Facets of Wuthering Heights: Selected Essays

Facets of

Wuthering

Heights

Selected Essays

Graeme Tytler

Copyright © 2018 Graeme Tytler

All essays copyright © The Brontë Society, reprinted by permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd, on behalf of The Brontë Society.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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For Sachiko

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Wuthering Heights: An Amoral Novel?

The Role of Religion in Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff’s Monomania:

An Anachronism in Wuthering Heights

The Parameters of Reason in Wuthering Heights

The Power of the Spoken Word in Wuthering Heights

‘He’s more myself than I am’:

The Problem of Comparisons in Wuthering Heights

Physiognomy in Wuthering Heights

The Presentation of the Second Catherine in Wuthering Heights

The Presentation of Hareton Earnshaw in Wuthering Heights

The Presentation of Isabella in Wuthering Heights

The Presentation of Edgar Linton in Wuthering Heights

Masters and Servants in Wuthering Heights

Animals in Wuthering Heights

Eating and Drinking in Wuthering Heights

House and Home in Wuthering Heights

Author’s Publications

Acknowledgements

Since all these essays originally appeared in Brontë Society Transactions and Brontë Studies, I should like to take this opportunity to thank once again the following editors of both journals for accepting the earliest of them for publication: Mark Seaward, Edward Chitham and Robert Duckett. Special thanks are due to Amber Adams, the current editor of Brontë Studies, for the immense help and encouragement she has invariably given me in respect of various essays I have in recent years had published in her journal on the novels of all three Brontë sisters. I am deeply grateful to the staff of Matador, Hannah Dakin, Fern Bushnell and Emily Castledine in particular, for efficiently shepherding this collection through to its present format. Nor should I forget to convey my warm appreciation of the interest my sister and brother-in-law, Ruth and Michael Kaye, have shown in my research on Emily Brontë’s masterpiece during the past three or four decades. Finally, I must express my infinite gratitude to my wife Sachiko, not only for the superb dexterity with which she has typed my manuscripts, but also for the consummate editorial skills which she has ever brought to bear on each and every one of these essays; to her I gladly dedicate this book.

Preface

These fifteen essays on Wuthering Heights, which have been assembled here partly in honour of this the bicentenary year of the birth of Emily Brontë, are, except for some minor changes here and there, substantially the same as those originally published in Brontë Society Transactions and Brontë Studies. Not the least important function of this collection is to suggest that the love relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff and their presentation as characters need to be viewed rather more dispassionately than has all too often been the case over the years. Further, it is hoped that readers who look upon the second half of the narrative after Catherine’s death as something of a let-down may by dint of these essays be encouraged to acknowledge that it is nevertheless integral to the overall structure of the novel. These and other standpoints of mine have for the most part been gradually arrived at through repeated readings of the text during the past three decades. And though I have spent some of that time studying and writing about other great works of fiction, notably those of Charlotte and Anne Brontë, I have focused my research principally on Wuthering Heights, and in so doing come to realize more and more not only that, owing to the unwonted richness of its content, it is a book that repays constant, not to say endless, perusal and analysis, but that there is surely a good deal more of critical interest still to be said about this wonderful literary masterpiece.

Wuthering Heights:

An Amoral Novel?

Wuthering Heights has been pronounced an amoral or a non-moral novel, a novel without a moral centre.¹ Of sundry reasons lying behind such designations the most important undoubtedly have to do with the presentation of Catherine and Heathcliff. Thus statements have been made to the effect that both protagonists are above and beyond the confines of ordinary human society and hence not to be judged by its values and principles.² Catherine and Heathcliff are, moreover, not seldom esteemed transcendental creatures, whose destiny is to be ultimately reunited in death. In much the same vein are claims that the effusions of these two characters are what alone make the book worth reading, and that the second half of the novel, with its portrayal of Cathy and Hareton, is something of a let-down for the reader.³ Further support for the idea of the amorality of the novel might even be sought in, say, the apparent indifference to moral questions in those making feminist and psychoanalytical interpretations of the text; in the (formerly common) opinion that the characters have no counterparts in the real world; and in the claim that the two main narrators are not altogether reliable.⁴

