ill-advised about the world, and the quasi incest and cranked them up to 11.

29margad
Jan 21, 2008, 2:42 pm

LOL, Nocturnal! I love your analysis of Wuthering Heights. I will have to check out The Well of Lost Plots. Anything that leads to such humorous yet wise insights is surely worth reading.

30NocturnalBlue
Jan 21, 2008, 3:02 pm

Margad, before you tackle The Well of Lost Plots, you need to read The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book first. However, if you just want to indulge in that one chapter, then no harm is done I guess :).

31margad
Jan 22, 2008, 12:14 am

Oh, dear. And my TBR list is already so long!

Are you in the mood to give us a quick comparison?

32Nickelini
Jan 25, 2008, 8:15 pm

I'm currently studying Jane Eyre as part of a course on Victorian English literature. I've read it before, but I'm enjoying it a lot this second time around. I had planned on just skimming it (to save time), but I can't help myself--I have to read every word. (Well, almost every word . . . I must admit I'm skimming some of the diatribes of the male characters).

Anyway, I just wanted to say that now that I've had to do some research on Jane Eyre, I'm finding tons and tons of scholarly pieces that compare it with Wuthering Heights. In fact, critics and readers have been comparing them since the day they were published. From what I've come across so far, it appears that Jane Eyre was the bigger hit and better seller. However, critics over the years seem to come down in favour of Wuthering Heights--mostly, it seems, because it is more ambiguous. The critics seem to like the unconventionality of WH.

33Nickelini
Modifié : Mar 19, 2008, 12:00 pm

Back to post #1: I wonder what Charlotte thought of WH.

---------------

There is actually an article and a book that talk about that. The article is titled "Why Charlotte dissed Emily" or something like that, and the book is called The Bronte Myth. I can't remember what exactly the story was, but I'm sure I'll reread the article over the next few weeks, and I'll let you know.

34bubamara21
Août 4, 2009, 7:46 pm

Hi, I don't know what Charlotte thought of her sister's novel , but I think that (about Wuthering Heights) it is exactly all the flaws and excesses that make this a great novel, half-way between the victorian and -perhaps- the gothic romance. Cathy and Heathcliff share, I think, a passion since their early childhood, and the inner knowledge that they are destined to become lovers, other than "brother and sister", they grow with this burning desire, a physical one, Heathcliff loves but same time -this is anti victorian- wants Catherine, he needs to possess her. They fight their own souls and bodies, their urges, and they find a way of expressing that passion through cruelty, that cruelty is a reflez of the desolate surroundings called Wuthering Heights, where, quite symbolically, they have some rendezvous and fight and swear to love each other beyond life. I think that Cathy's death is both the condemnation and the release for Heathcliff. None of these characters can be praised for being good, generous or nice. They are probalby unnerving and too intense to be seen under a friendly view.
But that is the heart of the story. They have feelings and desires that are "bigger than life", in the wrong environment, wrong circumstances and wrong time. Doomed lovers is what they are, and remind us that great love stories not always end happily, but in tragedy.On the other hand I think Emily Brontë maybe, in a timid way, was very attracted to the metaphysical and gothic literature. She might have read some gothic authors of her time, because Cathy becomes more than a ghost, a semi-vampiric creature, coming back to her beloved to ake him with her, in a sort of determined way, like the she-vampire coming to passionately kiss her lover to deah, and beyon. Jane Eyre, ends her story wih a husband, her nonour restored by the death of the "mad first wife of Mr. Rochester", the poor lady seems to me an echo of Catherine's wild moods and doom. While Heathcliff and Cathy need more than this life to release their love.
Anyway I love Jane too.

35ncgraham
Sep 13, 2010, 12:29 pm

Here's one comparison:

Jane Eyre is about physically unattractive people who are morally upright, sympathetic, and easy to fall in love with.

Wuthering Heights is about beautiful people who have the power to drive this reader to distraction.

36margad
Sep 18, 2010, 8:18 pm

LOL! That's a good one, NC.

37Nickelini
Fév 18, 2011, 9:26 pm

I was just in a discussion on Facebook about Wuthering Heights and a friend of a friend said "Cathy's ghost is real, though eternally elusive, to Heathcliff, and inextricable from his character arc." I wish I was writing an essay so I could plagiarize that, but instead I'm plagiarizing it here.

38andyray
Avr 5, 2011, 11:52 pm

reviewing this thread i foiund great joy in reading how people do think as i do -- sometimes. I keep coming back to Jane over the years. maybe i have read it eight to 12 times and it never gets boring. how many works can you say that about? of course, i identify with mr. rochester. he is in his own kind of hell, and an alcoholic can really identify with that. as for WH, it defines Elizabethan gothic for me. but i havent wanted to re-read it. they are two different works of art painted by two diffedrent people, and i suggest they didn't consult eacxh other as they wrote, either.

