Elf-Bolts & Sex-Rocks in Wuthering Heights

I've finished Wuthering Heights, and although I enjoyed it, I'll admit I found the novel a tough read.  About a quarter of the way in, I got lost for awhile.  Emily Bronte gave many of her characters similar names, and children in the novel were often named after their parents.  The fact that the oldest son and/or daughter was often referred to by their last name, rather than their first, also made it difficult to track who was who. Additionally, when Mr. Lockwood gets sick and becomes a shut-in during the winter, Mrs. Dean rushes through a great deal of Earnshaw family history to pave the way for more recent events concerning Heathcliff.  

Overwhelmed by cultural differences and family history, I abandoned the story for awhile.  But I returned, as it was a novel I've long wished to read.  As you may have gathered from my previous posts, I found it a very interesting story.  Consider Catherine's statement from Chapter Twelve, roughly about a third of the way through.

'I see in you, Nelly,' she continued dreamily, 'an aged woman: you have grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under Penistone crags, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That's what you'll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now. I'm not wandering: you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really WERE that withered hag, and I should think I WAS under Penistone Crags.'

All those references to myth, legend, and fairy tales made me wonder what Emily Bronte was referring to.  At this point in the story, Edgar Linton has had a huge argument with Heathcliff.  His wife Catherine always wanted things both ways: she wanted to keep her adopted brother Heathcliff close, and yet she married Linton for his wealth and position in society. As Linton is too soft and genteel for her taste, she never really respects him.  After he bans Heathcliff from the house, and forbids her to see him again, she locks herself in her room, claims to be sick, and refuses to eat. One night, as she's tearing apart her pillow, her maid Mrs. Dean tries to settle her down. Catherine refuses while making this strange prophesy.

According to Richard Thornhill at the website Northern Earth, Bronte is referencing local folklore.  Rock formations, especially striking ones with holes in them, were associated with stories and beliefs.  Some taught that if a young couple crawled through one but did not marry within a year, then they would die.  Alternatively, one might commit suicide and haunt the other if they married someone else.  When people found pointed pieces of stone on the ground, they attributed them to mythical, magical, and real creatures with whom they shared the world.  Yet even though they looked newly-formed, we now know they were arrowheads made and used thousands of years ago by prehistoric hunters. 

(That's not to say that elves aren't real.  Frodo lives, folks!) 

Thornhill describes many of Bronte's characters in sexual terms, and suggests she intended several as metaphors contrasting the world, the flesh, and Satan.  From such comparisons follow cultural and societal outlooks on good and evil.  I didn't perceive half of what Thornhill described in reading the novel, but then, I didn't grow up in England. I certainly didn't grow up in Haworth like he did, the village where Emily Bronte taught the Bible to one of his grandparents' friends. Nor am I familiar with the myths and legends associated with the Pennine region. At first, I wondered if he wasn't reading too much into Bronte's novel. But then I realized what the first five letters of Penistone crags spells.  

While Penistone crags is a Bronte creation, the hill that rises up behind the church in Haworth (and the parsonage, where the Bronte Museum is located), bears the name Penistone Hill. 

This suggests, among other things, that Bronte is infusing her novel with beliefs that informed her society's concepts of right and wrong.  

When reading the Bible, history, or stories written in centuries past, it's easy to judge the actions of these people by how we might react to events in contemporary culture. With references to Elves, Goblins, Witches, Fairies, and the like, Wuthering Heights reminds us that peoples of the past saw their world differently than we do today. When our beliefs are called into question, and we cling to them, telling ourselves this is what our ancestors believed, we may in fact be correct. But do we really know why our ancestors believed what they believed? And if so, can their beliefs of the past be applied to situations and dilemmas that arise in our constantly evolving society?  

Insights of this nature make me want to read more literary classics.  It's so nice to be able to read such stories on a computer, during the "Information Age," when I can access the Internet to look up anything that intrigues me, and hopefully gain a better understanding of the author's beliefs, morals, and culture.

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
Emily Bronte & the Will to Live
Daleks Banish Emily Bronte's Ghouls, Goblins, Ghosts & Vampires

Related Internet Links
Wuthering Heights: Chapter 12
Northern Earth: Wuthering Heights' Cave
Wuthering Heights: Penistone Crags  

Emily Bronte & the Will to Live

There's nothing like illness to give you a new perspective on life.  As I've been reading Wuthering Heights lately, it struck me that many of the characters in Emily Bronte's novel suffer from long, sustained illnesses. Here are a few examples.

Catherine loves Heathcliff, but marries Edgar Linton.  She wants the two men to get along, but each detests the other.  Following a quarrel which makes any further interaction between the two impossible, Catherine seems to waste away.  

After her death, Mr. Linton confines himself to his books, raising his daughter, and running Thrushcross Grange.  But he never stops mourning her death.  One day, while walking across the moors, he catches a cold and never recovers.  Instead, he longs for death, which will reunite him with his wife.  