It is true that a number of scholars have over the years scrupulously exposed the moral defects of some of the main characters. Thus, as well as speaking of violence, cruelty, uncharitableness and the like, they have summarily condemned particular figures. For example, one scholar has declared Hindley to be ‘the villain of Wuthering Heights’, another scholar has devoted an entire essay to demonstrating that Nelly Dean is ‘The Villain in Wuthering Heights’, while a third scholar has gone so far as to deem Heathcliff ‘the greatest villain in fiction’.⁵ Yet even though Heathcliff’s villainy has been time and again acknowledged, it seems to have detracted from his heroic stature as little as Catherine’s untoward deeds have detracted from hers. This may have been due in part to the influence some critics have exerted through their use of the term ‘moral’ and its cognates in evaluations of the principal hero and heroine. Thus Catherine has been adjudged ‘the real moral centre of the book’ and even labelled ‘absolument morale’; Catherine and Heathcliff’s humanity has been said to be ‘finer and more morally profound than the standards of the Lintons and the Earnshaws’; Lockwood is understood as someone instructed in ‘the moral significance of [Heathcliff and Catherine’s] immoral passion’.⁶ Clearly, ‘moral’ and ‘morally’ in such contexts suggest the grandiose metaphysics of the moralist rather than the more humble ethics of the moral philosopher. Yet to overlook what is fundamentally ethical about Wuthering Heights is to miss an important element in the book. My concern here, then, will be to draw attention to an aspect that has hardly figured in criticism on the novel hitherto, namely, the way in which the author, as it were, puts all her main characters, including Lockwood and Nelly Dean, through a rigorous moral test to show how they relate to certain fundamental aspects of truth. By passing judgement on her characters from this standpoint, we are, then, in a better position not only to discern the essence of each of the characters, but to distinguish between them with perhaps greater objectivity.

Let me begin my discussion by considering the role of secretiveness in the plot (or plots) of Wuthering Heights. Secretiveness is, of course, a device used by Heathcliff in his bid to deceive Edgar on two counts: first, in order to arrange his tryst with Catherine at the Grange; secondly, in order to bring about the marriage of his son Linton to Cathy. If, however, Heathcliff’s secretiveness succeeds well enough in the former case, in the latter case his twofold attempts to exhort Cathy, at the time of her first reunion with Linton, not to tell her father about her intended visits to the Heights, prove to be of no avail, thanks to the girl’s frank account to Edgar of her unexpected meeting with Linton. That is why Heathcliff’s secretiveness is ultimately dependent for its success on Nelly’s own practice of secretiveness. In this connection, it is interesting to note the extent to which secretiveness seems to have been a habit with Nelly throughout her career as housekeeper and nanny to sundry masters and mistresses. One early instance is evident when she tells of ‘not daring to speak a syllable’ to Hindley about Catherine and Heathcliff’s reckless behaviour ‘for fear of losing the small power [she] still retained over the unfriended creatures’ (WH, p. 40).⁷ The fact that the ostensible motive for Nelly’s secrecy here is power rather than, say, sympathy for two children maltreated by a vicious master does not, however, blind us to the notion that fear is the real motive for her silence. Indeed, it is fear, and usually a quite unfounded fear, that needlessly prevents Nelly from speaking out when she could have done so with impunity. Examples of this may be noted when she fails to report Heathcliff’s disappearance in Chapter 9; when she announces Heathcliff’s unexpected arrival at the Grange in Chapter 10 without mentioning him by name; and when, in Chapter 12, she sees ‘nothing for it but to hold [her] tongue’ (WH, p. 116) on inferring from the sight of her empty room that Isabella has indeed eloped with Heathcliff.

