As the clock ticks off the final sixteen hours until I have to sit in a classroom and most likely listen to an already weary professor read the syllabus (to English majors!) I couldn't help but notice that I never finished discussing Wuthering Heights. I don't think I will blather more about it here. Instead, I think I will start drafting a paper. It will have something to do with possession, and how the word "mine" is used in the novel. Included, of course, are thoughts about reproduction, to add to my "Look at the Baby" thesis.
I thought I would work on Moby Dick this semester, but I never got over Wuthering Heights. Reading this novel as a grown up, I find it fascinating that it ever got published. It's so odd. Bronte turns the Bildungsroman into a never ending saga. I imagine this novel and Catcher in the Rye to be at opposite ends of the coming-of-age spectrum. I have a lot of questions about this novel. Why don't we ever get to hear Heathcliff or Cathy I's side of the story? Why is Lockwood even important? No one seems to have sex in this novel, yet babies everywhere! This novel trudges through religion, sex, classism, property, racism, sexism, incest, horror, and never once does it really tell you anything. It's quite possibly the most obsessive novel I've ever read. We're so insanely focused on these half-dozen people that it's like no one else exists. Yet, everyone just mopes around, except Heathcliff, who hits women and dogs and is always out doing something very important. It's very...emo.
Well, let's hope I get something together about it.
1 comment:
You know, Heathcliff wants to be buried with Catherine -- like returning to the womb together. A good title for this paper might be, "Cubby-Wubby-Womb-Room-Tea-Time."
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