have been stewing about this all morning but y'know what I think for all the undoubted atrocities Emerald Fennell's take on Wuthering Heights will bring us it is also the natural endpoint of how the cultural understanding of Wuthering Heights is detached from the actual implications of the text. how the popular abiding motif that we remember is the ghost pleading at the window but not what Lockwood, our genteel, sympathetic narrator, does to her.
this is our kindly upper-class narrator-protagonist mutilating a child. it is easily and absolutely the most brutal and shocking passage in a book that's about brutality. because the whole book is about social abjection, the terror of the upper classes and the violence they inflict upon the abjected, not the other way around. to aestheticise and fetishise Wuthering Heights, to hollow out its moments of shock and present them as simply a background of meaningless diffuse brutality, to cast a white man as a racialised character, is to perform the same refusal to acknowledge the actual tensions of abjection upon which Brontë's novel is predicated.
wuthering heights posting #122938: on the abuse being taken seriously
so in an earlier post i said that most of (aka nearly all) the wuthering heights adaptations fail because not a single filmmaker* nor screenwriter takes the abuse that heathcliff and catherine face (at the hands of both their father and hindley, because yes, hitting your children with the rod, neglecting them, and saying you can't possibly love them and, for example, saying to your daughter's face that she's the worst of your children [mr earnshaw's doing] and forcing your adoptive brother into servitude (and there are many articles about this especially in relation to heathcliff's race---i really recommend Maja-Lisa von Sneidern's article Wuthering Heights and the Liverpool Slave Trade for more on this, specifically their posit that "In the novel the Heights, corrupted by the introduction of the racially other [Heathcliff], is the place where the figures of a system of bondage work out their relationships." (Sneidern, 174)) , flogging him, and withholding food from your younger sister as punishment [hindley's doing] are both repeated instances abuse, in different degrees of intensity, but nonetheless have the same impact: it drives heathcliff and catherine's codependency. but this isn't what i solely want to talk about: what i want to actually talk about is heathcliff and catherine's (ultimately) world-shattering decision to visit thrushcross grange.
*note: when i say film/filmmakers/screenwriters this includes both cinema film as in movies that both got a mainstream release in theatres and made-for-tv movies and tv miniseries. i'm too lazy to type out "film and tv" every time.
So, in the book, since this is being told from Nelly's (the housekeeper's) point of view, we don't actually know why exactly in the moment Heathcliff and Catherine choose to go to Thrushcross Grange (the manor home of the substantially wealthier Linton family), but it's said later:
""Where is Miss Catherine?" [Nelly] cried hurriedly. "No accident, I hope?" "At Thrushcross Grange," [Heathcliff] answered; "and I would have been there too, but that had not the manners to ask me to stay."... "...What in the world led you to wandering to Thrushcross Grange?" .... [Heathcliff] continued: "Cathy and I escaped from the wash-house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading sermons, and being catechized by their manservant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly?"" (WH, 50-51) (of the complete and unabridged longmeadow press 1983 edition)
Usually, this paragraph is framed in film in one of two ways:
either we actually see this exchange between nelly and heathcliff
heathcliff's reason for why they go to thrushcross grange is shown in either heathcliff or catherine (usually catherine) stating whilst they're out on the moors that she would like to go visit thrushcross grange
In both instances, in most of the film adaptations I have seen, their visit to Thrushcross Grange is played off as a joke---or at least, Heathcliff's reasoning as to why they went is played off as a joke.
Partially, this may be because Nelly doesn't take the abuse that Heathcliff and Catherine face seriously, either: in the very next sentence, she says, ""Probably not," I responded. "They are good children, no doubt, and don't deserve the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct."" (WH, 51) Nelly, an unreliable narrator in case you couldn't tell, vocally does not like Heathcliff nor Catherine, even from when they're children. Because she as a character believes that Heathcliff and Catherine deserve the abuse they face, I feel like many have assumed that Emily Bronte as an author was either implying that the abuse was 1) not that serious or not that big of a deal or was 2) definitely deserved because clearly, even as children and young teens, Heathcliff and Catherine were just that evil. Thus, a lot of filmmakers either consciously or subconsciously utilize that thinking as well. And of course, the other part of it is that the filmmakers themselves have decided that the abuse is either no big deal or is something they don't want to spend a lot of time analyzing.
