Wuthering Heights Reading Group

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So, you're finished? (I'm glad you found time to read, and that you enjoyed it so!)

Yes, i've finished it today, and i'm so thankful to you for introducing me this great story! I think it was less a story of passionate love and more of abuse, and how it shapes people's lives,and it's an unending cycle. I was excited, saddened and angry while reading and at the end i was really glad Catherine and Hareton got their well-deserved happy ending.
I haven't read anything more than fanfiction for a while and reading this made me remember the joy of reading,so again thank you so much for creating this group and introducing us this amazing story!

I hate how Hollywood promotes it as a love story, especially since they don't even include Volume II in their renditions! The scene in my avatar of H and C embracing in the wild never happens, but that is how the story is stereotyped. Never once do they share a passionate, adult embrace, let alone outdoors. I'm glad you enjoyed the book in all its warped debauchery! I think of it almost as a parody of romance, or a warning to people about obsessive love. Keep reading our posts if you'd like because I'm just beginning Volume II myself and I'm sure you'll have comments to add!

Thanks again, April!

In chapter eleven Nelly does not hold back judgment, saying to Edgar, '"I do think it's time to arrange [Heathcliff's] visits on another footing. There's harm in being too soft, and now it's come to this,"' and she tells him everything. On a later occasion, however, she tells us, "I did not want to "frighten" [Catherine's] husband, as she said, and multiply his annoyances for the purpose of serving her selfishness." By this Nelly reveals herself as more than a disinterested witness. She not only shows greater loyalty to Edgar, she speaks to him with greater liberty than a servant typically would, hinting at a stronger connection. Furthermore, in chapter 12, Nelly is, "convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls"--herself.

I really want to find the quote from Chapter 2 or 3 when Nelly is speaking to Lockwood and she says "us.. I mean the Lintons". I want to know if her mother was a Linton aunt, or some type of relative. Is Nelly a Linton? Perhaps it's wishful thinking on her part, because her loyalty is to Edgar as you say. But... if she was loyal to Edgar why didn't she warn him? He had already seen Catherine strike Nelly, but Nelly didn't dissuade him from the marriage. I'm so confused. She's vile, regardless.

I finished the book. It ended for me with a thud. The entirety of Vol.2 felt like Emily didn't write it. None of it was at least familiar, like Vol.1 which is so familiar and still exciting. I'm going to assume the fault is mine and go back to read it again. It's possible with Kindle that I may have skipped a dozen or so pages.

Something that got to me was the repetition of names. I gave up on that at one point, possibly because I didn't care what they were doing. Standard Heathcliff greeting, standard Catherine hissy-fit, etc. I still don't care if Whosis learns to read, though I get the significance, I don't have any tenterhooks about it.

And it didn't feel ended. I turned the page and hit the Biographical Note.

The whole thing felt like an unfinished book, picked up and finished by somebody else. Like Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Someone help me!

Baby Cathy is born 20 March, 1784, "a puny, seventh months' child", after the expectant Catherine cries repeatedly to Heathcliff on her deathbed, "You have killed me!", and "Will you say twenty years hence, my children are dearer to me than she was?!"

Not to be graphic, but a seven months' child born on 20 March implies that the mother's last menstrual cycle occurred in late August, and that the child was conceived two weeks later in September.

I flipped back to Chapter 10 with trepidation. Voila. Nelly quotes, "On a mellow evening in September...I heard a voice behind me say, 'Nelly, is that you?' "

September 1783 was, indeed, the month that Heathcliff returned to the Grange.

It seems too coincidental to me that Edgar and Catherine just happened to conceive in September, despite being married for a year without confinement.

Inquiring minds want to know.
Maybe kortie was on to something, after all, about their physical passion?
Nelly would never admit that she missed such an event!

I'm going to read Cathy's description very carefully in the coming chapters.

Oh god, i admit that that would be the twist of twists! However, i remember that Catherine II was described as physically similar to his dad on Several parts, like her hair and such.
It would not surprise me however, if that was the case because she does have the wild side that both Cathy and Heathcliff has. Yes, she's usually well-mannered and agreeable but that might also be because she was raised by the soft-spoken Edgar Linton. I do see what you mean though, that would definitely not surprise me!

I remember reading somewhere that she had Heathcliff's eyes, despite her fair ringlets. I wonder if Brontë was just messing with us once again, to create controversy? If she were Heathcliff's baby I doubt that he was aware, and it seems Catherine was suggesting so on her deathbed. It's sad that neither Edgar nor Heathcliff bonded with the baby, on account of her gender. A male would have become an heir to Edgar and saved The Grange from Heathcliff (via Isabella). Likewise, a male heir to Heathcliff via Catherine, despite illegitimacy, could have done the same.

Also, don't forget that Linton Jr., who is most decidedly Heathcliff's biological child with Isabella, is also born fair with blonde hair and blue eyes. Something is amiss with genetics here, and I want to know!

Hmmm.

It is a very interesting theory. If it were true, it would also mean that she didn't take after Heathcliff in terms of personality. I liked her Best because she tried to do the right thing even under horrible circumstances. She helped Hareton improve himself, tried her best to help Linton, and even reached out (sort of) to Heathcliff.I loved her speech at Heathcliff at chapter 28, when she asked him whether he loved someone before.

I've had a family emergency, folks.
I'll post again soon.

Don't worry about it, take your time! I hope everything's alright.

