Reading Literature is an enlightening experience in itself. But there are some books that have a strong grip on us from the very first page. If you are looking for a beautiful, devasting and profoundly haunting experience, then Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is the perfect book to get you going.
Wuthering Heights was published in 1847 under Emily Bronte’s pen name “Ellis Bell”. The destructive love and passion of Heathcliff for Catherine takes up the majority section of the book. But the novel is beautifully complex in many other ways as well and full of chaos and even wickedness.
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Heathcliff lives in a remote Moorland farmhouse, in Wuthering Heights. He is the landlord of Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire, which is rented by Lockwood who is a wealthy man, from the South of England.
What happens next at Thrushcross Grange, is a series of haunting events that leaves Lockwood petrified and yet curious to know more about Heathcliff, who on the outside seemed like a gentleman but was very uncouth in his ways.
Now you must be wondering how love and horror, which are polar opposite themes, are prevalent in this novel. But before you start questioning what the book is actually about, be prepared to enter the charming world of Gothic Literature, where supernatural elements and ominous settings are seen from the beginning till the end of the story.
Gothic romance is not very usual in contemporary times, but the beauty of it lies in the characters and their actions.
The love story of Heathcliff and Catherine is the epitome of a beautiful haunted love, where the dead refuse to leave the living and the living find ways to bring back their haunted love.
We will leave it to your curiosity to find out who is who. If you as a reader are easily mesmerized by the beautiful setting of a story, then Wuthering Heights is sure to provide you with a stimulating experience.
The landscape in the story plays a huge role, as it keeps on changing with the changing seasons. Emily Bronte has provided a natural setting, which will definitely engage the reader like he or she were there themselves.
The power of the howling wind, the empty landscape and the place and time of birds, all are used throughout the story to create a picture of the wilderness of the story. The Gothic setting of the story is used to contrast with the characters’ own wilderness.
Wuthering Heights is a devastating story of the horrors and beauty of deep love and affection. The unlikable characters and their actions are what make this story even more powerful. It is important for readers to be aware of the grey mood in the story, but one should also be ready to be flooded with the red of love and horror.
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Wuthering Heights isn’t exactly a hard or easy read, but for a beginner, it is important to have a higher reading level and a good grasp of vocabulary to reading this book. Therefore the age rating for this book is 14 and above.
For those people who like fast stories, Wuthering Heights might not be the best option for you as the story’s plot builds up slowly. Readers who would like to introduce themselves to classical literature are recommended to begin with this novel, as it contains almost all the elements of a perfectly laid novel.
For a few beginners, the language might seem to be a bit old-fashioned, but once you get accustomed to the story, the language will start making sense.
Many readers might even question the relevance of the word love or romance in this story, which is shown in an unpredictable and catastrophic way.
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Those readers who do not believe in the traditional idea of love stories, might relate and engage with this book more, than those who are more attracted to Jane Austen’s idea of love.
There is nothing conventional or traditional in the story, apart from the setting and the time period. The characters are much more outward in the idea of love and the different ways to gain love.
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”.
The most quoted line from the story is the perfect way to describe this entangled story of warmth and terror. You can forget about the stories of vampires and werewolves, as this piece of fiction is the perfect winter read which will surely haunt you with mixed emotions till the last page.
