'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Brontë

Genre: Gothic Fiction/Tragedy

I have always heard mixed reviews about Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, it seems to have a love-hate relationship with it’s readers. However, I absolutely adored this novel and its characters.

The storyline was so captivating because of the twisted family relationships (or lack of), forbidden love and overarching theme of revenge, and I found the more dark the narrative got the harder the book was to put down.

My favourite character by far was Heathcliff. I was constantly going back and forth between loving and despising him for his actions and behaviour; he is by far the most evil character out of them all, but this raises the question of nature versus nurture and his character and storyline critiques the ever present class divides of the time. If you are a fan of Charlotte Brontë’s ‘Jane Eyre’, Heathcliff reminds me heavily of Mr. Rochester; very byronic in nature and misunderstood by others, the definition of an anti-hero.

My only issue was at times the novel was a little hard to follow, most poignantly at the beginning, especially with there being two Catherine’s and then two Linton’s later on; and I appreciate the irony in Brontë’s choice to call characters after people, but this did make the narrative a bit convoluted at times.

Despite this issue, the scheming and revenge plot is amazingly well though-out and gripping; you do not want Heathcliff to succeed but you also understand his pain and suffering. The novel is a constant battle between Heathcliff and the world that hates him, and yet I found the character Catherine Sr. to be the most annoying.

‘Wuthering Heights’ is a classic, and in my opinion if you’re a book fan the classics are a must read, but I might be biased because I love them so much. ‘Wuthering Heights’ is probably now up there in my list of top favourite books; I could easily pick it up again and read it right now!

Rating: * * * * *