Supplementary Reading for Volume II of Wuthering Heights: Metamorphosis of the Second Generation



Le Papillon, Emily J. Brontë: August 11, 1842, Brussels, for Professor M. Constantin Héger
The Belgian Essays: Critical Edition, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, ed. Susie Lonoff, Yale University Press, 1997
Translated from French

In one of those moods that everyone falls into sometimes, when the world of the imagination suffers a winter that blights its vegetation, when the light of life seems to go out and existence becomes a barren desert where we wander alone, exposed to all tempests that blow under heaven without hope of rest or shelter - in one of these black humours, I was walking one evening at the edge of a forest. It was summer; the sun was still shining high in the west and the air resounded with the songs of birds. All appeared happy but for me, it was only an appearance. I sat at the foot of an old oak, among whose branches the nightingale had just begun its vespers. "Poor fool," I said to myself, "is it to guide the bullet to your breast or the child to your brood that you sing so loud and clear? Silence that untimely tune, perch yourself on your nest; tomorrow, perhaps, it will be empty!" But, why do I address myself to you alone?

All creation is equally mad. Behold those flies playing above the brook; the swallows and fish diminish their number every minute. These will become, in their turn, the prey of some tyrant of the air or water, and man for his amusement or his needs will kill their murderers. Nature is an inexplicable problem; it exists on a principle of destruction. Every being must be the tireless instrument of death to others, or itself must cease to live, yet nonetheless we celebrate the day of our birth, and we praise God for having entered such a world.

During my soliloquy I picked a flower at my side; it was fair and freshly opened, but an ugly caterpillar had hidden itself among the petals and already they were shrivelling, faded fast. "Sad image of the earth and its inhabitants!" I exclaimed. "This worm lives only to injure the plant that protects it. Why was it created, and why was man created? He torments, he kills, he devours; he suffers, dies, is devoured - there you have his whole story. It is true that there is a heaven for the saint, but the saint leaves enough misery here below to sadden him even before the throne of God".

I threw the flower to earth. At that moment, the universe appeared to me a vast machine constructed only to produce evil. I almost doubted the goodness of God, in not annihilating man on the day he first sinned. "The world should have been destroyed," I said, "crushed as I crush this reptile which has done nothing in its life but render all that it touches as disgusting as itself."

I had scarcely removed my foot from the poor insect when, like a censoring angel sent from heaven, there came fluttering through the trees a butterfly with large wings of lustrous gold and purple. It shone but a moment before my eyes; then, rising among the leaves, it vanished into the height of the azure vault. I was mute, but an inner voice said to me, "Let not the creature judge his Creator; here is a symbol of the world to come. As the ugly caterpillar is the origin of the splendid butterfly, so this globe is the embryo of a new heaven and a new earth whose poorest beauty will infinitely exceed your mortal imagination. And when you see the magnificent result of that which seems so base to you now, how you will scorn your blind presumption, in accusing Omniscience for not having made nature perish in her infancy!"

God is the god of justice and mercy; then surely, every grief that he inflicts on his creatures, be they human or animal, rational or irrational, every suffering of our unhappy nature is only a seed of that divine harvest which will be gathered when, Sin having spent its last drop of venom, Death having launched its final shaft, both will perish on the pyre of a universe in flames and leave their ancient victims to an eternal empire of happiness and glory.

Critical Reflection:
To what extent does Emily's "Le Papillon" inform Volume II of Wuthering Heights?

Nature is self-destructive (the nightingale invites death by singing and alerting its environment to its presence. The concept of the caterpillar destroying the flower also portrays how everything seeks the destruction of others)

Nature is corrupt and only freed by death (the butterfly)

Earth is 'merely the embryo' from which good will arise

All of nature is in some sort of purgatory, awaiting rebirth through death; spiritual as opposed to bodily

The Heights and its inhabitants epitomise this self-destruction in the way that they cause their own downfall and, not only corrupt, but catalyse the destruction of others at the Grange

Cathy is only peaceful and serene when she dies and is freed from the cruel reality of life. She is reborn as Catherine. Does Catherine's birth imply that the soul's energy never dies? Is Cathy's soul in Catherine, part of Heathcliff, or freed upon the moors?

Heathcliff personifies the circle of life by inflicting on others what he once received. While Cathy is freed by death he is cursed by remaining alive and thus seeks the destruction of others...is this cruelty or kindness? Is he a statement on Darwinism?

Is Heathcliff the fittest, or merely the fiercest of God's creatures? Is that one and the same?

Young Catherine never celebrates ' the day of her birth' as it symbolises Cathy's death for her father. Is it foolish to celebrate being alive in this world of sin when one could be freed by death, or lack of existence?

How is it possible that young Linton is an aberration of genetics in this Darwinian model? He is more fair and weak than young Catherine, despite having Heathcliff's genes. His character is also weak despite Isabella's triumph as a strong and grounded survivor of abuse. What does Linton's character say about nature vs. nurture?

In some ways, the passage reminds me of the beginning of Shakespeare's Richard III....."Now is the winter of our discontent...."

According to the ethos ascribed to Richard III by Shakespeare (but since somewhat debunked), Richard III was the ultimate "Social Darwinist" and misanthrope. He was incensed by being passed up for the throne by the child Edward IV, and was "discontented." His machinations were not reaping results; the land before him (and his aspirations) were dormant.

Hence, he took the Machiavellian approach....and, ultimately, suffered the Machiavellian death. He had "nothing to lose," so to speak.

Decay of aspirations = Decay of the physical environment

I like that this is a Socratic group, and is a safe place for amiable discussion.