Orphan Slayer Widow Maker @alexandravolkov - Tumblr Blog

To further my Nelly Dean defense, when it comes to Heathcliff, Nelly is consistently the person who treats him as a human being. Isabella calls him an inhuman monster and wishes him blotted out from creation (not that I blame her considering what he has done to her at this point), Nelly corrects her and insists that he's human and better than some men (honestly a bit tone deaf). Edgar calls him racist and classiest slurs, Nelly does not participate. He is always Heathcliff to her. Nelly finds Catherine 1's participation in the Linton's disparaging of Heathcliff uncomfortable. Nelly only mentions Heathcliff's ambiguous racial background to try to make him feel better about himself.

It isn't until he's in a manic/delirious state before his death that Nelly becomes frightened of him:

“Is he a ghoul or a vampire?” I mused. I had read of such hideous incarnate demons. And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him in infancy, and watched him grow to youth, and followed him almost through his whole course; and what absurd nonsense it was to yield to that sense of horror. “But where did he come from, the little dark thing, harboured by a good man to his bane?” muttered Superstition, as I dozed into unconsciousness.

And even then, she still visits him, tries to get him to eat, and calls a doctor to check on him.

Even the characters that Nelly dislikes, she consistently tries to take care of them. She has every reason to wish Heathcliff dead by the end, but she's staying up all night worrying if he's sleeping or not. She goes out of her way to bring him dinner without being asked to. The only exceptions to this are Linton H., whom she doesn't really know, and Joseph, who literally everyone in the novel hates.

Nelly Dean is not a villain. She is a mother hen and she is willing and able to take in almost anyone as a chick. Her and Heathcliff might get off to a rocky start, but despite everything he does to her and hers, she is concerned about him until the end.

#wuthering heights

naasog

“Leave with you”

Full of Mettle by Thornback

#FMA

faintingheroine-deactivated2024

I know it is often debated whether Heathcliff and Cathy’s love is sexual but if it were do you think that they were conscious of that? Or were they in denial?

I am thinking of these passages by Henry Staten:

vickythestrange

I agree wholly with Mr Staten. Catherine willfully deceived herself about her own desire in order to come to terms with the ‘choice’ forced on her by social convention: choosing Edgar over Heathcliff. Heathcliff, meanwhile, not bound by convention, never doubted his passion for Catherine, he only knew how to disguise it well under ironclad self-restraint.

#wuthering heights

antigonick

I want you to be aware that I KNOW you have treated me infernally—infernally! Do you hear? And if you flatter yourself that I don't perceive it, you are a fool; and if you think I can be consoled by sweet words, you are an idiot: and if you fancy I'll suffer unrevenged, I'll convince you of the contrary, in a very little while!

—Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

faintingheroine-deactivated2024

The fact is Heathcliff is more sexy through his words than through his looks. Which is weirdly moving to me because:

1) This is what literature should be about: Having a way with words.

2) Heathcliff brings the reader to his side mainly through the force of his diction, as Joyce Carol Oates said:

This is ironic considering that his archenemy hurt him mainly through denying him an education, and even Catherine called Heathcliff unable of intelligent conversation right before accepting Edgar’s proposal. And Heathcliff avenged that throughout all of his life. And created Hareton who does not have the adult Heathcliff’s forceful speech at any point in the book.

#wuthering heights #AU-Edith

incorrectwutheringheightsquotes

In Wuthering Heights Isabella thinks that Heathcliff would treat Catherine like he treated herself if Catherine ever married him, but that Catherine would resist this disgusting treatment:

“‘But then,” I continued, holding myself ready to flee, ”if poor Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she would soon have presented a similar picture! She wouldn’t have borne your abominable behaviour quietly: her detestation and disgust must have found voice.””

(Chapter 17)

This is the only time in the book when the question of how a marriage between Heathcliff and Catherine would even be like is raised.

How would an actual marriage between Heathcliff and Catherine be like?

It would be healthy and well-adjusted.

It would have problems but they would mostly be a loving decent family.

They would be a loving but dysfunctional couple.

Isabella’s guess is correct, H would be abusive and C would hate him.

C would be abusive and H would be subservient to her whims.

C would be abusive and H would hate her.