The last example is one of several by which Nelly makes secretiveness a norm in her dealings with Edgar, and that nowhere more blatantly than when she is stage-managing Heathcliff’s tryst with Catherine. But why Nelly should be at all secretive with Edgar is puzzling when we reflect how much she is trusted, and how well she is treated, by him. Certainly, the reader can find no worthy reason behind Nelly’s unwillingness to keep Edgar fully apprised of the vexed relationship between Cathy and Linton. This is obvious enough when referring, for example, to the first official meeting between the cousins, at which Linton has exhibited strange behaviour, Nelly says this about her own answer to questions Edgar put to her and Cathy about that meeting: ‘I, also, threw little light on his inquiries, for I hardly knew what to hide, and what to reveal’ (WH, p. 133). We also note how Nelly tries to play down another needless example of secretiveness as ‘pardonable weakness’ (WH, p. 234) when she refrains from correcting Edgar’s assumption that Linton resembles him mentally because they are physically alike, just as she will later decline to say anything to Edgar about Cathy’s sufferings at the Heights because she wishes to ‘add no bitterness […] to his already overflowing cup’ (WH, p. 249). Yet Nelly’s endeavour to ‘please’ her master in the latter context, noble as she makes it sound, is, in fact, little more than a papering over of the cracks. Moreover, through her reluctance to speak out truthfully in good time, Nelly may be said to have inadvertently paved the way not only for Cathy’s ill-fated marriage to Linton, but also for the girl’s subsequent sufferings at the hands of Heathcliff.

Nelly’s secretiveness seems in some measure to be motivated in much the same ways as the white lies to which she is equally prone. We think, for instance, of the occasion when, in order to help maintain peace at the Heights, she prevents Heathcliff from reporting Hindley to Mr. Earnshaw for injuring him with an iron weight by ‘easily persuading him to let [her] lay the blame of the bruise on the horse’ (WH, p. 34). This intended lie might seem as venial as, say, the prevarications with which Nelly deigns to alleviate Linton Heathcliff’s apprehensiveness on their journey to the Heights in Chapter 20. To be sure, one senses in the latter case the well-intentioned pity of someone who knows that in her position she can do nothing to remedy this painful state of affairs. At the same time, both instances amply illustrate how reluctant Nelly is in general to accept unpleasant human situations, especially those for which she is in no way responsible, and how disposed she is to pretend to herself that things are not as bad as they are in reality. A notable example can be seen when she deceives Edgar into believing that Isabella’s letter to her has included ‘a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of forgiveness by [Nelly]’ (WH, p. 129); and, another, when she imparts to Isabella, on visiting her at the Heights, practically the opposite of what Edgar has said in response to the garbled version of the letter: ‘[My master] sends his love, ma’am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the guilt you have occasioned’ (WH, p. 130). From both references to forgiveness, it would appear that, intent as she is on basking in the momentary gratification she believes she has afforded both her superiors, Nelly seems to delude herself into thinking that she is also doing something commendably moral, and possibly Christian.

But although Nelly is no less apt to tell lies in other contexts, and that sometimes in order to assert her authority in the name of the master she happens to be serving, she is none the less aware of the wrongness of lying.⁸ This we see when, with reference to Cathy’s first (official) reunion with Linton, she recalls telling Edgar that Heathcliff ‘forced [her] to go [into the Heights]’, adding, ‘which was not quite true’ (WH, p. 249); or when, earlier, she has told Heathcliff that Edgar is not coming into the kitchen with some servants to evict him from the Grange, she admits to thereby ‘framing a bit of a lie’ (WH, p. 103). Yet by confessing to both these untruths, Nelly makes it abundantly clear that truthfulness for her is at best a convenience or an expedient rather than a habit to be strictly adhered to at all times. On the other hand, when it is a question of truthfulness in general, Nelly seems to have no doubt whatever that it should be sedulously observed by everyone else. This is ironically evident most of all through her continual disbelief of Heathcliff’s utterances in the period between his return to Gimmerton and the death of Edgar. That is why there is perhaps nothing surprising about the hypocrisy she sentimentally displays when she has seen through Cathy’s attempt to conceal her illicit visits to Linton: ‘Oh, Catherine, […]. You know you have been doing wrong, or you wouldn’t be driven to uttering an untruth to me. That does grieve me. I’d rather be three months ill, than hear you frame a deliberate lie’ (WH, p. 217).

