Over the weekend, Turner Classic Movies showed the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. As I read these final chapters of the book, I notice that the two vehicles tell a very different story. The movie was a love story. The book was a revenge plot. At no point while I have been watching the movie for years, did I think that Heathcliff was consumed with revenge the way that he is in the original novel. He was able to get back at Hindley, but Thrushcross Grange still belonged to Edgar at the end of the movie. And of course, Cathy nor Heathcliff had any children in the movie version. The writer responsible for drafting the script was brilliant. There was a lot that he had to omit and rework in order to make the movie work and it did. It's a pity that the movie came out in 1939 along with other classics such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, it would be much more well known if it had been released another year.
As for the end of the novel, I found it disheartening that Heathcliff was so consumed by hatred and envy that he sacrificed his own son in order to enact his revenge. The way that he played on Cathy's emotions in order to get her to visit Linton for his own benefit was disturbing, not to mention kidnapping her in order to force her to marry Linton. I also find it interesting how Bronte turns the tables and makes Edgar a hero for being willing to sacrifice his wealth for Cathy's happiness and makes Heathcliff the villain for sacrificing his son's life for revenge. However, in the end revenge does not give him the happiness that he thought it would, because he is reminded of Catherine through the children's features and personalities. This, along with Catherine's haunting drives Heathcliff into a deep depression and he eventually dies from a broken heart. His love for Catherine conquered his hate for Edgar.
It disheartened me too that Heathcliff is consumed by hatred and revenge to the point that he takes it out on his own son. When Linton meets Catherine out on the moors, he is scared to death of what his father might do to him if he fails to persuade young Catherine to marry him. But Heathcliff doesn’t seem too worried about hurting his son’s feelings. All he needs from Linton is for him to marry young Catherine so his revenge plan will come together. When it seems that the plan will not work itself out, though, he intervenes and successfully (though despicably) manipulates young Catherine by giving her the guilt trip about how it’s her fault that Linton is sick. This kind of behavior just shows how Heathcliff becomes a resentful and mean-spirited man who goes way out of his way to make others miserable. Before he dies, though, his hate fizzles away and he wants to be buried next to older Catherine, showing that, like you said, his love for older Catherine conquers his hate for Edgar.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the biggest thing I took from Wuthering Heights was the fact that Heathcliff's love from Catherine overcame his hatred for Edgar. I know it sounds dumb but in some case love really does prevail. Also, at some points while reading the the last few chapter of Wuthering Heights I liked to think that Catherine witnessed the horrible things Heathcliff did to her family and children and haunted him because of that. Maybe in death she knew she still has control over him and broke out of her 'silence' that Lockwood discusses at the end of the story. I kind of laugh as I write that right now because my roommates and I joke about there being a ghost in my house =) I also kind of think that Heathcliff knew what he was doing was wrong the whole time and his mind forged manacle was Catherine herself.
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