H would be abusive and C would take it quietly (I haven’t read the book)

Other option (explain what)

Voting ended onMay 28, 2024

vickythestrange

Marriage of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, picture not in true colour

#wuthering heights

deathshallbenomore

hey y’all new uquiz just dropped: how toxic are you on a scale from rat poison to the way heathcliff behaves towards isabella (and basically everyone else)

faintingheroine-deactivated2024

But you see, he is staying within the limits of the law

princesssarisa

The law of 1784, that is, which probably allowed things that would warrant a police call today.

faintingheroine-deactivated2024

True. I guess the question is would a modern Heathcliff be smart enough stay within the limits of modern laws?

faintingheroine-deactivated2024

@longagoitwastuesday ‘s tags

vickythestrange

I am sorry for being contrarian, but my opinion is that Heathcliff is not particularly good at all. He keeps winning the game because he is basically playing it on easy mode.

Before the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, a married woman did not have independent legal existence (she was a feme covert). At the time of Wuthering Heights, a wife wasn’t just unable to own and dispose of property; but also unable to earn wages in her own right (which was allowed by the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870) which is why in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë Helen Graham passes herself off as a widow for more reasons than just escaping her husband Arthur. While divorce was not outright outlawed, it required a private Act of Parliament to annul the marriage (and until the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 the marriage was a sacramental institution, i.e. handled by ecclesial rather than civic courts). The complexities and costs of procuring a divorce were daunting in their own right, so that only the ultra-rich could even consider it, but they were virtually impossible for women to achieve on their own initiative; because a married women, per the principle of coverture, was subordinate and without property, she only had independent means if her previous legal guardians had specifically set aside her dowry as separate from the main property of the married couple (i.e. husband). Even a generous dowry in itself would scarcely suffice to cover the proceedings of a divorce, meaning that only men could initiate it, and after all the proceedings were settled the men would typically retain the entirety of the couple’s properties and monies. Marriage might offer some financial security and social prestige for the women of the gentry, but it was also a surrender of all personal liberty and rights to property or even wages. Why do you think Jane Austen in Persuasion considers it obvious to everyone why a widow might choose to remain widowed (but then dedicates a paragraph or two to exploring why on Earth a widower would not seek to remarry)?

So what does this have to do with Heathcliff? Well, it means that as soon as he has seduced a teenage Isabella into marrying him, he has near-absolute lordship over her. Anything short of outright murder is game, and Isabella not only does not have independent means to sue her husband for any mistreatment, she can’t even sue him because she is not an independent legal entity! The case of Cathy Linton is very similar, because while it rests on coercion rather than deception, and on Heathcliff’s assuming of guardianship over his son and his properties, Cathy’s non-existence as a legal person is the same. That Isabella’s brother (and Cathy’s father) is a local magistrate might seem like a leverage, but here again we come back to the matter that Heathcliff his playing the game on ‘easy mode’; in London, or any town with more than one or two lawyers, really, Edgar might be able to use his influence and money to hire someone who isn’t on Heathcliff’s payroll. Nelly could call the constabulary to smoke Heathcliff out of the Heights when he abducts Cathy and be more sure of the results. But Wuthering Heights & Thrushcross Grange are set in a heavily rural region, where the one local lawyer can be easily bought, especially when Linton is ill and cannot move about fast enough to pre-empt Heathcliff’s bribery. In an urban environment, there would be other gentry, the emerging bourgeoisie, any number of people who could take notice and take action against Heathcliff.

Much like how Arthur Huntingdon isolates his wife Helen to lord over her the better, Heathcliff makes full use of the secluded nature of the Heights and the Grange. Far away from the eyes of society, where his personal wealth alone might not be enough to shield him from consequences of his villainy, it is easy for Heathcliff to play master. I wonder how he would do in Bath or London.

#wuthering heights

cronegloam

wuthering heights is insane for a lot of reasons but specifically bc nelly dean really did bury heathcliff next to cathy and edgar she really said yeah let’s show everyone for time immemorial that these guys had a weird fucked up little throuple that slowly killed them all . everybody line up to see the freaks and their freak graves . anyway what I love about nelly dean is she’s a messy bitch who loves drama

#wuthering heights

my-deer-friend

Ah yes, Wuthering Heights, the "greatest love story of all time" where [checks notes] an orphaned boy endures so much abuse, ostracisation and bigotry that his hatred overcomes him and he enacts cruel revenge on multiple generations of his own family, in the aftermath of getting rejected by the girl he trauma-bonded with during childhood and whose premature death so deranges him that he digs up her corpse multiple times, stewing in loathing, misanthropy and alienation that eventually drive him so mad that he starves himself to death.