The alacrity with which Emily’s characters suspect or accuse one another of lying indicates some awareness on their part of the fundamental immorality of lies.⁹ This is plain enough when, at his final meeting with Catherine, Heathcliff taunts her thus: ‘You know you lie to say I have killed you’ (WH, p. 140); and again when, on hearing that Catherine did not mention his name on her deathbed, he exclaims: ‘Why, she’s a liar to the end!’ (WH, p. 147). Yet, not unlike Nelly Dean, Heathcliff has a propensity to lie when it suits his particular aims, a notable instance being when, in order to sustain Cathy’s sympathy for him during their first encounter, he gives this specious reason for the cessation of communication between the two households: ‘[Your father] thought me too poor to wed his sister’ (WH, p. 191). Not unrelated to this are the assertions Heathcliff occasionally makes on oath, as if he already knew that his words might otherwise be disbelieved. Thus in a bid to persuade Nelly to arrange a meeting between himself and Catherine at the Grange, he says: ‘I swear that I meditate no harm’ (WH, p. 134), just as in an endeavour to get Cathy to resume relations with his son, he says: ‘I swear Linton is dying, […]’ (WH, p. 206). As events later disclose, Heathcliff’s affirmations on oath fail to guarantee either execution of intention or confirmation of statement.

Catherine, too, is quick to fall back on lies, especially when she finds herself on the horns of a dilemma in her quest to retain Edgar Linton’s early interest in her without forfeiting Heathcliff’s friendship. Consider, for instance, the lie with which, on the afternoon she expects Edgar’s visit, she answers Heathcliff’s enquiry as to whether anybody is coming to the Heights: ‘Not that I know of’ (WH, p. 60). That there is something quite pathological about Catherine’s lies is suggested when Edgar later accuses her of telling ‘a deliberate untruth’ in denying that she pinched Nelly’s arm. Indeed, as Nelly recalls, Edgar was ‘greatly shocked at the double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed’ (WH, pp. 62-63). One may, therefore, wonder how things would have turned out had Catherine been utterly truthful to both Heathcliff and Edgar on that fateful afternoon.

Being truthful is, however, hardly less problematic in the novel than being deceitful. To be sure, the characters generally seem to consider truthfulness to be a moral desideratum, as is already implicit in their most casual mention of ‘truth’ and its cognates. Even habitual liars expect others to speak or observe the truth; but, because they are often dissatisfied with mere assertions or asseverations, they are likely to ask someone whether they are ‘speaking the truth’ or to tell them to ‘speak the truth’, however unbearable that truth may be.¹⁰ It is interesting to note some of the ways in which Nelly, as well as making pleonastic use of ‘true’, ‘in truth’, ‘the truth’, etc., can be strangely zealous about telling the truth, and sometimes, too, without being consistently truthful.¹¹ Thus, referring to her visit at the Heights, in response to Isabella’s letter, and to her assuring Heathcliff on arriving there that she has brought nothing with her from the Grange, she adds, ‘thinking it best to speak the truth at once’ (WH, p. 130), in spite of the fact that she will presently misrepresent the content of Edgar’s message to his sister. Again, Nelly can be oddly strait-laced about truthfulness. Thus it seems surprising that, as someone who has fostered Heathcliff’s illicit relations with Catherine and who, as we have seen, is much disposed to white lies, Nelly should tell the former the very opposite of what he has been hoping to hear, namely, that Catherine did not mention his name on her deathbed—perhaps because, ironically enough, Heathcliff has asked Nelly to give him ‘a true history of the event’ (WH, p. 147).

