Wuthering Heights: A Kaplan SAT Score-Raising Classic (Kaplan...

Features

• Cover Type: Mass Market Paperback with 704 pages
• Published by: Kaplan Publishing
• Edition: 2nd Edition November 1, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1419542265
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1419542268
• Book Dimensions: 6.5 x 4 x 1.6 inches
• Weighs: 10.4 ounces

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Wuthering Heights (Penguin Classics) (Paperback) "Wuthering Heights," Emily Bronte's only published novel, is a saga of two Yorkshire families who live in the remote Pennine Hills of England's North Country. To me the book has always epitomized the best of gothic fiction. The narrative is filled with intensity of feeling, especially Heathcliff's passionate love for his Cathy and hers for him - a love which endures beyond the grave. More than would be lovers, however, the two are soul mates and have been since their childhood. Cathy once told Nelly, her servant and friend: "My greatest thought in living is Heathcliff. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be... Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure... but as my own being." Yet, the novel is more than a love story. "Wuthering Heights" is about hatred, cruelty, delusion, frustrated yearning, obsession, deep despair and vengeance. At times its very darkness is depressing and painful. Yet love and faithfulness, which endure beyond death, bring hope and much needed light to this tale; as does a second love story, born from the seeds of the first. The author also addresses the issues of social class here. Both Linton and Earnshaw families are considered gentry. However, the Linton's are a more educated, cultured group and appear to be of a higher class than those who reside at Wuthering Heights. Some of Catherine's most crucial decisions involve moving up in society. The story is told in a series of narratives, none of which are entirely reliable. During the winter of 1801, a gentleman named Mr. Lockwood rents a manor house called Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire. He has a natural curiosity, and in time visits his neighbor and wealthy landlord, Heathcliff, a grim, forbidding man who lives at Wuthering Heights, a few miles from the Grange. Lockwood also makes the acquaintance of Heathcliff's housekeeper Ellen Dean, called Nelly, and asks her to tell him about her employer and the history of those who reside at Wuthering Heights. He documents her narrative in his journal, and his written recollections make up the main portion of the novel. Much of Nellie's tale consists of memories from years before, her observations of life with the Earnshaw family, her recollections of the Lintons, and her own conclusions, which are subjective. Lockwood, gets his information second hand, from Nellie's perspective. He continually interprets, and misinterprets the relationships and actions of the characters who play such major roles here. So, it is up to the reader to make sense of it all - which is what the author intended. As a young girl Nelly worked as a servant at Wuthering Heights for Mr. Earnshaw, the owner, his wife, and their two children, Hindley, and Catherine. Earnshaw returned from a business trip to Liverpool with a gypsy-like urchin, a dark-haired, handsome orphan boy. He had taken quite a fancy to the lad, a quiet, stoic child, and names him Heathcliff, after a son who died. Earnshaw decides to raise him with his own children. Catherine befriends Heathcliff almost instantly. They share a love of nature, and an emotional intensity unknown to most people. They are able to communicate with each other easily, even as young children, and both possess tremendously creative imaginations. The two roam the moorland wilderness, where they're most at home, like wild creatures of nature, and become inseparable friends. Hindley detests Heathcliff from the first. He is jealous and goads the boy constantly. Eventually, after the death of his wife, Mr. Earnshaw begins to show preference for Heathcliff over his own son, which exacerbates the hostility. Finally, Hindley is sent away to school and Heathcliff is kept at home, at Earnshaw's side. Hindley comes into his inheritance some years later, at age twenty, when his father dies. Cathy is eleven years-old, and Heathcliff about twelve, when the heir returns to Wuthering Heights, and seeks vicious revenge for having his rights usurped by a wretched boy from the slums with no means of his own. Obviously Heathcliff cannot defend himself and is totally dependent on Hindley. He is forced to work as a laborer in the fields, and is treated harshly, as less worthy than an animal. He and Cathy maintain their closeness. They still wander the wild North country and she shares her studies with him. One night they pay a clandestine visit to Thrushcross Grange, home of the Linton family. Cultured, spoiled and very well behaved, young Edgar and Isabella live there. When a dog savagely bites Cathy, it is discovered that she and Heathcliff have been hiding in the brush spying. The girl is seriously injured and is forced to stay at the Grange for several weeks to recover. During her time with the Linton family, Mrs. Linton becomes intent on turning wild, mischievous Cathy into a young lady. She encourages her to become a young woman with manners and actions appropriate to her social standing in society, rather than the wild, headstrong creature she is while roaming the moors with Heathcliff. By the time Catherine returns home, in elegant new clothes, she has become infatuated with Edgar Linton. Needless to say, her relationship with Heathcliff deteriorates significantly, as he feels he is losing the only person he ever loved. Edgar pursues Catherine relentlessly, and eventually, the young woman's desire for social advancement, and an inexplicable fey, self destructive quality about her, prompt her to accept his proposal. However, she really does not love her fiance. She may care for him, but her feelings are much less than what her passionate nature requires. On the other hand genteel women of this period were supposed to have neither "passionate" nor intense feelings. "'Here and here!' replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead and the other on her breast: 'in which ever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I'm convinced I'm wrong!'" Thus Catherine acknowledges to Nelly that her marriage to Edgar cannot be one of love. Although she knows that Heathcliff is her true love, however, she cannot marry him because he has been so debased by Hindley. "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightening, or frost from fire". Her powerful connection to Heathcliff is always present, no matter how annoyed she becomes with him. Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights a bitter man. He knows that if he had come from a better social class, or had wealth, Cathy would have married him. When he finally returns, years later, a self-possessed, successful, wealthy man, he is obsessed with revenge, and is more adept at exacting it than Hindley ever was. Nelly continues her increasingly complex tale, (which I won't spoil for you), of three generations: of births, marriages, deaths, traumas, complications, a second more hopeful love story and redemption. The most recurring theme is the great love and friendship, the everlasting connection, between Cathy and her Heathcliff, whose difficult nature is almost impossible to understand and to accept - unless, of course, one thinks about his unknown origins and early childhood as a homeless waif in Liverpool. One can only imagine the horrors he experienced wandering the streets of the rough port town, with neither protection nor kindness. What cruelty and meanness of spirit did he learn there? His terrible, inhuman treatment at Hindley's hands certainly played a part in Heathcliff's lust for revenge and lack of mercy, as did Catherine's decision to marry Linton, which must have been devastating for him. Heathcliff remains a dark, brooding, cruel man throughout his adult years and never reforms. He is an anti-hero, at least in my eyes, as he also possesses good qualities, along with a terrible sadness, an emptiness and longing which he shows to Cathy alone. Emily Bronte's extraordinary prose is filled with powerful imagery. Miss Brontė spent most of her short life at home, in Thornton, Yorkshire, where she was happiest. She loved the surrounding moors - the wide, wild expanses, unsuitable for cultivation, and full of danger. There are bogs and wetlands on the moors, which can go virtually unseen, and where one can drown. It is also a place of great beauty. The author spent much time walking there with her dogs and was terribly unhappy when she was away. The similarities between the author's natural environment and that of the area around Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange are obvious. Ms Bronte drew inspiration from the regional Yorkshire architecture also, as well as her own personal experiences and her amazing imagination, a gift Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell Bronte shared - with each other and with us. I have read a few Bronte biographies and always felt that the character of Catherine Earnshaw, certainly her intensity and love of nature, was based on Emily Bronte. Keep a box of tissues handy throughout your reading of "Wuthering Heights." I wonder if this is the first tearjerker? JANA Comment | | (Report this)