Does anyone know anything about the book/resource that was mentioned in this episode? I think they said it was called Beehive, but I was not able to tell for sure. It sounded interesting, and I would love to look it up! There’s also a chance that it was mentioned in the previous episode. I listened to several today and can’t remember.
Hello! A little late in posting about the episode, but it was a great discussion; I really enjoyed the whole series on this book and am looking forward to the Q&A.
First time reader of Wuthering Heights. It seems to me that one of the really brilliant aspects of this novel is how it treads the line between the Gothic and the Romantic to the point where it's arguable whether the ending is more Gothic or Romantic, e.g., Catherine and Heathcliff's spirits walking the moors as unquiet dead versus Lockwood's "wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." I really appreciated this threading of the needle by Brontë; it was brilliantly done. I think the match between Cathy and Hareton gives a Romantic counterpoint to the Catherine/Heathcliff relationship in the sense that Hareton forgives Cathy for her earlier abuse, something Heathcliff never does to his abusers. In this sense, I disagree with Heidi that the Hareton/Cathy union is the end of the book. I think the end of the book is ambiguous: is it Gothic "horror" or Romantic "transcendence" for Heathcliff and Catherine?
There has been so much written about Wuthering Heights that I'm sure this is an unoriginal observation, but you can kind of see that if Brontë took Francesca and Paolo, and said to herself, "what would it take for a couple to (1) be so convincingly in love with one another that they wouldn't care if they were doomed to wander the moors eternally and (2) not evoke pity in the reader for this fate, as Francesca and Paolo's fate evokes pity?" The characters of Catherine and Heathcliff begin to make sense. This is actually my question for the Q&A, but I'll hold off further until then.
So much to love about this episode. Heidi maybe got a little ruffled at Sean for discrediting the ending?! I know the feeling and speak from experience...that feeling when you have to defend a book you love.
For my own experience with the book: Halfway through I switched to listening to Joanne Froggatt reading this on Audible. I guess it's also her loveable character from Downton Abbey in the recesses of my mind, but I found Nelly a likable character listening to this audiobook. The climax of this novel threw me into a dark place. Deeply affected me emotionally--the abuse scenes and the sheer evil of Heathcliff. I suppose that testifies to the power of the novel.
I was braced for this to end like a Shakespeare tragedy with bodies littering the stage. So imagine my joy, relief, and tears at the scene with Young Cathy and Hareton. It truly felt like brilliant sunlight flooding the moors.
Hello! I’ve been a long time listener of Close Reads, but a very lacking commentator here on the chat. However, I enjoy every episode and am so thankful for David, Heidi, Sean, Tim, and Logan!
This is my second time experiencing Wuthering Heights. I read it once many years ago, and then listened to the audio book version before these podcasts were released.
In this episode, Heidi (I believe) said that she thought Catherine was calling from beyond the grave to Heathcliff partially to work for young Cathy’s good..but I’m not sure if Catherine has that much maternal care in her? (Again, audiobook, so maybe I missed something that says otherwise). She seemed to not really express any care for her baby while pregnant and we get no post-birth moments of love for baby Cathy or regrets from mom that she is leaving her child (though maybe Catherine was never really conscious during the birth or after the birth before she died?). So, was ghost Catherine interested at all in young Cathy? Or, assuming the ghost situation, was she just interested in finally getting both to be with Heathcliff and get some sort of retribution for how he had acted toward her?
And, second thought: if Catherine had expressed any maternal love for Cathy, say Catherine had lived a day or two before dying and Heathcliff had seen Catherine live and care for Cathy in any way, would Heathcliff’s treatment of young Cathy have turned out differently? Would he have been still molding young Linton to entice Cathy, but in a more caring way so he could have her as his “daughter”? Would he have treated her any better because Catherine cared for her? Would he have been enticed by ghost Catherine to his death or would he have turned away to instead care for young Cathy? Basically, how much was Heathcliff driven completely by vengeance or do you think he could have been molded by a maternal Cathy before she died, to be any more caring of a person?
This is my third time reading and my first time being able to appreciate it, in large part to the podcast. It’s definitely not going to be in my top 10, but it’s nice to be able to understand and appreciate it on a literary level.
In all three readings though I’ve never been able to understand or appreciate Joseph’s existence as a character. Can you help explain what he brings to the table for the narrative or literarily? I can’t even understand what he’s saying more than half the time, but is that a modern problem? Would Brontë-contemporary readers have been able to under his speech more?
I normally can’t formulate and write a question in time for the Q&A, so I’m excited to finally comment. Thanks! I love the podcast!
