On Wuthering Heights

                                                －08英语一班  刘海涛

    The Wuthering Heights was written by Emily Bronte. This book is talk about a love story, The whole story make people’s mood heavy. Fortunately, the end is happy.

The novel is told in the form of an extended flashback. After a visit to his strange landlord, a newcomer to the area desires to know the history of the family--which he receives from Nelly Deans a servant who introduces he to the Earnshaw family who once resided in the house known as Wuthering Heights.

    Now, I will talk about something happened in this story in detail. This story is happened between two big family, know as Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.This novel opens in 1801, with Lockwood arriving at Thrushcross Grange, a grand house on the Yorkshire moors he is renting from the surly Heathcliff, who lives at nearby Wuthering Heights, Lockwood first visited the Wuthering Heights and meet his landlord, Mr Heathcliff who is his only neighbour. His landlord seems not so happy to see me. In fact, everyone in that house seems friendless. and many strangle thing happened.

    There were a very big snow when Lockwood went to visit the big house. The landlord was very unhappy. he even don't want me to lever me to have a sleep. Because walking in a big storm is very dangerous. When Lockwood sleep at night. Lockwood met the ghost Catherine Linton. She want to went into the house ,but Lockwood don't let she go, so Lockwood screamed and then Mr Heathcliff came into. He was very sad when he hear I have saw ghost Catherine Linton, and ask me go out. What a terrible night. Intrigued, Lockwood asks the housekeeper Nelly Dean to tell the story of Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights while he is staying at the Grange recovering from a cold.

    Nelly takes over the narration and begins her story thirty years earlier, when Heathcliff, a foundling living on the streets of Liverpool, is brought to Wuthering Heights by the then-owner, Mr. Earnshaw, and raised as his own. Ellen comments casually that Heathcliff might have been descended from Indian or Chinese origins. He is often described as "dark" or "gypsy". Earnshaw's daughter Catherine becomes Heathcliff's inseparable friend. Her brother Hindley, however, resents Heathcliff, seeing him as an interloper and rival. Mr. Earnshaw dies three years later, and Hindley  takes over the estate. He beat Heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. Catherine becomes friends with a neighbour family, the Lintons of Thrushcross Grange, who mellow her initially wild personality. She is especially attached to the refined and mild young Edgar Linton, whom Heathcliff instantly dislikes.

    A year later, Hindley's wife dies, apparently of consumption, shortly after giving birth to a son, Hareton; Hindley takes to drink. Some two years after that, Catherine agrees to marry Edgar. Nelly knows that this will crush Heathcliff, and Heathcliff overhears Catherine's explanation that it would be "degrading" to marry him. Heathcliff storms out and leaves Wuthering Heights, not hearing Catherine's continuing declarations that Heathcliff is as much a part of her as the rocks are to the earth beneath. Catherine marries Edgar, and is initially very happy. Some time later, Heathcliff returns, intent on destroying those who prevent him from being with Catherine. He has, mysteriously, become very wealthy. Through loans he has made to the drunken and dissipated Hindley that Hindley cannot repay, he takes ownership of Wuthering Heights upon Hindley's death. Intent on ruining Edgar, Heathcliff elopes with Edgar's sister Isabella, which places him in a position to inherit Thrushcross Grange upon Edgar's death.

    Catherine becomes very ill after Heathcliff's return and dies a few hours after giving birth to a daughter also named Catherine, or Cathy. Heathcliff becomes only more bitter and vengeful. Isabella flees her abusive marriage a month later, and subsequently gives birth to a boy, Linton. At around the same time, Hindley dies. Heathcliff takes ownership of Wuthering Heights, and vows to raise Hindley's son Hareton with as much neglect as he had suffered at Hindley's hands years earlier.

    Twelve years later, the dying Isabella asks Edgar to raise her and Heathcliff's son, Linton. However, Heathcliff finds out about this and takes the sickly, spoiled child to Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff has nothing but contempt for his son, but delights in the idea of him ruling the property of his enemies. To that end, a few years later, Heathcliff attempts to persuade young Cathy to marry Linton. Cathy refuses, so Heathcliff kidnaps her and forces the two to marry. Soon after, Edgar Linton dies, followed shortly by Linton Heathcliff. This leaves Cathy a widow and a virtual prisoner at Wuthering Heights, as Heathcliff has gained complete control of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. It is at this point in the narrative that Lockwood arrives, taking possession of Thrushcross Grange, and hearing Nelly Dean's story. Shocked, Lockwood leaves for London.