However, I think that this moment, the decision for Heathcliff and Catherine to visit Thrushcross Grange... I think it's honestly really huge, and honestly really underrated as far as potential scenes to have between them. If this situation was treated with the gravitas it deserves, as in: two very abused and traumatized children see the manor house of the very rich family in the distance, and say to each other, "I wonder how they live. Do they have to suffer like we do?"
And to make matters even deeper (and worse for them), the result of this is that Catherine gets her leg mangled by a dog, and her and Heathcliff's relationship is irrevocably changed by her experiences at the Grange. For five weeks, Catherine is free from her abusive brother, the stress of essentially fending for herself because of his neglect of her, and she gets access to all of the upper class amenities and things she's never had access to before in her life, with people doting on her who genuinely care about her recovery and health. It's no wonder she comes back changed: now she's acutely aware of the life she could lead--if she abandons Wuthering Heights (by marrying into the Lintons) and leaves Heathcliff to fend for himself. Even so, though...she still doesn't want to leave Heathcliff in the dust. Even when presented with the prospect of escaping her abusive household, she only thinks of ways she can use the Lintons' money to help Heathcliff escape with her. AND OF COURSE, we have to talk about how Catherine (white woman) gets the opportunity to escape essentially handed to her and Heathcliff (brown man) has to carve out his own path and do all of the hard work himself and make his own fortune....
i don't like pop literature analysis of Wuthering Heights that are like. oh you shouldn't romanticize Heathcliff and Cathy relationship it's like dark romance it sells you a negative view of what love should be about whatver. first of all "not romanticize" i'm sorry my reading of this gothic novel isn't pure enough for you. second! heathcliff is nooot a fucking dark brooding mysterious love interest. the only person to see him this way is Isabella and she's uh pretty clearly wrong and the narrative doesn't shy away from telling you this.
he is! catherine's! childhood friend! she doesn't see him as a handsome mysterious stranger she sees him as her other half and as someone who was there for her and loved her when she was a kid running around and being dirty and improper and deeply disliked by everyone in her house including her father for daring to not live up to the gendered excpectations of what she should be. and she misses being that kid so so so bad, and she hates married life and she wants to go back home even though home was awful and abusive and she ran away from it because at leaaaast she was allowed to be herself there. and heathcliff is home.
and heathcliff isn't obsessed by Cathy the way people describe him she's not a thing to own. she's the only person to have ever loved him apart from his dad for like a few years. she's the only one that doesn't constantly dehumanize him or wait for him to turn into the savage beast they all think he is. he's deeply alienated from the society he grows up in because of his skin color and she! doesn't! care!
sure sure their love is bad for them and those around but you know why it is that way? not because they're toxic or whatever (i mean sure, in part, but) but because they're not fucking allowed to love each others. because god knows and Heathcliff knows and Cathy knows they could never get married. because the only way for Catherine to hope to help him is to marry a nice guy she kind of likes because as a woman she's powerless because even if Heathcliff comes back a gentleman he's only ever be perceived as a crook! because even if he owns "Wuthering Heights" he's "cheated Hareton out of his birthright", because Heathcliff doesn't and will never have a birthright!!
like. Heathcliff is a pretty terrible person. Cathy is sometimes unkind. i wouldn't want that relationship. but you know. if they weren't operating under the rules of the Racist Patriarchal Crushing Machine, they'd maybe get to be kinder to others and each others and themselves! They're not at fault for wanting to be with each others actually it's not a great woke reading to go "wellll they should have moved on and accepted their respective shitty fucking place in society". i'm glad you've moved on from being attracted to insane dangerous men, but then also iiiii think you're missing some themes. maybe.