Re Heathcliff’s death as Deus ex machina & Nelly’s redemption
First, I’ve always viewed this novel, like Jane Eyre, as a thoroughly Christian novel; though Emily is writing from a much different perspective. I’ve only thought that Heathcliff’s death was as we should expect for someone whose idols are what they are.
Heathcliff after losing Cathy to Edward, is only after revenge. He can’t have her as he wants, so he will destroy everyone else. He runs that course and finishes that race with the death of Edward and his own son. He has taken both estates. What is there left for him to live for? He runs up against younger Cathy, and while he may have her subservient physically, he knows he does not and never will have her subservient emotionally. What is there but to fall back on his first love and turn all his attention to being reunited with her. Thus his wasting away for her is apt and, at least in my mind, not surprising at all. It seems clear that Cathy & Hareton did not need Heathcliff to die. The removal of Joseph's plants is an apt metaphor of who is actually the new masters.
Second,
While Nelly has played the fool throughout the novel & shares some blame in the tragic aspects of the story, the turn comes when she encourages both Hareton & Cathy. The tension rests on whether Cathy’s mocking of Hareton will turn him away from trying—which it seems to do initially—and whether Cathy will soften in her bitterness about how her life has gone. So Nelly’s small interventions here play the role of a parent figure that neither Hareton nor Cathy now have that enables them to move from folly to wisdom.
I was nodding along with everything Heidi said about the true ending of the novel. It's always been frustrating to me that the redemption piece is overlooked completely or glossed over. To me as a lover of this book, it's always been the whole point!
The discussion in this episode and here has been so great! Thanks for opening up this book for me. Definitely not my favorite, but the end totally mystified me without the discussion. Not sure whether I buy into Heidi's ghost interpretation or Jenny's no-ghost interpretation, but I'm quite happy to remain agnostic on this question, :-)
I am so confused by /disagree with a number of things in this episode.
I don’t see any evidence that Catherine Earnshaw Linton is a ghost in the story. I think Heathcliff is haunted by her psychologically, but Brontë in writing the scene with Lockwood is pretty careful to show that Lockwood is dreaming. He tells when he falls asleep, and wakes up. He sees her in his dream. His response to Heathcliff makes Heathcliff believe the haunting-but Lockwood admits in his account that he had the dream “after perusing those old volumes.” But he chose to misdirect Heathcliff that he had spent time mulling over the names etched in the sill to help him fall asleep rather than reveal he’d read the histories in the margins Ch 3 (p 69 in my penguin edition). If you notice he also describes dream Cathy as a young girl (she does not look like the Cathy we hear described near her death). Also, Lockwood is the one who says the “20 years” first-Cathy in the dream just echoes that.
As for haunting Heathcliff at the end - both young Cathy and Hareton are described as having Catherine’s eyes (resemblance). It’s why he can’t stand to look at them. In chapter 33 Heathcliff mentions Hareton’s likeness to her but goes on to say that’s the least of things to remind him of Catherine. “ that, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least -for what is not connected with her to me?” He also admits he could have loved Hareton had he been from another family. (That’s in another chapter that I can’t find at the moment).
I do think their resemblance - and Heathcliff’s identification with Hareton softens his drive to utterly destroy them.
However, more clearly, I think Brontë attributes it to something else. In ch 25 Edgar is talking over with Nelly what he should do with Cathy and Linton—and Nelly says, “Resign her to God, as it is sir…under his providence-i’ll stand her friend and counselor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good girl; I don’t fear that she will go willfully wrong; and people who do their duty are always finally rewarded.”
The last thing— why Lockwood narrates the ending. You know how you read and then at the end go back to read the beginning again? It’s a perfect handshake. Lockwood is narrating at the beginning. (There’s also a hint through the story of the possibility that he might have been interested in young Cathy, that would have interrupted the redemption that was worked out with Cathy and Hareton. (He even describes himself as similar to Heathcliff in the first chapter). The biggest difference between Heathcliff and Hareton is unbending pride vs a forgiving humility. I don’t think Heathcliff repents. I think he just finally exhausts himself and relents.
I looks like we are a week behind on the Main Show schedule. Will there still be a Q&A episode next week or will we jump right into The Princess and the Goblin?
Does anyone know anything about the book/resource that was mentioned in this episode? I think they said it was called Beehive, but I was not able to tell for sure. It sounded interesting, and I would love to look it up! There’s also a chance that it was mentioned in the previous episode. I listened to several today and can’t remember.