Mr. Linton Heathcliff is a sickly boy.  During his youth, his body absolutely refuses to gain any strength.  He struggles on into his teens like an elderly man, needing to be supported, or even carried around.

The most noteworthy sickness of all is that of Mr. Lockwood. At the beginning of the novel, he rents Thrushwood Grange for a year. He visits Wuthering Heights, where he meets Heathcliff, his new landlord.  But he gets caught outside during a storm, and the resultant cold confines him to his rented house for months.  To help him pass the time, his housekeeper, Mrs. Dean, tells him about the people who have lived on the two estates, and her retellings constitute the bulk of the novel. Through her, we learn about Heathcliff and Catherine, their tragic love affair, and how Heathcliff, soured on life after her death, seeks his revenge on all those he believes have wronged him. Unlike the other examples, Mr. Lockwood summons the will to live, and recovers his health.

My first thought on all this is that the story is set in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, long before the invention of modern medicines such as vaccines and antibiotics.  But another thought is that most of these characters have little to live for.  Nearly all of them set their hearts on one particular thing, and when it is taken from them, they lose the ability to derive further enjoyment from life.

As with her characters, Emily Bronte's life was cut short by illness.  Like most of her characters in Wuthering Heights, she had no major career goals or work toward the end of her life, aside from her writing.  Like Heathcliff, when she caught a cold at her brother's funeral, she refused medical assistance. Three months later, her housemaid declared that she had died of a broken heart.  

In the last few years, I've reasoned that, as there's one particular thing I want to achieve more than anything else, then other activities count for little or nothing.  But my recent illness, and Emily Bronte's life and novel, suggest that a revision of my thinking may be in order.  By all means, I shall continue working toward my primary goal.  But those lesser goals still linger in my mind, tugging at my will, year after year. So are they so little after all?  Should I not devote some time on a regular basis--each day, each week, or each month--to their accomplishment?  If I were to do so, might I discover that pursuing those lesser tasks compliments my primary work?  

I have my loving wife, and my work. I don't want to fill up my workdays with too many lesser goals.  But I suppose we all need more than just one or two primary things (persons, goals, whatever) to bolster our will to live. I wish Emily Bronte had lived past the age of thirty.  Given the enduring power of Wuthering Heights, I wonder how many more novels she might have written, if only, like Mr. Lockwood, she had possessed the will to carry on.  

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
An Introduction to Wuthering Heights
Wealth, Poverty, & Happiness in Wuthering Heights

Wealth, Poverty & Happiness in Wuthering Heights

One day, Mr. Earnshaw returns from a business trip with a street urchin he found in Liverpool.  As he is not in the habit of picking up waifs and strays, his decision to raise the boy as his own shocks and surprises his family.  At first his son Hindley and daughter Catherine detest the newcomer, but in time Catherine and Heathcliff become fast friends.  There’s some question as to who will inherit Wuthering Heights, as Mr. Earnshaw seems to love Heathcliff more than the others.  But upon their father's death, Hindley inherits the estate, which means that Catherine will receive little inheritance, and Heathcliff none at all. 

When Catherine comes of age, she knows that she loves Heathcliff more than anyone else.  He seems to inhabit her soul, to form a part of her very essence.  Yet marriage seems impossible, as they have no money to purchase a place of their own, and no income they can rely on.  After growing up on the rich estate of Wuthering Heights, she envisions a life of poverty awaits them if she gave into her weakness and married Heathcliff.  So she marries a neighbor, Edgar Linton, who owns the neighboring estate of Thrushcroft Grange.  She argues that she admires Linton, and that she will love him because she should, but when separated from Heathcliff, she grows argumentative and miserable. 

While admiring the paintings at www.gatehouseprints.com, I was taken aback by how the artists’ envisioned Wuthering Heights.  True, Emily Bronte hardly describes it as a great house, such as those owned by Mr. Darcy and others in Pride and Prejudice.  True, under Hindley’s ownership the interior falls into ruin.  Yet Sue Firth and Pat Bell depict the house as a rambling shack that a strong gust of wind might knock down.  It hardly seems a place where anyone would want to live.  In comparison, they portray the quiet English village of Haworth, little changed from the time when Emily Bronte lived, worked, and wrote the novel, as a place you might wish to visit, and yes, even live. 

I’ve read about seventy percent of Wuthering Heights, and I have yet to read a scene that takes place in Gimmerton, the nearby village.  The characters refer to the town, so you know they occasionally visit it.  But so far, there are no references to balls or parties, and little of the social visits or formal dinners with neighbors that form such a large portion of Austen's stories.  Instead, Bronte's characters spend virtually their entirely lives in their homes, or working on their lands, with only immediate family members and servants for company. 

Unlike Pat Bell and Sue Firth, Emily Bronte used words to conjure up her imagery.  Yet the efforts of all three challenge our definitions of wealth and poverty, and point to the sources of true happiness in life.   

