Up to chapter 20

As I have said before in all post’s, a lot of events happen in a couple of chapters and these chapters certainly were not different. Well after Catherine has died and left a daughter behind, Isabella appears at Thrushcross Grange in a carriage to run away to London. She then tells Nelly about the chaos that has been occurring back at Wuthering Heights. The fact that Hindley has turned into a alcoholic and cannot even stop drinking for one day, shows how things in Wuthering Heights have grown out of control. There seems to be a heavy cloud of bad happenings over Wuthering Heights, because the situation there is terrible. From what Isabella tells Nelly, it seems that Hindley has tried to kill Heathcliff but since Heathcliff was warned of such he protected himself and I believe it was with a latter or something like that that he used to cover him self and I really did not understand how but Hindley wounded himself on the wrist. Then Heathcliff ran after him and beated him up. However something interesting happens for Isabella instead of staying on her husband’s side (although this would also not be as convenient for he was not faithful to her), she tells Hindley what happened and makes him want a revenge. It is then that she runs away.
So then Isabella finally runs away and in London she gives birth to a baby boy name Linton.
One thing I find really interesting about this book is that various characters have the same name which make me very confused. For example now that there is this Linton son o Isabella and Heathcliff I get confused when I try to talk about Edgar for I used to call him Linton. Also with the Catherine’s; although the big Catherine, who was in love with Heathcliff died, there is her daughter also called Catherine which confuses my life when I try to explain a past event. Did someone get my point???? I know it is very confusing do understand but also to explain.
Then another big event happens for Hindley dies. It is here in this chapter that my first question is answered and I believe Rafael and Rodrigo also had this question, of why is Heathcliff the owner of Wuthering Heights if Hareton is still alive and Heathcliff is not even a legitimate son of the Earnshaw’s. Well apparently Hindley had a great problem with gambling and he was very addicted to it, so Heathcliff would lend him money to pay his debts. However when he died he had not paid every loan Heathcliff made to him and so the ownership of Wuthering Heights was designated to him as a form of covering the debt. The interesting part is that Hareton ends up becoming a slave to Heathcliff and even Nelly can’t take him out of there.
Now this was all in chapter 17…..I think too many events happened in one chapter, just like the ending of brazilian novelas, it seems like the author has too much information still to reveal so he just throws it all out to the viewer or in this case the reader. And in the case of the novelas the last day is usually two hours long or else they can’t end it hehehehe!!!!!
Well I guess I better leave to explain the next chapters next time or else the post will be too long and you guys will be discovering too much information about your future readings. So in this case this post is for last week and I will post another one for this week!!!!! Bye everyone!!!!

Chapters 10-14- Rodrigo

I found these chapters to be quite surprising given the way that Heathcliff comes back and how he treats all those around him who have caused him pain during some point of his life. Heathcliff, who was believed to be a very simple and fearfull character seeing as he was oppressed during the majority of his life, is transformed into a diabolical, demonically charismatic, powerful, and villainous man, capable of extreme cruelties. This was trully shocking but in a way expected seeing as the only thing which he knows is cruelty. Driven by his determination for revenge, by his love for Catherine, by his beliefs that he has betrayed him by marring Edgar, by his hatred of the Lintons for having treated him so poorly and making him seem unworthy of marrying Cathering, Heathcliff dedicates himself during these chapters to devising a plan to get revenge on all of the people who he felt were injust to him. Nelly suspects that Heathcliff has second intentions once he returns after a while and desperately needs to talk to Catherine and Isabella. His malice and evil nature can be seen through his treatment of Hindley and Isabella who later becomes his wife in an atempt to punish Edgar seeing as Heathcliff cannot get to Edgar directly or to Catherine he decides to use Isabella as a mediator for his anger and hatred. Even though he treats everybody extremely diminishingly, it is hard not to feel some sympathy for his character seeing as he had gone through all of this treatment during his childhood by the same people who he is now trying to make suffer. Ofcourse we cannot condone these actions but that does not mean that we are not allowed to sympathise with his character, for it is necessary to understand where he is coming from physically and mentally. At this point in the novel i find it difficult to see however where it is or at what point Bronte is trying to get too because all the characters keep constantly changing and the situations keep changing making it very difficult to know what to expect. For example with Catherine getting sick it is hard to know whether or not she will die because at the moment she plays a big role in the plot and in the development of Heathcliff's character and plan for revenge. If she dies, Bronte will have a lot of work to do in order to make Heathcliff justify his revenge and the misstreatment of all around him. If Catherine doesn't die then tere will be another 100 or so pages for the story to finally unfold. Either way I fail to see what it is that Bronte could possibly do in the last 100 or so pages, i know that finishing the story earlier isnt one of them unfortunantely. Besides focusing mainly on Heathcliff's character, these chapters also give some insight to the narrator, Nelly who is shown to always have very biased thoughts on Catherine saying that she is often spoiled, proud, arrogant, selfish etc. It is the first time during the novel where the reader is allowed to see how Nelly thinks and feels towards the other characters, because until now she was just telling the facts to Lockwood. All in all, these chapters were amusing to see how Heathcliff feels after all the time that he spent away to those who opressed him during his childhood, and to see how his hatred as accumulated to a point where he is likely to release all that anger, hatred, and jealousy very soon.