Beehive Book Club Guides.
https://www.goldberrypress.com/collections/beehive-bookclub
Hello! A little late in posting about the episode, but it was a great discussion; I really enjoyed the whole series on this book and am looking forward to the Q&A.
First time reader of Wuthering Heights. It seems to me that one of the really brilliant aspects of this novel is how it treads the line between the Gothic and the Romantic to the point where it's arguable whether the ending is more Gothic or Romantic, e.g., Catherine and Heathcliff's spirits walking the moors as unquiet dead versus Lockwood's "wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." I really appreciated this threading of the needle by Brontë; it was brilliantly done. I think the match between Cathy and Hareton gives a Romantic counterpoint to the Catherine/Heathcliff relationship in the sense that Hareton forgives Cathy for her earlier abuse, something Heathcliff never does to his abusers. In this sense, I disagree with Heidi that the Hareton/Cathy union is the end of the book. I think the end of the book is ambiguous: is it Gothic "horror" or Romantic "transcendence" for Heathcliff and Catherine?
There has been so much written about Wuthering Heights that I'm sure this is an unoriginal observation, but you can kind of see that if Brontë took Francesca and Paolo, and said to herself, "what would it take for a couple to (1) be so convincingly in love with one another that they wouldn't care if they were doomed to wander the moors eternally and (2) not evoke pity in the reader for this fate, as Francesca and Paolo's fate evokes pity?" The characters of Catherine and Heathcliff begin to make sense. This is actually my question for the Q&A, but I'll hold off further until then.
So much to love about this episode. Heidi maybe got a little ruffled at Sean for discrediting the ending?! I know the feeling and speak from experience...that feeling when you have to defend a book you love.
For my own experience with the book: Halfway through I switched to listening to Joanne Froggatt reading this on Audible. I guess it's also her loveable character from Downton Abbey in the recesses of my mind, but I found Nelly a likable character listening to this audiobook. The climax of this novel threw me into a dark place. Deeply affected me emotionally--the abuse scenes and the sheer evil of Heathcliff. I suppose that testifies to the power of the novel.
I was braced for this to end like a Shakespeare tragedy with bodies littering the stage. So imagine my joy, relief, and tears at the scene with Young Cathy and Hareton. It truly felt like brilliant sunlight flooding the moors.
Hello! I’ve been a long time listener of Close Reads, but a very lacking commentator here on the chat. However, I enjoy every episode and am so thankful for David, Heidi, Sean, Tim, and Logan!
This is my second time experiencing Wuthering Heights. I read it once many years ago, and then listened to the audio book version before these podcasts were released.
In this episode, Heidi (I believe) said that she thought Catherine was calling from beyond the grave to Heathcliff partially to work for young Cathy’s good..but I’m not sure if Catherine has that much maternal care in her? (Again, audiobook, so maybe I missed something that says otherwise). She seemed to not really express any care for her baby while pregnant and we get no post-birth moments of love for baby Cathy or regrets from mom that she is leaving her child (though maybe Catherine was never really conscious during the birth or after the birth before she died?). So, was ghost Catherine interested at all in young Cathy? Or, assuming the ghost situation, was she just interested in finally getting both to be with Heathcliff and get some sort of retribution for how he had acted toward her?
And, second thought: if Catherine had expressed any maternal love for Cathy, say Catherine had lived a day or two before dying and Heathcliff had seen Catherine live and care for Cathy in any way, would Heathcliff’s treatment of young Cathy have turned out differently? Would he have been still molding young Linton to entice Cathy, but in a more caring way so he could have her as his “daughter”? Would he have treated her any better because Catherine cared for her? Would he have been enticed by ghost Catherine to his death or would he have turned away to instead care for young Cathy? Basically, how much was Heathcliff driven completely by vengeance or do you think he could have been molded by a maternal Cathy before she died, to be any more caring of a person?
This is my third time reading and my first time being able to appreciate it, in large part to the podcast. It’s definitely not going to be in my top 10, but it’s nice to be able to understand and appreciate it on a literary level.
In all three readings though I’ve never been able to understand or appreciate Joseph’s existence as a character. Can you help explain what he brings to the table for the narrative or literarily? I can’t even understand what he’s saying more than half the time, but is that a modern problem? Would Brontë-contemporary readers have been able to under his speech more?
I normally can’t formulate and write a question in time for the Q&A, so I’m excited to finally comment. Thanks! I love the podcast!
