Whatever Souls Are Made Of

Wuthering Heights

Book review by Margaret

Emily Bronte

Rating: 9/10

Date read: 20 June to 3 August

Wuthering Heights, the only novel written by Emily Brontë (a friend of the blog), was published in 1847. It is a Gothic romance novel which centres around themes of the supernatural, nature & civilisation, love, passion, masculinity & femininity, revenge & redemption and social class (LitCharts). The story’s chief characters are Catherine Earnshaw and her adopted brother, Heathcliff, who originally live in Wuthering Heights, an old manor house on the dark and stormy Yorkshire Moors. The majority of the story is narrated by Nelly Dean, a lifelong employed servant of the Earnshaw, and later, Linton families. She explains to John Lockwood, a wealthy gentleman staying in Thrushcross Grange, a house later owned by Heathcliff, the complicated and strange histories of the Earnshaw and Linton families over the past fifty years. This consists of three generations of people, many births, marriages, deaths, arguments, fights, meetings and conversations all of which are recounted by Nelly. However, the reader is constantly aware of Nelly’s significant bias and unreliability regarding these matters, as it is not certain that she knows or remembers everything that has happened. This, along with the wild and treacherous setting of the Moors, makes Wuthering Heights the thrilling, sinister and tragic tale that it is. 

“If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”

In all honesty, I don’t think this book is talked about enough. It’s obviously a classic and widely discussed, but nothing could have prepared me for the immense depth and complexity of this novel. And the surprising thing? This depth and complexity did not come from the complicated plot, wild setting or Victorian context. No, it came from the characters and their relationships. I believe that only a woman, no less Emily Brontë, could have written such a dark and profound story about people. Yes, the story took a while to become engaging, and yes, there wasn’t a very solid ending. But that is exactly it. The story has no beginning and no ending because it’s not a story about plot, in the conventional sense. It’s a story about the dark side of human love, about erotic insanity, about revenge and rivalry, about the dangers of men and their violence, about crazed women, abusive fathers and forbidden love. 

"And I pray one prayer– I repeat it till my tongue stiffens– Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you– haunt me then!... Be with me always– take any form– drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

        In many ways, Wuthering Heights can be said to be the older, darker and more mature sister of Jane Eyre, both consisting of similar elements, themes and, to a lesser extent, characters. While I cannot bring myself to decide on the superiority of one or the other, I must say that reading Wuthering Heights was an experience on another level. Every single moment seems to have the ardency of Mr Rochester’s ‘“It would not be wicked to love me”’, the repulsion of St John’s ‘“You are formed for labour, not for love”’ or the loathing of Jane’s ‘a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies’. Each scene was painted with richer colours and madder tones than Jane Eyre, yet there is a price to pay for this added drama. Wuthering Heights leaves with the reader with none of the sweetness or satisfaction of Jane, tinged with bitterness though it is. Instead, something of horror, of yearning, of hunger, of anguish, of desire; these cling to the reader’s soul– the question invoked:

‘“Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?”’