Up to the middle Chapter 17 - Camila

Totally true Rodrigo, sometimes I even feel like Bronte got herself confused with her story and prolonged it a little more to find the path to revealing the message of the novel. I have now passed the middle of the story and I am really interested in knowing how the story will go on for another hundred pages since the supposed most important event has happened in these pages.
By these chapters, one of the most important events of the novel happens....Catherine Linton dies after days of struggle. However, she leaves behind a little baby girl named after her.
These chapters were very intense because it is when Heathcliff and Hindley confront each other but are seperated by the inconvinient death of Catherine. The passage in which Heathcliff is talking secretly with Catherine in her bed, kissing and embracing ardently, reminded me a lot of the final scene of Primo Basílio. Heathcliff forgives Catherine for having abondoned him and says he will do whatever she wants as long as she lives. In Primo Basílio, the lady is also very sick, almost dying and her husband forgives her act of cheating on him and also promisses to do anything for her as long as she does not leave him for heaven.
Before this scene, which revealed the true Heathcliff true emotions and feeling for Catherine, I was thinking of Heathcliff's love for her more of an obsession than heartly passion. The way he talked about her wanting to visit her frequently and demanding responses, made me think he was obsessed by her and was sort of stalking Catherine. However this scene was really passionate and almost evoked tears, because Heathcliff was really concerned about her and even promissed to die with her, proving his true love. And according to page185 he does die and is buried right next to Cathy's tomb.
Now about the baby girl, either I missed the part or did not read it attentively I did not see before Chapter 17 a note or a single reference to Catherine's pregnancy! Did it mention that she was pregnant?? and now I am sturck with the doubt of if the baby is Hindley's or Heathcliff's daughter??? Although I know it would be difficult for the baby to be Heathcliff's, however since I did not see Nelly mentioning the pregnancy it could be a possibility right??
After quarreling about how could Bronte continue continue writing for a lot more of pages after the main character has died, I remembered of the beginning of the novel. Lockwood present a diary in the beginning and it is from this diary that the narration of the story begins. However Lockwood never finished reading the diary since he was sent out of the room, hence I start to believe that now the story will transition its narration to the present and Lockwood will continue the story by telling the reader about Catherine's diary, which holds all the secrets of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.
Bye everyone!!!!!

Chapter 10-Rodrigo

I would like to start off by saying that i am really not enjoying this novel at all. I am not enjoying it because of the length of the story, the writing style of the author and the actual content of the novel and how the author approaches this content. I would like to use something that Camila said in that when comparing Wuthering Heights to A Doll's House it is clear that it is possible to have a well written story in a short amount of pages or play form as is A Doll's House. In Wuthering Heights it takes 300 pages for the author to get her message through to the reader while in A Doll's House it only takes 60 pages for the author to get his message through to the reader. I am at the beginning of Chapter 11, page 118 and I truly fail to see how the author is going to be able to wrap up the whole story while still being able to transmit her theme and message along to the reader. I dont enjoy how Bronte takes one whole chapter(10-15 pages) to tell one single story or event about one of the characters lives. A little suspense is good but not when it means that the reader has to read the book for one hour just to know the main characters age. So far in Chapter 10, Heathcliff returns after many years, apparently grown up and looking like a gentleman. He comes back looking for Catherine and finds her at Wuthering Heights with Edgar, her being girlishly pleased at seeing her old companion back encourages him to stay with them while he is back. Edgar however, does not feel the same way towards Heathcliff and shows a slgiht distatste to his presence at Wuthering Heights. Isabella, appears to be enchanted by how much Heathcliff has changed and apparently begins to harbour feelings for the outcast gentleman. Nelly the watchfull eye of Wuthering Heights notices that even though Isabella is apparently falling for Heathcliff, he only has feelings for Catherine or so it seems for she begins to doubt whether he has alterior motives for coming back, possibly envolving motives of revenge against those who opressed him. This chapter was rather interesting because Heathcliff comes back filled with rage and it makes me curious to find out what this surpressed rage is going to make him do regarding Hindley who treated him like garbage since they were children. The way in which he comes back is very characteristic to many stories or plots. For example, the poor kid who is bullied and opressed during his childhood while all his brothers and sisters have the better lives, so the kid decides to leave never to speak to the other siblings again. Until one day after many years this kid returns, but not a kid anymore, rather an adult with many riches accumulated from years of hard work which will be used in order to make those who made him suffer, suffer. It will be interesting to see if this is the path that heathcliff will take or if he will chose a different path.