Re Heathcliff’s death as Deus ex machina & Nelly’s redemption
First, I’ve always viewed this novel, like Jane Eyre, as a thoroughly Christian novel; though Emily is writing from a much different perspective. I’ve only thought that Heathcliff’s death was as we should expect for someone whose idols are what they are.
Heathcliff after losing Cathy to Edward, is only after revenge. He can’t have her as he wants, so he will destroy everyone else. He runs that course and finishes that race with the death of Edward and his own son. He has taken both estates. What is there left for him to live for? He runs up against younger Cathy, and while he may have her subservient physically, he knows he does not and never will have her subservient emotionally. What is there but to fall back on his first love and turn all his attention to being reunited with her. Thus his wasting away for her is apt and, at least in my mind, not surprising at all. It seems clear that Cathy & Hareton did not need Heathcliff to die. The removal of Joseph's plants is an apt metaphor of who is actually the new masters.
Second,
While Nelly has played the fool throughout the novel & shares some blame in the tragic aspects of the story, the turn comes when she encourages both Hareton & Cathy. The tension rests on whether Cathy’s mocking of Hareton will turn him away from trying—which it seems to do initially—and whether Cathy will soften in her bitterness about how her life has gone. So Nelly’s small interventions here play the role of a parent figure that neither Hareton nor Cathy now have that enables them to move from folly to wisdom.
I was nodding along with everything Heidi said about the true ending of the novel. It's always been frustrating to me that the redemption piece is overlooked completely or glossed over. To me as a lover of this book, it's always been the whole point!
The discussion in this episode and here has been so great! Thanks for opening up this book for me. Definitely not my favorite, but the end totally mystified me without the discussion. Not sure whether I buy into Heidi's ghost interpretation or Jenny's no-ghost interpretation, but I'm quite happy to remain agnostic on this question, :-)
Same!I tend to lean towards Jenny’s interpretation, but I’ll have to read this one like 4 more times before I have my own opinion.
The other full-circle closure is that Hareton Earnshaw is restored to master of the manor that has born that name since 1500.
I am so confused by /disagree with a number of things in this episode.
I don’t see any evidence that Catherine Earnshaw Linton is a ghost in the story. I think Heathcliff is haunted by her psychologically, but Brontë in writing the scene with Lockwood is pretty careful to show that Lockwood is dreaming. He tells when he falls asleep, and wakes up. He sees her in his dream. His response to Heathcliff makes Heathcliff believe the haunting-but Lockwood admits in his account that he had the dream “after perusing those old volumes.” But he chose to misdirect Heathcliff that he had spent time mulling over the names etched in the sill to help him fall asleep rather than reveal he’d read the histories in the margins Ch 3 (p 69 in my penguin edition). If you notice he also describes dream Cathy as a young girl (she does not look like the Cathy we hear described near her death). Also, Lockwood is the one who says the “20 years” first-Cathy in the dream just echoes that.
As for haunting Heathcliff at the end - both young Cathy and Hareton are described as having Catherine’s eyes (resemblance). It’s why he can’t stand to look at them. In chapter 33 Heathcliff mentions Hareton’s likeness to her but goes on to say that’s the least of things to remind him of Catherine. “ that, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination, is actually the least -for what is not connected with her to me?” He also admits he could have loved Hareton had he been from another family. (That’s in another chapter that I can’t find at the moment).
I do think their resemblance - and Heathcliff’s identification with Hareton softens his drive to utterly destroy them.
However, more clearly, I think Brontë attributes it to something else. In ch 25 Edgar is talking over with Nelly what he should do with Cathy and Linton—and Nelly says, “Resign her to God, as it is sir…under his providence-i’ll stand her friend and counselor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good girl; I don’t fear that she will go willfully wrong; and people who do their duty are always finally rewarded.”
The last thing— why Lockwood narrates the ending. You know how you read and then at the end go back to read the beginning again? It’s a perfect handshake. Lockwood is narrating at the beginning. (There’s also a hint through the story of the possibility that he might have been interested in young Cathy, that would have interrupted the redemption that was worked out with Cathy and Hareton. (He even describes himself as similar to Heathcliff in the first chapter). The biggest difference between Heathcliff and Hareton is unbending pride vs a forgiving humility. I don’t think Heathcliff repents. I think he just finally exhausts himself and relents.
But I think Brontë is attributing the change (or at least hinting that providence was at work)
Just have to say I’m so glad the old signoff is back 😆
I just like to drop things in lol
I looks like we are a week behind on the Main Show schedule. Will there still be a Q&A episode next week or will we jump right into The Princess and the Goblin?