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Original poster

Wuthering Heights - Just read for the first time. ANyone care to discuss

91 replies

suzywong · 23/04/2007 13:49

My laptop was in the repair shop over the weekend so I read it.

Pretty strong stuff

IMO the key issue is not the romance but the shockingly systematic chld abuse.

And how is it that no one ever mentions the cruelty to Isabella when raving about this novel? Hmmmmm ?

OP posts:
motherinferior · 23/04/2007 15:50

The point of Heathcliff - or part of it anyway - is that he is in fact the 'romantic hero' taken to logical and very unpleasant extreme. EB doing some very interesting stuff here. CB then writes Jane Eyre which attempts, to some extent, to recoup the conventional idea of the romantic novel/hero which then gets caught up in CB's own preoccupations with realism and feminism - a tension which literally splits CB's later Villette, of course.

I wrote my MA thesis on this.

MrsJohnCusack · 23/04/2007 15:47

wow I could have written Sue's post.....

anyhiw Suzy, is always a mystery to me why WH is so lauded and thjink Heathckiff is a violent twat

can't type more as one handed andf it's 2.45am

Overrun · 23/04/2007 15:46

Wuthering Heights is a really interesting book on several levels. Firstly it has this appeal to romantic adolescents (see Kate Bush), but this give is the unfair rep of being an overwrought teeny romance.
It is actually technically a very tightly written book, some literary critic described it as a bit like a Russian doll or boxes inside boxes as it is so multi layered.
Suzywong, its intersting that you have picked out the theme of child abuse, and there certainly some awful treatment of not just children in the book.
I think that it is a scorching critique of class issues, and self made man, as opposed to be born into good fortune. Savage versus Civilization.
Can't think of any more things now, as it is a long time since I read it, but remember being knocked over by it at Uni. You are right is is pretty powerful stuff

Original poster
suzywong · 23/04/2007 15:42

anyway ............................................. WHY is it such a feted and lauded novel? Discuss

OP posts:
suejonez · 23/04/2007 15:41

words fail me - and I always thought we were the same person but now I see that you are my evil JE-hating alter ego

WigWamBam · 23/04/2007 14:27

Yep - am dissing JE. Awful novel, badly written, crap plot ...

I'll get me coat.

LaylaandSethsmum · 23/04/2007 14:13

She has the strongest voice because she narrates it.

castlesintheair · 23/04/2007 14:12

Ooh lovely chubbly. Emily Bronte was a Marxist IMO. Agree suzy about Nelly Dean. Have you noticed she (humble serf) has strongest voice in the novel?

suejonez · 23/04/2007 14:07

WWB are you dissing JE?

LittleSarah · 23/04/2007 14:06

I really liked it, but at the same time I was hugely irritated by it as most of the characters were complete arseholes!

Original poster
suzywong · 23/04/2007 14:04

but he slaps her about a lot and all the rest of it, I am just a little shocked that he could have become such a romantic hero.

Nelly Dean is a top bird, though.

OP posts:
WigWamBam · 23/04/2007 14:02

I'm with Sue too.

Boring, long-winded drivel.

But I don't like Jane Eyre either ...

sunnysideup · 23/04/2007 14:00

Agree with suej. Jane Eyre for me. With WH, I just lost interest in the characters - not real enough.

LaylaandSethsmum · 23/04/2007 13:57

He is cruel to Isabella to get revenge for her family taking Catherine away from him.

H and C are one person after all,or thats how they feel about it.

Its fabulous , love it to bits!!!

NineUnlikelyTales · 23/04/2007 13:54

Noooooo Wuthering Heights is a much better book than Jane Eyre IMO.

Isabella is too annoying to be bothered over

suejonez · 23/04/2007 13:51

long winded boring rubbish - give me Jane Eyre any day.

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