Up to Chapter 15

My question from the last post persists because I really cannot not see how this story will be able to maintain its expectations for a hundred pages more. Comparing this novel to the play A Doll's House shows how there was a difference between realistic authors. In the play, the story is much more direct and real, eventhough if it is a play meaning it has to be short. This novel is full of supernatural happenings and recurring events such as Cathy's sudden illness. The play seemed to be breaking the fourth wall because it was direct and presented to the audience a true feeling of the family's problems. In this novel the story sometimes seems to be unreal, even small details help to confirm this idea.For example the letter that Isabella writes to Nelly. In real life someone would not write a letter that big that occupies a whole chapter, even writing the accent in which Joseph speeks. And the fact that many events happen in very few chapters seem untrue. In the case of these chapters Isabella runs away with Heathcliff; marries him; Catherine becomes very ill almost dies, but recuperates herself.
When Catherine was almost dying I was sure this was not going to be the end of her life because it is in the middle of the book. However I did not imagine she would become healthy again in one chapter. I believe Bronte could have extended this agony for more chapters prolonging her story.
In these chapters a comparison between Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights is made. As Rafael mentioned this comparison is also made in Chapter 4. However in these chapters Wuthering Heights is portryed as a terrible place to live. And since it is Isabella who is describing it, the place seems even worst. She continually refers to Thrushcross Grange as a place of comfort from which she should have never left. By the description we can easily see that after the main charcters left the Wuthering house, things declined. Hindley turned out to be a very bad master teaching Hareton only bad manners and Joseph becoming even more grumpy.
Also in this chapter we can see the truth about Isabella and Heathcliff's marriage. She is very unhappy with him and they do not share a faithful love. The idea that Heathcliff only married Isabella for interest becomes more apparent because he keeps asking Nelly about Catherine and her health.
However as Rafael is questioning I also question, how did Heathcliff become the master of Wuthering Heights if Hareton is alive and what does he do of such importance that he also shuts the door of his room and office not even letting his wife come in???
One thing I found very interesting is the fact how even after Isabella suffered a lot in trying to find a room in Wuthering Heights she still did not forget her racist manners. Once the servant she knew from past times appeared she reffered to him as "it". Racism is really a big deal in this novel!!!!
P.S. Mr. Kuczynski I am only posting today because on friday I arrived very late from the game in Sao Paulo and after I went to my farm because my parents were celebrating their 25th anniversary "Bodas de Prata" and we stayed there until today. At my farm there isn't any internet therefore I did not have acces to the blog. i am really sorry I hope this will not affect my grade!
Good Bye!!!

Rafael’s Comment on Chapter 4

Right at the beginning of this chapter the reader is confronted with a series of new information about the two houses and their past residents. Like I predicted, Lockwood ended searching for more information with his servants, and easily learned a lot. We also know now that at least 18 years ago, Catherine was still alive. And it’s clear that she died married to Linton. The question of how Heathcliff gets his money is raised and it was also established that he probably has some sort of emotional attachment to the Wuthering Heights manor, since he could easily live in a much better place. It was also interesting to know that Mrs. Heathcliff’s first name is also Catherine and she is actually Catherine’s daughter. Which makes me wonder is she was the Catherine Heathcliff, whose name was written on Catherine’s room in Wuthering Heights. And her husband was actually not Catherine’s son with Heathcliff, but the son of Heathcliff with Mrs. Linton, who turned out to be Heathcliff’s actual wife. This was really strange. How did Heathcliff end up marrying the sister of the husband of his beloved Catherine? But it is curious that if Heathcliff and Catherine couldn’t be together, at least their sons could. But I still wonder why Catherine Heathcliff is so unhappy? And did she love her husband? And why does Heathcliff hate her so much? The reader also learned that Hareton Earnshaw is probably the son of Hindley and Frances Earnshaw. Which makes me wonder, why is he not the master of the house since his father, grandfather, and probably all the Earnshaws before him owned the house. How did Heathcliff obtain possession of the house? At least we now know how Heathcliff got to the house in the first place. When Mrs. Dean, Lockwood’s maid, mentions that Hareton was “cast out like an unfledged dunnock”, I started thinking about whom supposedly “cast him out”? Was it his own father maybe or Heathcliff? And why was he cast out? Was Heathcliff trying to achieve some sort of revenge over the Earnshaws?

