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Effective Distortions in Wuthering Heights

by Yan Ke

Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Bront� distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Bront� perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.

Heathcliff's love for Catherine transcends the normal physical "true love" into spiritual love. He can withstand anything against him to be with her. After Hindley became the master of Wuthering Heights, he flogged Heathcliff like a slave. Although Heathcliff could have simply run away, his decision to endure the physical pains shows his unrelenting devotion to Catherine. Fortunately, Catherine feels as deeply for Heathcliff as he does for her, explaining to Nelly that "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…" Their love for each other is so passionate that they can not possibly live apart. At Catherine's death, Heathcliff hopes that she will not rest, but will haunt him until he dies. This absurdity contradicts the traditional norm that one should pray that the dead rest in peace. Near the end of the novel, we learn that Catherine has haunted Heathcliff, allowing him only fleeting glances of her. This shows that despite their physical separation, nothing can part them spiritually. When Heathcliff dies and unites with Catherine once again, the neighbors see them haunt the moors. We finally see the power of their love; Not only does this love transcend physical barriers, it transcends time as well. Distorting love, Emily Bront� successfully surpasses the conventional love story, which would have ended when Catherine died. Instead, Bront� gives love new meaning and, in Heathcliff, twists it into revenge and hate, the forces that drive us to the end of the book.

Heathcliff possesses a vindictive nature more evil than Satan in the culmination of all nightmares. After he comes back to the Heights improved, he decides to seek revenge on Hindley by slowly draining away his resources, land, and health. Heathcliff fully displays his wickedness after Catherine dies, the only person who could have saved him. With nothing to lose, he expands his revenge not only to Edgar and Isabella Linton, but onto the next generation as well. "I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It's a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase in pain," he exclaimed. Unlike conventional antagonists, who usually have the hearts to realize that they have reached their immoral goals after the victim dies, Heathcliff takes it out on young Catherine and Linton. He goes so far as to use his own son in the plot of acquiring Thrushcross Grange. Although he does not believe in the devil, Heathcliff has sold his soul to it, while dragging Linton down with him. Besides emotionally tormenting the people around him, he is capable of physical harm as well. When Edgar and Linton are about to die, he kidnaps Catherine and forces her to marry Linton. This shows that Heathcliff will carry out his threats at desperate times. If Catherine was not there to stop him, he might have killed Hindley as previously planned. Bront� builds Heathcliff's revenge in a way that his actions along each step are believable, although his character as a whole is unthinkable. By carrying Heathcliff's vengeance and hatred into two generations, Bront� creates an opportunity for the next generation to overturn it, something that the first generation is powerless to do. Also, by stretching two powerful and contradicting emotions -- love and hate, and giving them to Heathcliff, Bront� animates him more effectively than any other character.

Emily Bront� transforms death, something we mildly fear, into a torturing beast we loathe. Death fills the air from the night of Lockwood's stay at Wuthering Heights till Heathcliff's reunion with Catherine. One of the most dramatic scenes in the book is the death of Catherine. The first signs of her failing health physically and mentally come when she locks herself up in her room after Heathcliff and Edgar's fight. She fasts herself into a delirium, pulling out pillow stuffing and seeing faces in the mirror. Unlike ordinary death, which comes quick and painlessly, Catherine's slowly wastes her away into a ghost. About seven months later, she dies at childbirth, but returning to haunt Heathcliff. The main cause for Catherine's death is not childbirth, although it may have been the final contributor. Ironically, because of the spiritual link between Heathcliff and her, it is their separation that killed her. Bront� punishes the sinned by slow death, having the guilty put the wrath upon themselves. She also brings in the supernatural to prove that even at death, there is no peace. The precise description of the moments before Catherine's death emotionally charges and further involves the reader. Like Catherine, Heathcliff dies in a similar fashion, except his sufferings prior to death lasted eighteen years. He explains to Nelly, "What does not recall her [Catherine]? Those two [Catherine Linton and Linton Heathcliff] are the only objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me; and, that appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony." This is consistent because he has sinned the most of all characters, and therefore he suffered the worst death. In order to reprimand the monstrous characters she creates, Bront� must also create a death befitting them. She admirably does this by twisting death into something worse than it really is, leaving the reader with a sense of satisfaction that the characters deserved what they earned.