Wuthering Heights

I don't know how to review this book. It is, in fact, my favorite book now. It has surpassed the writings of all other authors. What I want to say about it will take the form of a dissertation and not a review.

But, for now, I leave with the knowledge that this book has won me over heart and soul...there is no other piece of literature like it.

A timeless classic of passion trauma and heartbreak

Wow, what a classic indeed.
Things I wish I'd known before reading:
- this is not a romance, it's a damn tragedy
- the narrator is some random dude that has nothing to do with anything
- it frequently switches timeframes (sometimes without warning) and can turn from a retelling to a retelling of a retelling so that gets a bit confusing trying to parse out who's point of view you are supposedly hearing from
- heathcliff and Catherine's "love story" only accounts for about half of the book
- it's super depressing and you pretty much hate all the characters

Language was tough to follow. POV changed often and was hard to follow. Lengthy, but worth it.

This will be a long review, and I apologize in advance. But if you’re willing to read yet another opinion on this so-called “classic romance,” take a seat.

1) Let’s start with the theme that everyone immediately associates with Wuthering Heights, and I already hinted at: “tragic love,” “impossible love,” “star-crossed lovers,” etc.

Well, to put it concisely, I like to call this story “Red Flags: The Novel.”

If you really think Wuthering Heights is just about tragic love — à la Romeo and Juliet — please, please stop right there. Too many readers (and filmmakers, in their adaptations) have romanticized the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine, and in my opinion, that’s dangerous. When we romanticize, we tend to sympathize — or vice versa — and when that happens, we’re dangerously tempted to long for or even crave that kind of relationship.

The problem is that we often understand “tragic love” as the story of two poor innocent souls who are not free to love each other, kept apart by cruel fate — and in our minds, we grant them the happy ending they were denied. That’s what Romeo and Juliet gives us: a tragedy born of injustice, of external forces tearing two innocents apart. But Wuthering Heights isn’t that. Here, the tragedy doesn’t make the love justified. This is a tragedy, yes, but born from within — a self-inflicted one, where every wound is delivered by the lovers themselves. And here "lovers" stand for different things, as I say below.

There’s a fine line between feeling sorry for them — hoping that, under different circumstances, they might have been happy — and letting that compassion blind us to who they truly are.
I get it: YOU, my fellow readers, are kind and empathetic people. But they are not. They are cruel, selfish, and destructive — not only to each other but to everyone around them. You can feel sad for them, yes, even forgive them in some way, but that doesn’t make their actions, or who they are, any less toxic.

In conclusion, there’s nothing to long for here. Say it with me: “Their relationship is abusive, and we don't want that.”

If you read this story and end up “shipping” Heathcliff and Catherine, you’ve missed the point, at least in my opinion.

2) The Characterization of Heathcliff and his role in this story.

Heathcliff has no excuse to be as horrid and cruel as he is. Yes, he was abused in his youth — horribly so — and he was played by the woman he loved because ( but not solely) her family’s class prejudice, which in her defence she didn't believe in at first. But none of that justifies what he becomes. He chooses violence. He chooses to perpetuate the same cycle of abuse that broke him, and he takes pleasure in it. I’m not being judgmental — or at least I’m really trying not to be. Sadly, some people can’t escape the cycle of abuse, and it's tragic. But some do, let’s not forget that. And Heathcliff? He had every card in his hand to break it.

There’s a saying that goes, “Kill them with kindness.” There are always two paths in vengeance: one of compassion, one of cruelty. Heathcliff chooses cruelty every time and deliberately. If he’s as clever and calculating as we’re told, he should have known there was a different path. Or if he knew it, then he deliberately didn’t go that way.

So… yes, perhaps not the best model for the kind of lover one should long for.

And let’s be honest: his vengeance isn’t really about Catherine at all. It’s about him. His ego, his wounded pride, his hunger for domination. He proves again and again that he doesn’t care what Catherine would actually want — alive or dead. He decides. Always.

3) The Frankstein Effect - Who's responsible if anyone :

These families feared a “monster” when Heathcliff first arrived — their prejudice fed by racism and classism — and in the end, that’s exactly what they created.

Still, let’s not pretend he was ever pure-hearted. Even as a child, he thrived on his adoptive father’s favouritism, manipulating those around him and threatening others to get what he wanted. Abuse shaped him, yes — but the cruelty was already there.

And don’t get me wrong: they’re all terrible people.
Every single one of them — except maybe two: Edgar Linton and (possibly) Nelly. Though I have my doubts about her, too.

So no, Wuthering Heights isn’t a tragic love story. It’s a cautionary tale — about abuse, obsession, prejudice, vengeance, resentment, and the human tendency toward cruelty.

Love is one of its themes, obviously, but it’s not the kind of love people like to imagine. It’s not ONLY the physical, sensual, or “fated” love between two people. It’s love in all its twisted forms:

- Love between father and son (or the lack of )
- Love between father and daughter.
- Fraternal love (or the lack of)
- Love between a parental figure and a child not of their blood (like Ellen and young Cathy).