    During his absence from the area, however, events reach a climax that Nelly describes when he returns a year later. Cathy gradually softens toward her rough, uneducated cousin Hareton, just as her mother was tender towards Heathcliff. When Heathcliff is confronted by Cathy and Hareton's love, notably Hareton's determination to protect the defiant Cathy from Heathcliff's attack, he seems to suffer a mental break from reality and sees Catherine's ghost. He abandons his life-long vendetta and dies broken and tormented, but glad to be rejoining Catherine. Cathy and Hareton marry. Heathcliff is buried next to Catherine (the elder), and the story concludes with Lockwood visiting the grave, unsure of what to feel.

    When I read this story, Heathcliff was the first man came into my mind. Heathcliff was a homeless orphan on the streets of Liverpool when he first appeared, and then Mr Earnshaw tyrannized him, Mr Earnshaw loved he so much that make the Mr Earnshaw's son Hindley feel unhappy. When Mr Earnshaw died, his son took the family, he asked Heathcliff to do some heavy works. Heathcliff decided to requital the family. But the Mr Earnshaw's daughter Catherine love Heathcliff very much. She love he without reason and didn't care about that her brother want to stop she from Heathcliff. Heathcliff love she too.But although Catherine loves him, even recognizes him as her soulmate, she cannot lower herself to marry so far below her social station. After a simple thing make them out from others. Catherine loved Isabella Linton , another man who was the son of another big family, after a accident. And when she saw Heathcliff again, she thought that Heathcliff was very dirty, ane didn't want to stay with Heathcliff. Heathcliff felt his heart was broken and decided to went out of the family. When Catherine realized that Heathcliff was the one she really loved ,she found that Heathercliff was gone, so she married to Isabella Linton.

    Heathcliff becomes a villain when he acquires power and became a gentle man. He returns to Wuthering Heights with money. A year later, Hindley's wife dies, apparently of consumption, shortly after giving birth to a son, hareton. Hindley takes to drink. Heathcliff started his plan, through loans he has made to the drunken and dissipated Hindley that Hindley cannot repay, he takes ownership of Wuthering Heights upon Hindley's death. he stolen the Hindley Earnshaw's house from Hindley Eranshaw, and vows to raise Hindley's son Hareton with as much neglect as he had suffered at Hindley's hands years erlier.

    Then he went to saw Catherine. Catherine becomes very ill after Heathcliff's return and dies a few hours after giving birth to a daughter also named Catnerine. Because he often went to Linton's house, the Isabella's sister loved the Heathcliff, and Heathcliff married to Isabella's sister. When they got married, Heathcliff made his wife feel very regretful to married him. He often beat her, and he also made the Isabella Linton died so that he get the Linton's house. But Catherine died too, which made Heathcliff felt so hard to accepted it. Finally Heathcliff died of hunger because he didn't eat any food for a long time. He loved the Catherine so much that he staied at Catherine's house when he told that Catherine's ghost appeared in the house, and the also have a love story between the Catherine's daughter and her brother's son. Finally, they loved each other, and took the two big yard.    

    In this story, Catherine represents wild nature, in both her high, lively spirits and her occasional cruelty. She loves Heathcliff so intensely that she claims they are the same person. However, her actions are driven in part by her social ambitions, which initially are awakened during her first stay at the Lintons, and which eventually compelt her to marry Edgar. Catherine is free—spirited, beautiful, spoiled, and often arrogant, she is given to fits of temper, and she is torn between her both of the men who love her. The location of her coffin symbolizes the conflict that tears apart her short life. She is buried in a corner of the Kirkyard. In contrast to Catherine, Isabella Linton—Catherine’s sister—in—law represents culture and civilization, both in her refinement and in her weakness. Ultimately, she ruins her life by falling in love with Heathcliff. He never returns her feelings and treats her as a meretool in his quest for revenge on the Linton family.

    Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, when it first published, it was not well received by the reading public, and many of them condemned it as sordid, vulgar, and unnatural--and author Emily Bronte went to her grave in 1848 believing that her only novel was a failure. It was not until 1850, when Wuthering Heighs received a second printing with an introduction by Emily's sister Charlotte, that it attracted a wide readership. And from that point the reputation of the book has never looked back. Today it is widely recognized as one of the great novels of English literature.

     In my own opinion, Wuthering heighs is not just a pretty love story, It is swirling tale of largely unlikeable people caught up in obsessive love that turns to dark madness. It make people feel extremely unpleasant, although there have a happy end, and it possesses a grandeur of language and design, a sense of tremendous pity and great loss that sets it apart from virtually every other novel written. I think it will attract more and more people.