Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights follows two lovers whose passion is thwarted by society and their own insecurities. Here are five enduring love lessons from this English literature classic.
By Margot Carmichael Lester Wuthering Heights is an epic tale of passion, social issues and revenge written by Emily Brontë in 1847 that, despite being more than 150 years old, is still relevant to young lovers today. Its story has been adapted into film, television, ballet, opera and theatrical productions, musicals, and even provided the title and theme for British
Giving yourself over to a grand passion is tempting.
songstress Kate Bush’s internationally successful debut single. What about this novel, then, has made it resonate and endure throughout the years? “In Wuthering Heights there is sex, angst, and remorse enough to upstage an entire season of Gossip Girl,” laughs Elissa Krasner, a senior English major at the University of Massachusetts with a minor in British women’s literature. “But there are also some tough truths that reach across the ages to speak directly to today’s dating hopefuls.”
In honor of Brontë’s birthday (July 30), we asked scholars to identify love lessons from the book that are still relevant today; here are five you’d be wise to learn.
Lesson 1: Passion alone is not enough to give you a successful or happy life. “I’ve always read this book as a warning against the pursuit of an all-consuming passion to the exclusion of everything else in life,” says Sarah Ficke, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Catherine and Heathcliff fail as a couple and as individuals because they can’t reconcile their love for each other with their individual priorities — Catherine’s desire for an upper-class life, Heathcliff’s need for revenge — and they can’t see beyond their feelings for each other. “Giving yourself over to a grand passion is tempting, but it may tear you away from everything else that you value and leave you with nothing,” opines Ficke. “Cathy and Heathcliff’s passion for each other is destructive because they never look beyond it, and, when it becomes impossible for them to be together, they never look for an alternative resolution.”
Lesson 2: Follow your heart instead of questioning it.
That’s the story’s big takeaway message for Krasner: “Cathy knows instinctively Heathcliff is The One, her true soul mate, but she lets herself get derailed by asking hypothetical ‘What if?’ questions: ‘What if he can’t find a decent job?’ ‘God, what will my friends think?’ ‘Dear Lord, if he wears crappy Christmas cardigans with reindeer on them, I’ll be a laughingstock!’ You have to calm down and realize you have only yourself to answer to when you’re asking such questions. This life will rain down more manure than a sheep farm on you, but if you can find someone to help you shovel it, that’s what really counts.”
Lesson 3: Money can’t buy you love.
Brontë realized this universal truth way before the Beatles crooned their famous tune about the subject. “What Catherine realizes when she meets Edgar — who is Heathcliff’s rival for Catherine’s affection and whom Catherine
It’s all about the trappings of gentility for Catherine.
eventually marries instead of Heathcliff — is that she wants is to be a ‘lady’ more than she wants to be in a passionate relationship,” explains Gina Barreca, professor of English and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut. “It’s all about the trappings of gentility for Catherine: she wants the candlelight and silks and good manners that Edgar provides and decides to choose these niceties over Heathcliff’s grubby, pawing, greedy love. Money [isn’t] enough to make a relationship work. Relationships depend on a balanced, less-than-hysterical perspective on the world, and a romance where one person is embarrassed by the other — or wants only what the other offers in terms of material goods and society’s perception of you as a couple — is doomed.”
Lesson 4: Obsession belongs on the perfume aisle, not in relationships. “The obsession that Heathcliff and Catherine have with each other is the part of their romance that leads to madness, death, and even ghostly hauntings,” notes Mary Hall, a Los Angeles-based Brontë fan who even visited the “real” Wuthering Heights in Yorkshire, England. “When Catherine says, ‘I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being’, that is the epitome of dysfunctional, obsessive love. While it’s true that Catherine and Heathcliff were bound together by passion and their shared love of nature, no one can — or should — cross over and think of him- or herself as becoming or merging with another person.” In other words, if someone’s a little too into you, it’s probably not a compliment.
Lesson 5: Keep hope alive, in spite of the odds. “Through all the dysfunction, repressed sexuality, and even homicide, a truly noble sentiment throbs at the core of this book; namely, that even the most twisted, messed-up creatures can find someone they can love and have that love returned,” Krasner chuckles. “Hey, if a chick like Cathy can find her true heart’s desire, why not the rest of us?” Carrboro, N.C.-based freelancer Margot Carmichael Lester started college as an English major but finished it with a degree in journalism.
Get What You Want Out Of Love