Noteworthy, too, are some of the ways in which Heathcliff seems to pride himself on being truthful. This is evident when, for example, having told Nelly that ‘it wounds [Isabella’s] vanity to have the truth exposed’, he goes on to say this: ‘But I don’t care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side, and I never told a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing a bit of deceitful softness’ (WH, p. 133). By saying all this, Heathcliff thinks himself absolved of all moral responsibility to his bride. Yet such truthfulness is hardly less base than that with which he hopes to persuade Cathy to visit the Heights and resume relations with his son by saying this to her: ‘As true as I live, he’s dying for you—’ (WH, p. 205); or when, having assured Cathy presently that he will be away from the Heights, he adds: ‘[…] go and see if I have not spoken truth’ (WH, p. 206). For though Heathcliff will have certainly ‘spoken truth’ in the latter respect, it is a truth of little ethical value, and the less so as it marks an early stage of that cunning form of deceit by which he will eventually bring about Linton’s marriage to Cathy. Heathcliff’s tendency to take advantage of the truth is evident when he seeks to justify his having trapped Nelly and Cathy in the Heights by saying this to the latter: ‘You cannot deny that you entered my house of your own accord, in contempt of [your father’s] injunctions to the contrary’ (WH, p. 242). Such a fastidious concern with factual exactitude helps us to understand why Heathcliff is so skilled at interpreting various ‘truths’ of the law to his own benefit.¹²

Like Heathcliff, Catherine can be as blunt with the truth as she is sometimes afraid of it. For example, when Heathcliff has asked her if she is ‘speaking the truth’ about Isabella’s love for him, it is, indeed, ‘the truth’, as Nelly’s narrative corroborates, but a truth intended to cause trouble. That Catherine is, however, by no means concerned to stick to the truth may be gathered when, after she has given Heathcliff a distorted version of what her sister-in-law has actually said about her feelings for him, Isabella reproaches her as follows: ‘I’d thank you to adhere to the truth and not slander me, even in joke!’ (WH, p. 93). It is, moreover, interesting to note Catherine altering Isabella’s claim to love Heathcliff ‘more than ever [Catherine] loved Edgar’ (WH, p. 90) by saying this to Heathcliff: ‘Isabella swears that the love Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you’ (WH, p. 93). But if Catherine’s words are clearly meant to enable her to save face, they are nevertheless characteristic of her chronic lapses of memory, one psychologically significant example of which may be noted when, soon after consulting Nelly about whether or not to marry Edgar, she expresses anxiety lest Heathcliff may have overheard their talk by exclaiming: ‘What did I say, Nelly? I’ve forgotten’ (WH, p. 74). Such forgetfulness is, however, part and parcel of Catherine’s general unawareness of the feelings of those closest to her—an unawareness that is signally obvious when, in the same dialogue with Nelly, she presently says: ‘Was he vexed at my bad humour this afternoon? Dear! tell me what I’ve said to grieve him?’ (WH, p. 74). Catherine’s forgetfulness is perhaps much more disturbing when a statement she makes about Heathcliff is in flagrant contradiction with what she has previously said about him. For example, despite having complained to Nelly about Edgar’s ‘melting into tears’ because she said that the newly-returned Heathcliff was ‘worthy of any one’s regard, and [that] it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend’ (WH, p. 87), she subsequently tries her utmost, probably out of jealousy, to put Isabella off Heathcliff by painting a most terrible portrait of his character, and that with some rather insensate metaphors and hyperboles.

The failure to be mindful of one’s words, as illustrated in the foregoing, is just as noticeable with respect to the making of resolutions. Consider, for instance, how Catherine, in spite of telling Nelly, amid her joy in Heathcliff’s unexpected return, that ‘[t]he event of this evening has reconciled [her] to God and humanity’ (WH, p. 88), and that henceforth she will be a sort of Christian towards others, she will in effect have ignored that resolution shortly afterwards through her callous treatment of Isabella. Resolutions are, indeed, soon forgotten by some characters, as is evident when, having been lectured by Mr. Linton about Catherine and Heathcliff’s intrusion at the Grange, Hindley warns the latter that ‘the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal’ (WH, p. 45), even though, on Catherine’s return home after her five-week sojourn at the Grange, he will sardonically tell Heathcliff that he may ‘come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants’ (WH, p. 47). Hindley’s resolutions or intentions are usually expressed with threats of extreme violence, childish examples of which occur in his drunken behaviour towards Nelly and Hareton in Chapter 9. Equally childish, though much more dangerous, is Hindley’s telling Isabella of his determination, despite previous failed attempts, to kill her husband, and that in language at once solemn and superstitious: ‘I’ve formed my resolution, and by God, I’ll execute it!’ (WH, p. 155).