thomas cromwell the nasty little thottie from the Henry VIII administration may have been put to death for making it clap on Instagram on this day 485 years ago, but his legacy lives on through the following:
-The state of New Jersey
-Hustle alpha grindset memes
- The office of the vice presidency of the United States
- New Money
- hitting someone in the knee with a tire iron 
-Everyone who ever claimed to have a work wife
-Watergate (incident)
- condemning people using the phrase “I love her but”
-HR reps who know too much
- gay guy straight girl friendships where the connective tissue is that they are both viciously mean that always end in disaster
He arranged the tiny garments on the bed, the fichu next to the petticoat, the stockings beside the shoes, and he looked at them, one after the other. She was no taller than that, she had her big doll in her arms, she had put her louis d’or in the pocket of that apron, she had laughed, they walked hand in hand, she had no one in the world but him.
Then his venerable, white head fell forward on the bed, that stoical old heart broke, his face was engulfed, so to speak, in Cosette’s garments, and if any one had passed up the stairs at that moment, he would have heard frightful sobs.
i've been meaning to watch iwtv forever. but if i had taken a million years i never in the world would have predicted the first scene being a masterclass ad
it is so impressive that this show can make me feel nuclear levels of horror movie dread watching these brothers DANCE. not in spite if it being nice but BECAUSE IT'S NICE. i;'m sitting here with the emotions of a creature being HUNTED FOR SPORT
seeing louis so willing to describe himself as rough and sinning and whatever and being willing to tell daniel that he had crazy internalized homophobia like. he is willing to tell daniel about his flaws. but when it comes to the wake he's not saying any of that he's just straight up saying "he wouldn't let me" underlining his lack of power over and over it's not that he wanted it it's He Wouldn't Let Me
Much of the anti-Palestinian bigotry on this site is reflective of something stranger: the infantilisation of politics. Defences of Zionism are increasingly expressed through the language of hurt feelings, sentimental appeals, and subjective fears - to a point where even incitement to genocide is dressed up in cuteified terms. But it makes no difference. To be 'upset' at the sight of a keffiyeh, or to say that 'from the river to the sea' is more threatening than the IDF blowing up hospitals, is to admit tacitly that you're a racist who sees a people's struggle for freedom as a personal affront. It's the uwu-ification of hatred, coated with mangled standpoint theory and lib speak from the Obama years.
Imagine you invite your roommate to hang out with you and your lefty anarchist friends and everyone’s having a great time until roommate starts talking how cool Bill Clinton was and how awesome the American military industrial complex is and how great it is that the American military is present in every country and now you’re the guy who brought the neoliberal to the anarchist meeting and also this guy has never once paid you rent.
Similar thing happened to my good pal Courfeyrac Les Misérables
is the Behavior Virtuous and Beyond Reproach, or Evil and Irredeemable?
poll results:
◻️◻️◻️◻️ 40% Virtuous and Beyond Reproach
🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦 60% Evil and Irredeemable
tumblr user 1: can these losers who never leave the house understand the Behavior is literally hegemonic ideal i mean normal omg grow upp i'm literally performing the Behavior right now. and I Turned Out Fine
tumblr user 2: the Behavior was used to torture me in my parent's basement for 15 years. fuck you
tumblr user 3: every time there's a poll about the Behavior in this website both the smoll bean babies who watch Beepy Boopy And Friends and the poser hoes who were crypto proanna bloggers as recently as 2018 and can't make a text post without namedropping Foucault get SOOOOOOOOOOO annoying. not me though
They are having a tragic adoptive father daughter relationship in which they’re very close when the daughter is young but they fall apart because the father struggles with his daughter growing up off
They’re having a daughters who grew up apart from their mothers in abusive foster households before being rescued by a kind man with a mysterious past who tried his best to raise them but ended up using their relationship to fill a hole in his life left partially by the loss of a sister who then end up separated by death from that father figure once they find a romantic partner and try to grow up off
They are having a tragic adoptive father daughter relationship in which they’re very close when the daughter is young but they fall apart because the father struggles with his daughter growing up off
My favorite bit of dialogue from Les Mis 1.1.10 is from the exchange where the Bishop and the revolutionary are discussing the death of one of the Royal children during the revolution:
“I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.”
