I Hated Wuthering Heights

[Red Terror]

When I was reading the early chapters of Wuthering Heights I was enthralled by the nice relationship between the young kids Heathcliff and Cathy, but then I hated the novel when the former grew up and became loathsome and vicious. Cathy was not a very sympathetic character when she matures either. The only sympathetic characters are of the second generation who try to be better and improve themselves than their forebears and fall in love with each other. And Heathcliff's son was such a pansy that he was appalling. All in all, I dislike the novel intensely! I hated it so much that I do not want to read Jane Eyre because I fear it will be a waste of time.

[spikepipsqueak]

IMV this type of novel isn't about nice people, it's about real people, with emotions and flaws, inconsistent and irrational.

For lovely people, clearly defined bad guys and happy endings I read Georgette Heyer.

[JCamilo]

What does Wuthering Heights have to do with Jane Eyre ?

[Danik 2016]

To like Jane Eyre one has to like the protagonist.

[Jackson Richardson]

I don't like Wuthering Heights and the weird tendency to find Heathcliff attractive by some readers.

And I certainly wouldn't call it primarily realistic, with its ghosts and mythic resonance.

But it certainly is a completely convincing and totally original world view with an extraordinarily complex narrative machinery.

[Red Terror]

What does Wuthering Heights have to do with Jane Eyre ?

Her sister wrote it and I'm thinking that creating terrible characters runs in the family gene pool.

[Red Terror]

I don't like Wuthering Heights and the weird tendency to find Heathcliff attractive by some readers.

And I certainly wouldn't call it primarily realistic, with its ghosts and mythic resonance.

But it certainly is a completely convincing and totally original world view with an extraordinarily complex narrative machinery.

Well, the fact that I hated Heathcliff so much tells you how effective Bronte was in her capacity as a novelist. She is very good in creating believable characters. Still, I hated the novel intensely.

[JCamilo]

Her sister wrote it and I'm thinking that creating terrible characters run in the family gene pool.

Make sense, Sara Coleridge wrote many poems like The Rime of Anciet Mariner...

[kev67]

I quite liked Wuthering Heights. It was original. It was beautifully written.

[Danik 2016]

The way the passions are depicted in it is innovative because their force is stronger than the Victorian morality specially if one considers that the author is the daughter of a parson.

[Polliwog]

I also had a strong distaste for Wuthering Heights for reasons I won't get into now. But I loved Jane Eyre.

[Jackson Richardson]

The way the passions are depicted in it is innovative because their force is stronger than the Victorian morality specially if one considers that the author is the daughter of a parson.

Stronger and more self destructive than any morality I'd have thought. I'm sure someone has dismissed it as the sado-masochistic fantasy of a sexually repressed spinster, but she sure wasn't repressed in writing WH, although it is a highly controlled work.

[prendrelemick]

I'm half way through Wuthering Heights, and have stopped for a break. It is the second time I've read it - I was hoping to like it more this time, but so far I don't.

I have the exact opposite view of spikepipsqueak. The characters are not "real" to me. Ok within the confines of the story they act and behave true to themselves and to the book, they are well drawn in that way, but the behavior they exhibit is implausible in my experience of this real world.

EDIT. Thinking a little further, I think it is that capacity for self-destruction several of them display that rankles with me.

[Pompey Bum]

Her sister wrote it and I'm thinking that creating terrible characters runs in the family gene pool.

Translation: Oh, Charlotte Bronte. :smilielol5:

Come on, Red, everyone makes mistakes. Fess up and move on.

[Aylinn]

It has been a long time since I read this book, but I don’t think that the characters, I mean Cathy and Heathcliff, were supposed to be sympathetic. They were interesting and well-written, which was enough for me.

Speaking of Jane Eyre, I think you can give this book a go, Jane is a much more likeable heroine than Cathy unless my memory fails me.

[JCamilo]

Likeable characters will make Dostoievisky and Kafka very unlikeable writers.

[Danik 2016]

I'm with you Camilo! But Wuthering Hearts was heartily disliked by its early critics before it gained its universal status.

[Pompey Bum]

But Wuthering Hearts was heartily disliked by its early critics before it gained its universal status.

A clergyman' daughter wasn't supposed to know about bad boys. But I think that was ultimately a selling point, too. It made the novel even more shocking.

[Danik 2016]

Sure, but I'm not so sure they wanted to be shocked. They wanted sunny themes and nice characters it seems.

[JCamilo]

I'm with you Camilo! But Wuthering Hearts was heartily disliked by its early critics before it gained its universal status.

