I find this book really dark and depressing so, although I admire it as a great work, I don’t really enjoy reading it. The characters are all horrible; they don’t seem to have one redeeming or attractive feature. I find it difficult to care for them or their future, or to wish them well; usually in a book you grow attached to characters, and even though they may be fairly bad at times, you hope they come right in the end and achieve happiness, but I don’t feel this with any of these characters as they are all so vile! For example, even though Heathcliff and Cathy are in love, I don’t find myself hoping they end up together as between them they cause so much misery and suffering. I do like the way that the story is told however in the style of a tale by a servant to a friend, as I feel like I am eavesdropping on their conversation and that I am privileged to overhear the story.

All the children at Wuthering Heights (Cathy Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and Hareton) are brought up so terribly by wicked Hindley; they are just left to run wild and have to suffer beatings and punishments. I can’t believe Hindley drops Hareton over the balcony! I struggle to understand how Hindley becomes such a nasty character as his own father seemed lovely and kind; being affectionate to his own children and taking in young Heathcliff. Was Hindley’s bad character formed just because of jealousy of how Heathcliff was favoured by his father?

I always feel sympathy for Heathcliff at the start of the book, and at this early point I can’t imagine despising him as heartily as I do later, and feel I want to excuse his actions. I feel so sorry for him and how he has been treated by Hindley. Later in the book though, I forget all my sympathy for him as I can’t believe how anyone could be so sadistic and cruel as he is. He marries poor misguided Isabella just to hurt Edgar, and is deliberately cruel to her for the same reason. And yet Edgar hasn’t actually done anything to hurt Heathcliff - all he does is love Cathy. It was Cathy that hurt Heathcliff by rejecting him and marrying Edgar.

Cathy is such a horrible person as well; I think she is my least favourite in the whole book - I know Heathcliff is bad, but I think she caused the majority of his behaviour and subsequent actions. Edgar adores her, but she admits how she loves Heathcliff and says some really quite romantic things about him, and yet she still chooses to marry Edgar for money and status and therefore hurts Heathcliff terribly, as well as making Edgar unhappy later in life. She causes such pain for both men and herself, and messes up all their lives.

Edgar seems the only really nice person in the book - I feel sorry he ever met the people at Wuthering Heights. I do wish he could have been a stronger person; he always forgives Cathy and lets her hurt him again. When she deliberately starves herself and makes herself ill purely to punish him, he still goes running to her and cares for her, and wishes her to get better. He is likeable and kind, but seems too spineless for his own good. He is completely taken advantage of by Cathy.

Young Catherine Linton seems another character that is a bit nicer, although she is spoilt. But I feel so sorry for her and how she is forced to marry Linton. He then treats her selfishly, and Heathcliff is very cruel to her. She deserves to be happy in the end.

The Brontes and their past do intrigue me as their books seem to have several similar themes, and I wonder if their experiences in life has influenced their writings and the characters that they have created. For example both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights feature cruel unhappy childhoods with children facing suffering and torment. And both these books and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall all include hard, arrogant and cruel male characters with Mr Rochester, Heathcliff & Hindley, and Mr Huntingdon.

I do find it hard-going reading this book, and think it is quite unpleasant and disturbing. Everyone’s lives seem so desperate and depressing. It does seem to have a slightly happy ending in that Heathcliff is finally reunited with Cathy, and young Catherine Linton and Hareton marry, but the book leaves me with a feeling of relief that I have finished it - I feel it is one that I endure rather than enjoy.

Tags: Book Reviews, bronte, emily bronte, Wuthering Heights