Is Wuthering Heights a Vampire Novel???
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Wuthering Heights
Mithrandir-Olorin33 — 12 years ago(January 11, 2014 10:24 PM)
An interesting analysis of the Novel
http://taliesinttlg.blogspot.com/2013/12/classic-literature-wuthering- heights.html
A blurb: Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.
The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature.
The book: Emily Bronts novel Wuthering Heights was published, under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, in 1847 (a year before her death) and was reedited by Charlotte Bront and released posthumously as a second edition in 1850. Now you might be wondering why I am looking at it here? Many will know it as a dark, gothic piece of fiction with the rather Byronic Heathcliff (I find the idea that he might be classed as a hero or even an anti-hero doesnt sit right with me, he most certainly is a villain), others will know the 1939 film with Laurence Olivier (Dracula), Merle Oberon and David Niven (Vampira), and some will only really know it from the classic song by Kate Bush.
The book is narrated by a tenant of Heathcliffs, Mr Lockwood, who through much of the book relays the narration of a servant of the two buildings in the book (Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange) named Nelly Dean. Nelly wonders about Heathcliff, towards the end of the book, Is he a ghoul or a vampire? Though she herself goes on to suggest that this is, absurd nonsense.
However if we look to the work of Carol A Senf (The Vampire in 19th Century English Literature) we will see that vampires, as well as in vampire stories in their own right, were sometimes invoked in other literature. Senf points out that books such as Middlemarch, Bleak House and Charlotte Bronts Jane Eyre all mention vampires. Jane Eyre likens Bertha (Rochesters insane first wife) to the foul German spectre the Vampyre. The three books mentioned are clear in the fact that their reference to someone being like a vampire does not make them supernatural. Senf points out that, despite Nelly Dean saying otherwise, Emily Bront does not clarify that point. Indeed Nelly Dean goes on to say that both Heathcliff (who is dead at this point) and his erstwhile love Catherine are said to be seen abroad on the moors. For instance a boy leading sheep and a couple of lambs will not pass a point, neither will his animals, because Theres Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under tnab,
So, is there any other evidence? Lockwood, at the beginning of the novel, is forced (because of the weather) to stay at Wuthering Heights (a farmhouse). He is shown to the erstwhile room of Cathy. Now we should note that there are two Catherines in the novel. The first Catherine is a headstrong young woman, she and Heathcliff love each other but she marries Edgar Linton. The second Catherine is her daughter, the elder Cathy died giving birth to her. Heathcliff forces the younger Catherine to marry his son later in the novel But, getting back to Lockwood, he reads some of Catherines journal before going to sleep, but in the night a branch tapping at the window disturbs him. He cannot open the window and so breaks the glass and goes to grab the branch when a hand grabs him. The owner, describing herself as Catherine Linton (her married name, and Bront makes the point that Lockwood had read her name much more as Earnshaw, her maiden name) says she has come home after being lost on the moors. To try and get her off him, he cuts her wrist (which bleeds) on the broken glass. Catherine, at that point, is long dead and, despite having read part of her journal, Lockwood is a stranger to the area. Though this may have been a nightmare both Lockwood and Heathcliff clearly believe the visitation to be real, the fact that Lockwood cut her wrist suggests she was corporeal.
As we learn Heathcliffs story we hear that he is described as a dark-skinned gypsy and is a child found by Catherines father on a trip to Liverpool and brought into their home. He is very much, then, a foundling and a representation of the other which, of course, the vampire often represents. We never discover during the period of time he is absent from the area how he makes his fortune. We do discover that he has a violent temper and, with regard Edgar Linton, he suggests if it wasnt for Catherine, he would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! When she is buried Heathcliff replaces a lock of Lintons hair with his own, to be placed in the grave with her.
Before her death, howeve