Love in Wuthering Heights isn’t redemptive — it’s also corrosive. Emily Brontë uses it as a tool to mirror the human soul, to show how selfishness, obsession, resentment, and bitterness can rot people from the inside out.

Add to that a claustrophobic, secluded, windswept setting, and you have a personal hell on earth.

In the end, Heathcliff wasn’t a curse placed upon that family.
They created their own curse — and he was just its perfect reflection. That is the genius of this book :
Heathcliff, as horrible as he was, also held up a mirror to those around him, reflecting their own hypocrisy and cruelty. And that leaves us with an interesting question: Did they truly hate him because he was an awful person — or because, through him, they saw the worst parts of themselves?

The power of that image becomes even clearer in the few moments when Heathcliff loses his composure — not when others confront him directly, but when they unknowingly hold that same mirror back at him by reminding him of Catherine. There’s a brief yet significant moment when he sees her through Cathy and Hareton: for just a second, he’s struck silent. In their eyes and gestures, he glimpses Catherine — and through her, the man he’s become.

And beyond that, Heathcliff also shows our true colours — yes, us readers. For example, ***spoilers*** when he’s on his deathbed and the servants want to fetch a doctor for him, I literally jumped out of my chair and screamed at the book (yes, I’m dramatic like that): “Fck a doctor! This piece of crap let his own son die just to get his revenge!” Then, once I’d reseated myself and put everything I flipped over back in order, I had a rather sobering thought: well, damn, my guy — you’re not a good person either. Because a good person would still call the doctor, no matter who the patient is. ***end of spoilers***

4) Nelly’s miraculous memory — or how gossip becomes gospel.

One thing that really tested my suspension of disbelief was Ellen (Nelly) Dean’s miraculous memory. I mean, how on earth is she able to recount twenty-plus years of drama, tragedy, and kitchen conversations with such precision? She remembers every single dialogue, every gesture, even what she was cooking, while people were confessing their deepest sins. Meanwhile, I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.

And let’s not forget: everything we read is filtered through Mr. Lockwood — our narrator — who’s simply reporting what Nelly told him. So, half the time, we’re reading Mr. Lockwood telling us what Nelly recounted about what Heathcliff told her about what Catherine said to him. When you think about it, it’s kind of hilarious. And yet, somehow, Nelly can quote Joseph word for word, accent, and all. What a gift.

5) The will — the other great, invisible character

Another theme that, to me, encompasses nearly all the others in Wuthering Heights is the sheer power of will. In fact, I’d say that will itself is another character — stubborn, relentless, sometimes noble, often cruel — but always present. Every person in this novel is driven, consumed, or destroyed by it.

Take Nelly, for example. While every other servant flees that cursed house at one point or another, she stays. Her will to stand by the families, to act as their moral compass (though not always successfully), is almost heroic — or foolish, depending on how you see it. She’s like a weary guardian trying to impose order on chaos.

Then there’s Heathcliff, whose will is of a darker kind: the determination to make everyone pay. His entire existence becomes a monument to vengeance, and he follows through with almost supernatural endurance. His will corrodes him, but it also fuels him — it’s what makes him terrifyingly human.

Young Cathy’s will is the opposite — the will to survive. To endure an abusive home, to confront her abuser, and to keep pushing toward some version of peace. Hers is the quiet, stubborn will that refuses to die.

Hareton’s will is equally moving: the determination to rise, to better himself, to reclaim a dignity that everyone around him denied. His transformation isn’t some fairytale redemption arc — it’s hard-won, self-made, and all the more admirable for it.

And then there’s Edgar, whose will to live becomes a form of love — the desire to stay alive just long enough to protect his daughter, to give her a little more stability before he’s gone.

Every thread in this story — vengeance, endurance, love, cruelty — is ultimately pulled by that same force: will. In Wuthering Heights, the will is both saviour and executioner, and no one escapes its grip.

6) The tension — the real ghost of Wuthering Heights.

People talk a lot about ghosts in Wuthering Heights, but for me, the true ghost haunting the story is the tension. It’s there from the very first pages — quiet, invisible, but undeniably present. The moment Heathcliff enters the scene, tension takes on a life of its own. His very presence infects the house, and from then on, it spreads like a hungry worm devouring everything around it.

Brontë builds on this masterfully through events, dialogue, and atmosphere — brick by brick — until the whole novel becomes one great, suffocating structure of tension. And what’s most brilliant is that it never truly goes away. Even when the story seems to “resolve,” when we’re told that everything is finally at peace, that oppressive feeling lingers. The final line of the book captures that perfectly — it doesn’t release the tension; it buries it. The ghost doesn’t vanish — it just goes underground.

So yes, I was completely absorbed by this story. I love me some as****s, apparently. Maybe it’s misplaced curiosity, maybe it’s morbid fascination — but Wuthering Heights doesn’t exactly let you look away, does it?