Hindley’s inability to act on his violent resolutions ironically reminds us that Heathcliff, in turn, does not kill Hindley, even though he has resolved to do so on his return to Gimmerton. It is true that Heathcliff does keep the resolution with which, in Chapter 11, he taunts Catherine as follows: ‘[…] thank you for telling me your sister-in-law’s secret—I swear I’ll make the most of it—and stand you aside!’ (WH, pp. 99-100), just as he will keep his resolution to marry his son and Cathy. Yet both resolutions, though carried out, are nevertheless nefarious ones. Heathcliff’s resolutions to commit violence, however, are generally as futile as Hindley’s. Thus we may think of Heathcliff’s physical threats against Edgar, especially as imparted to Catherine after the quarrel between the two men in the Grange kitchen: ‘I’ll crush his ribs in like a rotten hazel-nut, before I cross the threshold! If I don’t floor him now, I shall murder him some time, […]’ (WH, p. 103). Of similar futility are those vicious resolutions he will later make in reaction to Cathy’s defiance of him in Chapter 33.

Nelly’s resolutions are many of them expressions of her somewhat overweening sense of responsibility to her superiors. Consider, for example, the fact that she is so uneasy about Heathcliff’s influence on the Heights household since his return to Gimmerton, notably with respect to Hareton’s upbringing, that, as she tells Lockwood: ‘[…] it urged me to resolve further on mounting vigilant guard, and doing my utmost to check the spread of such bad influence at the Grange […]’ (WH, p. 98). As the word ‘further’ confirms, Nelly has by then made a resolution to avert the possible consequences of Isabella’s infatuation with Heathcliff by saying that she ‘determined to watch [the latter’s] movements’ (WH, p. 94). Nelly’s failure or inability to act on such noble resolutions is to be sure one of the ironies of her narrative. Again, as with the characters discussed above, some of Nelly’s resolutions remain unfulfilled probably because they have been made in the heat of the moment. For example, on finding Cathy at the Heights after a long search for her, Nelly exclaims: ‘This is your last ride, till papa comes back. I’ll not trust you over the threshold again, you naughty, naughty girl’ (WH, p. 171). How different events might have turned out to be, had Nelly kept to the latter resolution!

The comic irony of Nelly’s words reminds us that she has some years earlier resisted Heathcliff’s intention to visit Catherine at the Grange by saying: ‘—you never shall through my means’ (WH, p. 131). Indeed, such words could be regarded as ‘famous last words’, rather like those with which she will later try to prevent Heathcliff from coaxing Cathy into the Heights: ‘No, she’s not going to any such place’ (WH, p. 189); or, again, those with which she presently answers Heathcliff’s expressed intention to marry his son to Cathy: ‘And I’m resolved she shall never approach your house with me again’ (WH, p. 190). All such statements also have an unmistakably ironic bearing on those with which Nelly shows a dogged determination to thwart Linton’s relationship with Cathy. Much more important from a moral viewpoint, however, are the resolutions that Nelly makes about matters of which she has full control. Consider, for instance, the fact that, with respect to the secret meeting she has agreed to arrange between Heathcliff and Catherine at the Grange, she tells of ‘affirming, with frequent iteration, that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh an appellation, should be the last’ (WH, p. 136). That ‘that betrayal of trust’ will be by no means the last is indirectly underlined with no little irony when, in answer to Cathy’s talk about her selfless devotion to her sick father and her claim that she would never ‘do an act or say a word to vex him’, and only moments before another ill-fated encounter with Heathcliff, Nelly replies: ‘Good words […]. But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don’t forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear’ (WH, p. 204).¹³

Nelly’s pompous words just quoted are matched by the solemnity of her attitude to promises, as strikingly manifest at first when, on hearing that Catherine has already accepted Edgar’s proposal of marriage, she exclaims: ‘[…] then, what good is it discussing the matter? You have pledged your word, and cannot retract’ (WH, p. 68). Certainly it is through such words that we may be forcibly put in mind of the importance that many a moral philosopher down