For the first time as well, while Mrs. Dean is telling her story, we hear about Catherine Linton’s mother, Mrs. Earnshaw and about how good of a person Mr. Earnshaw was. When more about Mr. Earnshaw was told is started thinking that Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley, and Heathcliff are probably foils of each other; each having qualities that lack on the other. Particularly Mr. Earnshaw and his son, and how the goodness of the father makes the cruelty of the son seem even bigger.

The issue of race and class was also introduced now. There were a few passages before, when Mr. Heathcliff’s “inferior” background is mentioned, but only now does it become an issue and we see the importance of it. When Heathcliff first appears he is actually described as being as dark as if he “came from the devil” and is vehemently criticized by Mrs. Earnshaw for being a gypsy, and for quite a while he is referred to as “it”. It is then that we realize that race and class is a big deal. I personally think it’s a bit far-fetched that a rich, respectful, and relativity powerful man such as Mr. Earnshaw would simply pick up a gypsy child from the streets and raise it in such a way that he actually becomes the master of the house, but I can’t do anything besides going along with it. It is also interesting how it was established that since they were very young, Hindley despised Heathcliff – who got his name from a son who died in childhood -. In fact it was clear that everyone, even Mrs. Earnshaw disliked Heathcliff. The only two who lacked the hate for the young boy was Catherine – who was also very young at the time – and Mr. Earnshaw, who actually began to treat him like a child. This whole class struggle and the prodigious class jump performed by Heathcliff actually reminded me of the discussion we had about Realism, because if I’m not mistaken this is exactly one of the recurrent themes in realism.

Rafael’s Comment on Chapter 3 (cont.)

The fourth and last “stage” of the known history of the Wuthering Heights manor is the present one, when Heathcliff owns both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Besides Heathcliff, we also know that at least four more people live in the Wuthering Heights manor: Mrs. Heathcliff, Heathcliff’s daughter-in-law; Hareton Earnshaw; Joseph, who ironically went from being one of the people who hated and took advantage of his power over Heathcliff to being his servant; and Zillah, the newly-employed housewife. Throughout the book we will probably be able to connect each “phase” with the next, especially the third one with the this last one, which differs so much from any of the previous ones in many way. For starters, how did Heathcliff go from being the despised boy – and supposedly from gypsy background - at Wuthering Heights to being the master of the house? And if Thrushcross Grange wasn’t already owned by the Earnshaw’s, how did Heathcliff acquired it? Does it have anything to do with Catherine and her supposed marriage with Linton – who seems to be the previous owner of Thrushcross Grange -? And what happened to the other characters? Did Hindley, Catharine, Frances and Linton die? How? Did Heathcliff kill any of them? Was Catherine killed? And what about Heathcliff’s son – mentioned in the previous chapter -? Is he Catharine’s son? What about Hareton? Is he Catharine’s son with Linton? Or is he Hindley’s son? And why does everyone who lives at Wuthering Heights hates each other so much? Specifically, why does Mrs. Heathcliff hates Mr. Heathcliff? And why can’t she supposedly leave the house? There are also a few lose events that I don’t know where to place, such as when did Heathcliff had a son, and when did he die. And a few other general and maybe not important doubts crossed my mind, such as: what about Catherine’s mother? What happened to her? But everything will probably be answered as the story goes on.

Not only is the story of Wuthering Heights and its past and current residents appealing, but I was also very interested in the story behind the actual room in which Lockwood is sleeping in. It probably belonged to Catherine, but it has lots of mysteries. I actually had a hard time understanding the description of the room; I still don’t quite know what the “large oak case” (19) is, it was extremely confusing when he said that it “[resembled] coach windows” and that it had “a singular sort of old-fashioned couch” inside “to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself” (19). That made absolutely no sense to me. But vocabulary in general is not being a problem, except in some cases like: “vapid listlessness”, “obtrusive”, “assailant”, “cudgel”, “asseverated”, and “hubbub”. Going back to the room, I keep wondering if it was Catherine who kept writing her name over and over in the wall with different last names. I suppose that as she changed last names she would go and change the writing in the wall. And I wonder if Heathcliff knows what is written in all of those books. It was also weird when Heathcliff got very shocked to find Mr. Lockwood in that room; it showed how probably no one has used that chamber in quite a long time, augmenting its importance. The fact that the room was kept untouched all these years and that nobody is allowed to go there clearly show that it has a very significant meaning to Heathcliff, emphasizing his love for Catherine.