So was Moby Dick. Personally, Emily is something else. Her poetry is very good, a bit superior to Anne and Charlote (I think Anne is also better than Charlote) and WH has some flaws (Nothing to do with the characters), but when Emily found her hand, it became a maginificient psychological novel, a rare exampel where she could do with the setting the moody of the characters. She made me think about Conrad, also because her capacity to bring to a realistic setting the feeling of supernatural (which does not exist). WH wasn't easy to grasp.

[Pompey Bum]

Sure, but I'm not so sure they wanted to be shocked. They wanted sunny themes and nice characters it seems.

True, but as with the appeal of bad boys/girls, sometimes one is in the position of wanting what one does not want. In the 19th century that would have been called Original Sin. That, I think, is what made her status as a clergyman' daughter so shocking. And of course as a woman she wan't supposed to be talking about such things. I don't like Wuthering Heights personally--it's not my kind of thing. But as JR pointed out (I think), it is richly made and sometimes beautifully written. And the dark mood and supernatural imagery are in my opinion among its stronger points.

[Red Terror]

True, but as with the appeal of bad boys/girls, sometimes one is in the position of wanting what one does not want. In the 19th century that would have been called Original Sin. That, I think, is what made her status as a clergyman' daughter so shocking. And of course as a woman she wan't supposed to be talking about such things. I don't like Wuthering Heights personally--it's not my kind of thing. But as JR pointed out (I think), it is richly made and sometimes beautifully written. And the dark mood and supernatural imagery are in my opinion among its stronger points.


Heathcliff was modeled on bad boy Lord Byron and as such I have no aversion to reading or even disliking negative characters. Alex from Clockwork Orange is one of my favorites and he is as bad as they come. In any case, Wuthering Heights is populated by characters who do not strive hard enough to find happiness in the world. When the world deals you a bad hand, you set yourself to struggle. Heathcliff is a cop out. He treated his wife terribly. She was disposed to be very good to him. What a jerk. I read the book several years ago and I'm still angry at Heathcliff.

[mona amon]

I thought it was magnificent, with its completely over-the-top characters and situations balanced by Nellie Dean's homely, commonsensical narrative voice.


In any case, Wuthering Heights is populated by characters who do not strive hard enough to find happiness in the world. When the world deals you a bad hand, you set yourself to struggle. Heathcliff is a cop out. He treated his wife terribly. She was disposed to be very good to him. What a jerk. I read the book several years ago and I'm still angry at Heathcliff.

Real life is full of such characters, so why object to them in a novel?

[Jackson Richardson]

From a C19 viewpoint, WH is unconventional in that Cathy and Heathcliff do not get married.

From a C21 viewpoint it is even more odd in that they seem not to want sex.

Sex would be trivial in the light of a desire that transcends everything, (including any consideration for each other). Only in death can even start to consummate it.

It reminds me of another C19 masterpiece, much admired but leaving me cold, Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde where death is the only satisfying consummation.

[Pompey Bum]

From a C21 viewpoint it is even more odd in that they seem not to want sex.

Sex would be trivial in the light of a desire that transcends everything, (including any consideration for each other). Only in death can even start to consummate it.

That is a rather brilliant point, JR. I had always thought of their relationship as obsessive and destructive, but in that light, there is an even more hellish quality to it. Perhaps I should give it another go. The first time I thought it was just about the romantic appeal of cruelty to some people, which is very much not my cup of tea. But maybe it's more a story about the human penchant for damnation.

[chuckcharles]

This is one of the first "classic" that I read so maybe my judgment is skewed by my sentimentality, but I quite like Wuthering Heights. The characters are loathsome, but for me it shows that the characters do not have to be sympathetic to the reader for the novel to be good (I have the same feeling reading Gatsby: almost all the characters are detestable but what a wonderful book).

[EmptySeraph]

When I was reading the early chapters of Wuthering Heights I was enthralled by the nice relationship between the young kids Heathcliff and Cathy, but then I hated the novel when the former grew up and became loathsome and vicious. Cathy was not a very sympathetic character when she matures either. The only sympathetic characters are of the second generation who try to be better and improve themselves than their forebears and fall in love with each other. And Heathcliff's son was such a pansy that he was appalling. All in all, I dislike the novel intensely! I hated it so much that I do not want to read Jane Eyre because I fear it will be a waste of time.

Wuthering Heights hates you too.

[Pompey Bum]

Wuthering Heights hates you too.

:lol:

[Red Terror]

Wuthering Heights hates you too.

I welcome its hate.

[Pompey Bum]

Jane Eyre hates you, too. :D

[Red Terror]

Jane Eyre hates you, too. :D

Ditto. I can do this all day.

[Pompey Bum]

Well, you are a formidable hater, Mr Red Terror. I can't help but feel that you are being a little hard on poor Jane Eyre, though. I mean, I know how cross I get if someone mixes me up with my brother. ;-)