“I weep for all,” said the Bishop.
“Equally!” exclaimed conventionary G——; “and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer.”
I don't know, I think it's a perfect encapsulation of why the bishop's "All lives matter, we should feel sorry for Everyone equally" philosophy was incomplete. The bishop's privileged aristocratic background means he doesn't necessarily understand how to take this systemic inequality into account when choosing who to grieve and who to forget. The death of a king's child is a horrible tragedy beyond words and proof that the rebels are heartless monsters.....but the deaths of thousands of non-royal children under the reign of tyrannical kings, as a direct result of those kings' policies, are quietly forgotten by him.
Until the Conventionary pointed it out, the Bishop couldn't see that "weeping for all" isn't enough when some lives are treated as if they're inherently far more expendable.
It also makes me think of the fact that there are, for example, so many pieces of media about the suffering of Poor Girlboss Marie Antoinette to the point where its almost its own subgenre. And there's that entire subgenre like A Tale of Two Cities/The Scarlet Pimpernel that's about how Hard it was to be an aristocrat around dirty deranged French Revolution peasants. And period/fantasy media as a whole loves to focus on the struggles of royalty and the upper class. Like yeah, everyone can experience pain/trauma regardless of their social class- and yeah theoretically we should weep for everyone's pain equally. But as the Conventionary points out.... it's interesting how the pain of one small group of privileged people is treated with far much more importance, and is focused on so much more often, while the pain of a much larger group of people is utterly forgotten. "Weeping for all" often only means, weeping for the powerful and important people who were considered worthy of being remembered. And in that vein I think it's relevant that multiple main characters in Les Mis end up being buried in nameless or unmarked graves.
My favorite bit of dialogue from Les Mis 1.1.10 is from the exchange where the Bishop and the revolutionary are discussing the death of one of the Royal children during the revolution:
“I will weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep with me over the children of the people.”
“I weep for all,” said the Bishop.
“Equally!” exclaimed conventionary G——; “and if the balance must incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering longer.”
I don't know, I think it's a perfect encapsulation of why the bishop's "All lives matter, we should feel sorry for Everyone equally" philosophy was incomplete. The bishop's privileged aristocratic background means he doesn't necessarily understand how to take this systemic inequality into account when choosing who to grieve and who to forget. The death of a king's child is a horrible tragedy beyond words and proof that the rebels are heartless monsters.....but the deaths of thousands of non-royal children under the reign of tyrannical kings, as a direct result of those kings' policies, are quietly forgotten by him.
Until the Conventionary pointed it out, the Bishop couldn't see that "weeping for all" isn't enough when some lives are treated as if they're inherently far more expendable.
It also makes me think of the fact that there are, for example, so many pieces of media about the suffering of Poor Girlboss Marie Antoinette to the point where its almost its own subgenre. And there's that entire subgenre like A Tale of Two Cities/The Scarlet Pimpernel that's about how Hard it was to be an aristocrat around dirty deranged French Revolution peasants. And period/fantasy media as a whole loves to focus on the struggles of royalty and the upper class. Like yeah, everyone can experience pain/trauma regardless of their social class- and yeah theoretically we should weep for everyone's pain equally. But as the Conventionary points out.... it's interesting how the pain of one small group of privileged people is treated with far much more importance, and is focused on so much more often, while the pain of a much larger group of people is utterly forgotten. "Weeping for all" often only means, weeping for the powerful and important people who were considered worthy of being remembered. And in that vein I think it's relevant that multiple main characters in Les Mis end up being buried in nameless or unmarked graves.
I love how Marius does All Of That to Jean Valjean and Cosette, and then takes Cosette to visit his fathers grave…he's literally just like:
“Can you imagine how cruel it is to separate a parent from their child though dishonest means? Terrible thing to do. My father died of it. Anyway don’t ask where your father is”