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links

Image: Wuthering Heights

Image: Haworth

A Beautiful View of Haworth

After reading last week's "An Introduction to Wuthering Heights," my wife remembered a beautiful print we purchased during our visit to Haworth in 2012.  It was just one artifact of our travels that had remained packed away, waiting to be rediscovered.  So she found it, and we set out for Michaels, our local art supply shop, to get it framed.

Anywhere you travel, you encounter differences that seem negligible, but later realize are huge.  Such was the case with this little art print, which had been presented in a beige matte suitable for framing. Unfortunately, American paper--and therefore frames--are sized differently from their English counterparts.  We were prepared for this, as we had purchased two larger matted prints during our trip to England in 2011, only to return home and discover that Michaels wanted over $70 to custom frame each one (and that was using their 50% off coupon).  So this time, we prepared to purchase precut frame sections, and then cut down a piece of glass to fit.  What we learned this time was that these precut sections started at 8 inches, and the matte for our Haworth print measured 9 1/2" x 7 3/8".

For every problem, there is a solution.  In this case, we went to the custom framing counter, stripped off the shrink-wrap, and separated the matte from the cardboard backing.  The print was only taped to the back of the matte, so it was a simple matter to measure it.  The woman working in the framing office came out during this, and using her tape measure, we learned that the print was larger than the opening in the matte, and would accommodate a 5" x 7" matte.  We purchased a similar precut matte and an off-the-shelf frame for less than $10, and didn't even have to cut a piece of glass!  

If I hadn't wanted to read Wuthering Heights, we wouldn't have visited Haworth.  If I hadn't written a post about reading the novel, my wife might not have remembered the print we purchased that day in the village for two English pounds (or quid).  It could have remained packed away for years, never framed, just another memento that never saw the light of day.  Instead, while I read, I'll think of Gimmerton, the fictional village referenced in the novel. The print may even inspire me when I sit down to write a scene for one of my own stories.  

The print may also lead me to spend more time sketching. Pat Bell (who created our beautiful view of Haworth) and partner Sue Firth at Gate House Prints do excellent work.  I paged through the Yorkshire section of their website, and their depictions of Aysgarth Falls, Hawes, Ribblehead, Askrigg, and Haworth took me back once again to those beautiful places.  I'm inspired to create scenes equally evocative, or at least to try.  Yorkshire artist Ashley Jackson, whose artistic sensibilities were formed in part by the Bronte sisters' stories, offers just such encouragement on his Facebook page.  Really, what have I got to lose, except the insignificant cost of my pencils and paper, and a little of my time?  As with my writing and blogging, all I need to do is try.

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache Links
An Introduction to Wuthering Heights
Wealth, Poverty & Happiness in Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte & the Will to Live

Related Internet Links
Take an artist's tour of England with Pat Bell and Sue Firth at http://www.gatehouseprints.com.

An Introduction to Wuthering Heights

Haworth, in the Yorkshire region of England, is a stop precious to Bronte fans.  We visited in 2012 to see what all the fuss was about.  We had seen several film and TV adaptations of the Bronte sisters' books, but had never read any.  The village was small, and the Bronte association seems its sole claim to fame.  But we enjoyed visiting the shops, lunching in a restaurant, and exploring the nearby landscape.

I thought of buying a book in the Bronte Museum gift shop, but decided against it, as I would have to haul it home, and I had already picked up a few that trip.  I suppose I could have gotten a comic book adaptation of one of the novels (Yes, they sell those there), but I wasn't really into comics right then.  Besides, I wanted to experience the sisters' writing firsthand, before I read a graphic novel based on their work.

I'm reading Wuthering Heights right now.  It's my first foray into Bronte literature.  I find reading it on my computer both a help and a hindrance. As using my laptop in bed at night tends to keep me alert and energized, reading the novel gets relegated to a spare moment during the day when I have the focus for something of this complexity.  

There's a lot going on in Emily Bronte's sole novel.  It boasts an intricate plot structure, characters difficult to understand, and social and cultural aspects foreign to modern life.  Yet I'm enjoying the challenge!  I'm averaging a few chapters each week, and am nearly sixty percent of the way through.  I suspect that, if I wish to really understand and appreciate the story, I'll need to read it a second time.

Frankly, I'm amazed by all the reference material available online.  So many people love this story!  There are endless numbers of websites and blogs that address the smallest aspects of the novel.  This makes reading the story an interactive and educational experience.  It also contains interesting aspects of fantasy and folklore that I intend to research further. The text is readily available online, including at the link I've included below.  So if Wuthering Heights is a novel you've always wanted to read, but never gotten around to, there's never been a better time.  

In addition to contributing to your ongoing education and sophistication, reading the novel now should provide one additional benefit: it will enhance your understanding of my entries on the novel. Of course, I'd argue that my thoughts always make sense, but that's the kind of guy I am.

Dragon Dave
   
Related Internet Links
http://www.wuthering-heights.co.uk/index.php