Reading List: Wuthering Heights

It was during a writing center appointment two weeks ago that I was inspired to read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. So, that night, I scooted my booty over to the library to find a copy. I had heard mixed reviews, but I felt like the experience would be beneficial even if I didn’t love the book. Turns out, I did love the book, and here’s why.

The first thing that captivated me about this novel was the intricacy with which it is written. The narrative structure itself is complex; the story is told as a series of diary entries by Mr. Lockwood that record a tale told by Nelly Dean about the past lives of individuals they both know. The characters’ genealogical structure is elaborate, as are the nuanced relational dynamics that play on themes such as desire, revenge, fear, loneliness, and even the ebbs and flows of psychological sanity. Layered and deeply meaningful imagery adds to the sophistication of the book, as does its important role in literary history as a bridge between the gothic novel genre and the domestic novel genre. To all my friends who don’t like Wuthering Heights, I’m not judging you. But at the very least, you have to give it to Emily Brontë: this novel is incredibly well-written and deserves appreciation simply for that fact.

What I really liked about this book, though, was how it felt haunting to me as I read it. The characters are tortured and distraught – all of them, even the presumably sane ones. They are agitated, disturbed, distressed, and tormented. There’s a sense that this horror has an ill-defined and mist-like presence in the characters’ lives, an almost physical apparition that hovers over them, body and soul. Of course, the ghost of the first Catherine who literally haunts Heathcliff, but there’s something more to this presence than just that. Whatever this phantom is, it’s there before the first Catherine dies; in fact, it’s lowkey the reason that she dies. It’s an inescapable weight that won’t fall away, like a backpack of bricks that’s glued to their backs. In the end, it’s heavy enough to make Lockwood move as far away as he could; it’s heavy enough that it makes Heathcliff go crazy and starve himself to death. It’s eerie and repulsive and disquieting every time we encounter it.

And it’s innately human. The desperation and longing that these characters evidence, the feeling of being haunted by something, struck a chord in me that I think is more common than any of us would like to admit. I mean, I think about the themes in the music I listen to. Lord Huron sings about visceral unfulfilled longing that haunts the singer and eventually drives him into the wilderness and even into the void of the cosmos. Phoebe Bridgers writes about insurmountable grief, which is a phrase written by Taylor Swift, who also sings about recklessness in a desperate attempt to heal the burning anguish that haunts her. Zach Bryan’s songs are all about the anguish of heartbreak, as are most country songs (which also mostly about alcohol, a telling evidence of escapism). Our music, books, poetry, and social media, even our own conversations, betray the tormenting sorrow that haunts us and our desperation to break its hold over our lives.

But, what I liked about this novel is that this haunted atmosphere is also portrayed as sickeningly desirable. The characters in Wuthering Heights are a living demonstration of how your less-than-positive emotions can hold you spellbound. Emily Brontë knows that if you sit in your terror for long enough, it becomes the safest place you know, so much so that you hardly want to be free from the darkest parts of yourself that haunt you. Wuthering Heights forced me to acknowledge the ways in which I feel haunted and stuck in that feeling. Ghosts are less scary when you tell them they’re only ghosts.

This novel made me wonder: is the haunting passion of Heathcliff and Catherine really so foreign and repulsive as it seems at first? Perhaps these characters are caricatures of us as their pain is a caricature of ours. This, I think, is where Emily Brontë’s genius lies. Wuthering Heights and its haunting nature force us, the contemplative readers, to acknowledge the dissonance we feel in our own lives, the longing and desperation and obsession that we package in aesthetic Instagram stories and beautiful music. If we read this book well, we must ask ourselves: For what would I sacrifice everything? What has got a hold on my heart? What do I obsess over? What desperation drives me? What haunts me?