But even though there were many questions waiting to be answered, there are many things that were discovered in chapter three, and other things that can be easily assumed from what was told so far. For example, I think it’s obvious that one of the main “problems” in the story that Lockwood is slowly discovering, is that Heathcliff and Catherine probably loved each other. I’m almost certain that many of the “complications” and events revolve around the fact Heathcliff loved Catherine, showing now that this is probably one of those stories about “impossible loves”.

In terms of understanding everything, like I said above, I didn’t have much trouble except with a few words and a few descriptions. But besides the description of Catherine’s room, the dream Mr. Lockwood had concerning James Branderham was very confusing. Perhaps it was a bit purposefully confusing because it was a dream, but I’m not sure. First I don’t get what is the “First of the Seventy-First”. All I understood was that it was some kind of sin. But what is the sin? Does it mention? And is Branderham’s character important? What is the importance of this sin? Is it something one of the characters did? Is it something Heathcliff did? Was Brontë also aiming at criticizing the Church or religion for that matter? The entire dream sequence was quite confusing, until it got to the part where Lockwood is supposedly haunted by Catherine. Then it went from confusing to plain weird. I don’t know if it’s he had a dream, or if it was an actual ghost or apparition of some sort. But I guess that is the point. Zillah’s line at the beginning of the chapter sums it up quite well: Wuthering Heights “[has] many queer goings on”. She even says that she can’t be curious, which is the opposite of Lockwood. Regardless of the fact that there “strange” things going on, Lockwood’s dream about Catherine adds an entire new “supernatural” level to the book. It couldn’t just be a dream, because how would Lockwood know that she has been “waiting” for 20 years? And why did he say she committed a “mortal transgression”? What is this transgression? But one thing was established by this: the fact that she is supposedly a “ghost” or “spirit” makes it clear that she died. It’s something that could have been guessed already, but I wasn’t 100% sure. It’s also intriguing how we know that Catherine dies and that Heathcliff’s wife died, and that one of the “names” of Catherine was Heathcliff, and that Catherine and Heathcliff loved each other. So by connecting those pieces of information it’s easy to assume that Catherine was, at some point, Heathcliff’s wife. Which is weird because she supposedly married Linton, and was there such thing as divorce at that time? Or marrying more than once? Catherine probably didn’t actually married Heathcliff, but Heathcliff just considers her his wife. I was also pondering about the meaning of Catherine’s words in Lockwood’s dream. She kept asking him to “let her in”. I guess the dream “takes place” at the time Catherine was married to Linton and she had to live at Thrushcross Grange. The 20 years also put a date to my “time line”, because if the dates in the book are accurate then Catherine supposedly married Linton 5 years after the time when her father was the master of the house.

I’ve been also trying to apply some of the realism characteristics we studied to this book and found that though there many characteristics of Realism that can be found here, there are many as well that don’t really fit, especially when thinking about the Poetics. One major difference is the fact that even though Wuthering Heights has a strong and intriguing plot, I felt like it’s much more character-driven, which is something that goes against the Poetics. I say that because when you think of Realist works that do follow the Poetics, such as Doll’s House, it’s noticeable that the plot is much more important than the characters, and it’s very character-driven. In fact, the author probably intended the plot to be of greater importance so that people could easily relate with the characters (in Doll’s House, women are supposed to relate with Nora). That doesn’t happen at all in Wuthering Heights. Besides there is no such thing as a clear unity of plot or of time, since there are quite a few stories going on at once instead of everything revolving on a single action, and there are quite a few “flashbacks” in the book. The major “events” actually occurred in the past already. The fact that Realist works are not “supposed” to have a narrator is also not true in this book, since Mr. Lockwood is narrating everything and many times giving his opinion on what he sees, instead of letting the reader see everything for himself and develop his own ideas about it. But I need to keep in mind that I haven’t read that much yet to identify other Realist characteristics.

From now on it’s pretty clear how the book will continue; it’s all about answering the above questions. I’m just wondering how Lockwood will find out the rest of the story concerning the Wuthering Height’s residents. He will probably read a few more “diary entries”, but it can’t just be at that. Maybe he will find out things with the servants, and he will possibly become more intimate of Heathcliff and the other characters. Maybe he will find things from the past in his own house, or he will enter a room he shouldn’t at Wuthering Heights and find more mysterious writings. I’m just guessing how Lockwood will discover the rest of the story surrounding Wuthering Heights.