Perhaps a little crazy, but periodically correct

Feminists- they do not have the best reputation today. Many view them as women starved for attention and trying to twist everything they hear in order to confirm their own self imposed victimization. I have always grouped feminists in the same category that I do people involved in New Age and the sort, and I do not always understand the point of their arguments and insight. I do however believe that women have been oppressed just as much as any other minority. Yet in today’s world it sometimes seems that they try to create imaginary discrimination or fight for rights in ridiculous and petty situations.

Reading the first essay I found it hard to hold the feminist criticism on the same level as Marxist and cultural, but that is just my personal opinion. To me it feels as though the feminist critics go out on a limb to link their concepts with those in the books that they critique. The idea that women need to “write their bodies” in order to “realize their sexuality” sounds a little bizarre. When they use terms like “female power” and the like, it just seems to glorify the female sex, or rather just pull an awkward attention to it.

As far as the second essay is concerned though, I do not feel like Pykett stretches the truth since the period in which Wuthering Heights takes place is one of blatant restrictions for women. The novel is quite obviously centered around Catherine’s choice between Heathcliff and Edgar. It is also apparent that Catherine’s strong personality and power over the men in her life only seems to cause trouble for herself and others. It is interesting that she points out that the novel explores the “dangers involved in women thinking of themselves, or their love, as gifts to be bestowed”. I did not fully understand where she was going with this point, so I would like further insight on it. 

Getting Truthful

Before I began reading the essay “Marxist Criticism and Wuthering Heights” I couldn’t help but wonder why I was reading “Marxist Criticism and Wuthering Heights”. Then, comically enough, I am greeted with: “To the question ‘What is Marxist criticism?’ it may be tempting to respond with another question: ‘What does it matter?’” Let’s face it; this isn’t an essay most students would read out of curiosity or because of the sheer tempting nature of the title. I am not one for politics, so I probably procrastinated the reading further than most. When I was finished with the first essay I felt rather disappointed. I do not feel like the question: “What does it matter?” ever really was answered after my reading. The content seemed to consist heavily of power hungry men fighting to have their own personal views of literature claimed as correct. The way that some of them tried to structuralize literature and view writers as the product of the times bothered me. Life just isn’t that simple. Perhaps it was all a little over my head and the point got lost.

However, reading on to the second essay where the topic was narrowed down to cover Wuthering Heights, my mind heaved a sigh of relief and I felt more clarity and interest. I do wish that I had read Jane Eyre since both articles contrast the two novels repeatedly by labeling Charlotte’s work to be mythical in an ideological sense and Emily’s as mythical in a timeless “worldview” sense. The thought that really engages me is when Eagleton speaks of Cathy’s trying to live two lives after she knows that she has made the wrong decision to marry Edgar.  She has indeed committed a “spiritual suicide and murder” that naturally causes her own life and those around her to spiral out of control. This is not to say that Heathcliff didn’t cause sorrow, because he most definitely did his best to make everyone miserable. But when you betray yourself and do not seek to make things right, the balance of life is upset and only tends to get worse. I never really looked at their situation in light of this important factor.

Catherine is not the only one who betrays herself. Heathcliffe becomes “contradiction incarnate” when he rises from oppressed to oppressor and a sort of dark comedy is the result when he must use his powers within the confines of the capitalist class and the culture that he hates. All of this contradiction and self betrayal is perhaps what makes the novel so difficult to get through, but it also makes it truthful. Life is full of contradictions and pain, and not only do our social and physical situations cause us sorrow, but so does our tendency to make choices that betray ourselves. More times than not, we bring about our own suffering. 

A Delightful Disappointment

This is my first time reading Wuthering Heights. Being so, I found it necessary to return to the beginning and reread the assigned pages armed with a better knowledge after having finished. There seemed to be so many characters sharing either the same last or even first names, tangled in connections that were easy to confuse, especially when presented through the language of the book. Not only that, but the story switched back and forth from Mr. Lockwood’s thoughts to Nelly’s storytelling as to further complicate my initial read.  Thankfully I sped through it the second time fully engaged and better humored by the passages.  Although I had not previously read the book, I had seen the 2009 BBC adaptation a year ago with Tom Hardy playing the lead role of Heathcliff. The curiosity which led me to watch the movie (which surprisingly enough was not the gorgeous Tom Hardy) is still the same motivation that I felt inspired me as I read through the first ten chapters: the atmosphere of the story.

This dismal atmosphere begins to take form before the first chapter has even begun. The name of the book, which is the dwelling of Heathcliff, is enshrouded with imagery, with “‘Wuthering’ being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.”  Since the book is after all a classic, I had heard the name mentioned many times throughout my life, and gleaned from the title alone that there was something dark and looming to be discovered behind its pages. I ventured upon it with the same excitement of driving into a brooding thunderstorm on a dull afternoon. I was not disappointed. Emily Bronte pulled me into the dreary, rustic world of the Heights with descriptions of the dwelling such as “… gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving the alms of the sun”, and “… grotesque carving lavished over the front [door]… among a wilderness of crumbling griffins…”, and with words like bleak, black, blustered, bitter, wailed, and wild to depict the weather.

The best example of this gothic imagery was the nightmare that Mr. Lockwood suffered during his stay at the Heights. It is creepy to picture the “little, ice cold hand” that he rubs against the glass of the broken window pane until the blood drenches the sheets in order to loosen the vise it has him in, and to hear the “doleful cry” of Catherine’s apparition that begs him to let her inside. The way it is portrayed, I can’t help but picture the Heights as a strange purgatory that both Heathcliff and Catherine are damned to for eternity. The dream that Cathy has where she is flung out of heaven by the angels onto the heath of Wuthering Heights and rejoices to be home confirms the eerie connection for me, and Heathcliff being colored as a ghoul or demon is only suitable.

As much as I enjoy a Gothic novel with a melancholic ending, when I watch the movie and now while I am reading the book, I am wishing the rugged Heathcliff to break free from his dark past and become Cathy’s reformed lover. I find myself rooting him on despite my knowledge of his ruinous end. I almost feel as if Bronte is teasing all of the female readers that try and follow along with the plot according to the archetypal structuring of the romantic hero that we have been bred to adore. However, this is the very thing that sets the novel apart in my mind as something different. I did not get to have the ending that I wished for, but instead was confronted with something unpredictable and thought provoking; a delightful disappointment.