39emi.ruth
Juin 15, 2011, 12:11 pm

Honestly, I think that Wuthering Heights is easier to read, but the truth is they have different styles. I happen to like Wuthering Heights better because I feel like it is more romantic, Romeo and Juliet style almost. Plus I feel like there is more drama. Jane in Jane Eyre she keeps it all quiet. It seems like Kathy doesn't as much. That might just be me. (:

40margad
Août 27, 2011, 6:28 pm

I see what you mean, emi.ruth. Jane is a very reserved character, and although much of what happens around her is intensely dramatic, the story is really about her internal growth, which happens gradually. That's probably one reason why I prefer it, and why others prefer Wuthering Heights.

41celiacardun
Nov 19, 2011, 2:04 pm

Very interesting thread! I read Wuthering Heights for the first time last year and was totally wondering why people would prefer Wuthering Heights over Jane Eyre - and especially why they would prefer Heathcliff over Mr. Rochester, as he is so thoroughly evil. OK, he has a tough youth so I had sympathy, but that could not stand the onslaught of cruel things he did in the second half of the book. I was wondering how you can still fancy a guy who purposefully does all those cruel things? I mean, dark and brooding can be attractive, ok, but this is beyond that, I think.

One of the posts talked about Mr Rochester being an *** for trying to marry Jane without telling her about his wife. That made me think that it's interesting that Jane is not angry about him keeping such an important secret, but that she runs away because she can't be his wife because he already has one. So then JE wouldn't really work in a contemporary situation, because he would be able to get a divorce and they could still get together. Then I think the lie would be more of a problem.

Or does she run away because she fears that she will end up as a 'mistress' if she stays and loose his respect, like Mrs Fairfax warned her? I'm still wondering about that move - this explanation would make more sense to me. I'd love to hear thoughts on that!

About the film versions: I really like the 2006 version of Jane Eyre with Toby Stephens, it renders the story very well. I recently saw the 2011 JE film and was pleasantly surprised by it - I feared it was too short, but I actually quite liked it. And in one instance even an improvement of the book, because in the film the family connection with Mr Rivers and his sisters is not there, which I find much more plausible than Jane wandering on the moors for days (or weeks) and happening to be found half dead on the doorstep of her cousins! Now she is found by a family, gets to know and like them, and then decides to share her wealth with them because she cares about having people around her - and so makes them family. I liked that!

(Sorry for the long post!)

42Tness
Nov 19, 2011, 11:11 pm

The thing about classics is you either love them or hate them. Personally I loved Wuthering Heights because I think it said something about how selfish we can be and how we suffer the consequences of decisions we make.

43Tness
Nov 19, 2011, 11:15 pm

I'm not understanding what you mean by condescending. He was testing her intelligence, yes trying to see if she was going to be good to talk to, but he definitely did love her. You have to remember he was very hurt in the past and it made him bitter but Jane definitely helped him get over that.

44Tness
Nov 19, 2011, 11:20 pm

The only problem I had with that one is they were obviously too old to be 16 like they were in the book, ha.

45Tness
Nov 19, 2011, 11:22 pm

In reference to Jane's "christian morality" I think she just tried to do good to people after being treated badly her whole life. Not that she felt convicted to, but she saw that it was better.

46Tness
Nov 19, 2011, 11:26 pm

No, she got sick walking long the moors near where she lived, though yes she was pregnant, :)

47Tness
Nov 19, 2011, 11:30 pm

That's a very good point!

48Nickelini
Nov 5, 2012, 10:42 am

I just came across this website. There is some very interesting, though-provoking and very readable info on Wuthering Heights. The writer certainly has her own (or his own) opinions, anyway!

http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/

49Nickelini
Fév 15, 2013, 1:33 am

I recently read a piece about how the love between Heathcliff and Cathy is not romantic, but the love of twins: "whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" It was quite convincing and I'm kicking myself for not taking note of it further.

I'm currently reading The Bronte Myth and the author notes how the popular romantic notions of Heathcliff and Cathy have mostly come after the Laurence Olivier film version of the book (which ends after Cathy's death and doesn't go into all that other messy stuff with Heathcliff's bad behaviour. Apparently, since I've never seen the film).

I've been following this thread since the beginning and I've just read it through. I'm surprised at some of my earlier thoughts, so it's good to see myself grow!

50BonnieJune54
Mar 5, 2013, 12:16 am

While reading Wuthering Heights I got the impression that Heathcliff never had a chance of passing for Anglo-Saxon. I've always thought there should be film version that showed this in their casting of Heathcliff. As much as I disliked the guy you have to feel sorry for him. His benefactor led him to expect a life as a English gentleman that racism would never have let him have.

51Nickelini
Mar 5, 2013, 1:11 am

#50 - Interesting comments. What do you imagine him to look like? I've just always thought of him as sort of swarthy. They call him a gypsy a lot. Wasn't he played by someone with African heritage in the latest film version? I thought that was interesting.