That love story?

#wuthering heights

muirin007

Also, I think so many adaptations of Wuthering Heights miss the mark because it is, fundamentally, like many pieces of gothic literature, about the Others looking in. Those on the bottom scrabbling to get to or infiltrate the top. If you ARE at the top, if you have never even once challenged yourself to slip into or empathize with the Other--or if you have never been Othered--then you cannot faithfully adapt media that places the Other front and center and asks us to look at it and what it teaches us about ourselves.

The monstrous and low and abject and terrifying enthrall us because they speak to those hidden parts of ourselves that challenge and scare us. If you have never been meaningfully challenged--if you cannot interrogate racism and classicism and generational trauma because you are solidly a Lockwood or a Linton and have never been or even wanted to explore what it would mean to be otherwise--you cannot faithfully communicate the novel's message. You cannot understand. You have never been below, looking up, or outside, looking and clawing for a way in. You have never even wanted to explore what it means to reach, really reach, while only ever existing wholly estranged from what you are reaching for. It will never reach back. You will never get in.

But if you've never had to claw at those walls separating you from the rest, how can you understand what gothic literature like Wuthering Heights really asks?

Confronting the gothic takes courage. You have to say something, and that something is very often ugly, but it is the truth, and it is motion and meaning. Fennell says nothing because she has never had to.

#wuthering heights #AU-Edith

venacesaur

Actually no I need to rant about people's stupid excuses for Emerald Fennel whitewashing Heathcliff. At this point I think it would be better for people to just blatantly come out and say "I can't see a brown man as a love interest" (even though Emily Brontë, a literal British white woman from the 1840s, could imagine it, so what does that say about you?). What really pisses me off is the people acting like it's woke to say "Heathcliff is a horrible person, so it would be racist and problematic to cast him as a POC!"

This is fucking Wuthering Heights we're talking about here. Pretty much every character is a horrible person in some way. What I want to know is why we're holding Heathcliff, and characters of color in general, to an impossible standard that white characters are never held to. Why do POC have to be morally pure angels in order for us to be acceptable in fiction? Why do you believe it's better to entirely erase a canon brown character than to portray him in a flawed way?

I won't say that Emily Brontë's portrayal of Heathcliff is anti-racist by modern standards, as she does fall into racist tropes here and there, but what made him a radical character back then is the fact that he's a fully fleshed out person, he's a central character (you could even argue that he's the central character, since the novel starts by introducing him and ends with his death), and the narrative implies that Catherine should have chosen him over Edgar, a white man. He isn't a flat stereotype or a minor background character with no name. Brontë allowed him to grieve and be violent and selfish and reckless just as much as the white characters; he's allowed to take up just as much space on the page as they do. Most importantly, we are asked to sympathize with him and why he acts the way he does, and how he is shaped by the racist attitudes of the white characters around him. Apparently that's still too radical for some of you. And Catherine is also part of a marginalized group! She's a woman, and she is bound by and negatively affected by gender roles and misogyny. She is also a horrible person. And I don't see anyone saying "Catherine should be played by a male actor, because it's problematic for women to be portrayed this way." Interesting.

#wuthering heights

agoodhandwriting

Nelly Dean and Cinderella

#wuthering heights

his-own-kingdom-deactivated2026

From “Lockesley Hall” (1842)

From Wuthering Heights (1847)

From Barry Lyndon (1975, adapted from an 1844 novel)

In all three cases there is a:

Poor and Vengeful Suitor -> His Fickle Female Childhood Sweetheart -> Her Rich Suitor

In Lockesley Hall Poor and Vengeful Suitor demeans Her Rich Suitor’s love for His Fickle Female Childhood Sweetheart by likening it to the love for a pet.

In Wuthering Heights Poor and Vengeful Suitor demeans His Fickle Female Childhood Sweetheart’s love for Her Rich Suitor by likening it to the love for a pet.

In Barry Lyndon His Fickle Female Childhood Sweetheart likens her own love for Poor and Vengeful Suitor to the love for a pet.

@winged-cries @idle-teen28

#wuthering heights

naasog

“You’re not Hayate”

Full of Mettle by Thornback

#FMA

purplebraindemon

alright so… I’m afraid that I may be a little obsessed with this fic… and I’m maybe going a little crazy….. and I may have spent a little too long on this