Category: Reading

Wuthering Heights-Getting answers for some questions…-Part 2

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The way Wuthering Heights panned out with Heathcliff on an avenging mission, I have often wondered that who had a major role in advancing Heathcliff’s schemes(knowingly or unknowingly) on both the families.Was it Hindley’s alcoholism cum gambling mania that made him a debtor to Heathcliff or Isabella’s attraction towards Heathcliff?If it had been only Hindley,the scene of action would have been only Wuthering Heights .But Isabella too comes in and Thrushcross Grange-the Lintons’ happy and normal home becomes a setting for the climax-the climax that preceded the story of avenging one’s love .There is one person who connects both the houses-Catherine Earnshaw,the ‘tragic’ heroine of the novel. Throughout the entire first half of the novel, there is ample evidence that Catherine Earnshaw’ s actions and words played a major role in setting up Heathcliff in his avenging mission.

Firstly,there was nobody to hinder Catherine from choosing Heathcliff over Edgar Linton-a proud (and definitely uncaring) brother definitely did not stand a chance against Catherine’s strong-willed nature. It was only Catherine’s pride and fear of poverty that made her choose Linton over Heathcliff. She could comprehend her feelings towards Heathcliff even then when she says-

“This [the acceptance of Linton’s proposal] is for one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself.[…]my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and all else remained ,and he were annihilated ,the universe, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger;[…]My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware; as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath-a source of little visible delight but necessary.

This alone says it all-her marriage to Linton is chiefly out of selfish motives for herself primarily despite her saying “The others [motives] were for the satisfaction of my whims and for Edgar’s sake,too,to satisfy him” and for Heathcliff chiefly.The only thing that sets apart Catherine (who caps even  all the Brontes’ unconventional heroines) from the rest of the Victorian heroines  is that she is very vocal about her factors(however despicable) that influenced her course of action.With the Lintons pandering to every whim of hers, she soon forgot about the only living person “who was her great thought in living” until the day he made his reappearance.While Heathcliff had come only to pay back Hindley, Catherine’s rapturous welcome of him showed him plainly that he had not lost Catherine’s love. Edgar Linton’s evident discomfort at his wife’s attachment towards Heathcliff, made it a sport for Heathcliff to repeat his visits to the Grange.

When Isabella confesses her admiration for somebody whom she perceived Heathcliff to be, Catherine plainly puts forth Heathcliff’s failings to make Isabella see sense.

He’s not a rough diamond___[…] he’s a fierce,pitiless,wolfish man.[….]I say ‘Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged’; and he’d crush you like  a sparrow’s egg,Isabella,if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn’t love a Linton, and yet he’d be quite capable of marrying your fortunes and expectations___avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There’s my picture; and I’m his friend -so much so that had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let you fall into his trap”

Despite knowing enough about the Heathcliff who had returned [no guesses there-Heathcliff laid bare his desire for revenging himself upon Hindley during their long rambles], she still reveals the girl’s fancy to him “to punish her for her sauciness” which seals Isabella Linton’s fate. Heathcliff had to just step up his revenge on Edgar with his marriage to Isabella Linton.Catherine Earnshaw knowingly not only betrayed her husband but also his beloved sister despite declaring that her intentions were otherwise.Even if she was honest in her intentions towards Isabella Linton,her betrayal towards Edgar Linton gives her fallacies that would make her an “anti-heroine” just like Heathcliff becomes an “anti-hero”.

I can go so far as to say that Catherine Earnshaw’s presence in the Lintons’ home was a luckless one. And Ellen Dean says that it was Heathcliff who was the “luckless presence”, a bird of bad omens”(Duh!!) .She does get very good adjectives but she did not use it to describe the correct person.

Catherine kept her word assiduously when she said

“I’ll try to break their hearts by breaking my own.That will be a prompt way of finishing all when I am pushed to extremity!”

If Catherine, alive and headstrong could inflict only this much damage, a delirious Catherine Earnshaw in her deathbed, with her words, destroyed any happiness that everybody could have had, if Heathcliff had been given a chance to move on.

“I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings […] Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, ‘That’s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her: but it is past. I’ve loved many others since; my children are dearer to me than she was, and at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her. I shall be sorry that I must leave them! ‘Will you say so, Heathcliff?“

Even when Heathcliff for once speaks his heart at the very moment when he says “Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? [..]Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?”. But this anguished plea  falls on deaf ears and she again wishes to never be parted from Heathcliff and rambles on about how she expected Heathcliff to wish to be near her always.Knowing Heathcliff unlike any other person,and her hold on his heart,if her marriage was a betrayal,her confession about her undying love for Heathcliff during her final moments was even worse.

That day,the “anti-hero” Heathcliff emerged when he says-“I forgive what you have done to me.I love my murderer-but yours!How can I?“Although he clearly perceived Catherine’s fallacies,the intense grief totally eclipsed every other notion of reason/moving on-and The Hate Story started from there.

 

 

Wuthering Heights-Getting answers for some questions…

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Recently,I picked up Wuthering Heights once again-these classics have such a powerful and eloquent language that dipping into one of them time and again is nothing new.But Wuthering Heights is different in one aspect-every read reveals a new shade of the characters -especially Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. Perhaps I should call them ‘changelings’ to adopt Bronte’s expression.I have always wondered at the great heights to which Heathcliff took his mission of avenging his lost love on both the Lintons and Earnshaws with not an iota of pity and evident indifference even for the only person connected to him by blood-Linton Heathcliff. That was enough to convince me that Heathcliff presented the epitome of villainy despite the introduction written by some English professor referring to Heathcliff as “anti-hero”.

It was the most depressing read at that time when all the previous reads have been happily ever after(even Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre despite the romance between Rochester and Jane not being in the style of a regular one). I skipped some chapters to fast-forward the read in the hope of getting some glimpse of  redemption,if any ,for both the families from the diabolical schemes of the villain.With turning over each page,it only seemed that things were moving towards something dreadful of an epic proportion and that’s why I had to fast forward my read with this book.

The next read (after a year or so),allowed for a proper reading which turn the spotlight full on the eloquent and most importantly, the powerful language which brought out the raw emotions of the lead characters-Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. This time, I felt some pity for Heathcliff when he says “….nothing that God or Satan could inflict would  have parted us,you,of your own will,did it. I have not broken your heart-you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.[….]”

I could understand that being loved in his own way by somebody (for probably the first time in his life), he was always striving to be worthy of that love. On losing his only love, he became someone whose only life mission was to dish out revenge to people whom he perceived to be the reason for his love betraying him. I have always tried to find a convincing explanation for Heathcliff to run amok in view of his life mission of revenge on Hindley Earnshaw and Edgar Linton as he did not stop with only both of them-he carried it too far with his schemes on both Hareton Earnshaw and Catherine Linton.

Understandably Hindley becomes the arch rival as his depriving Heathcliff of his education and degrading him in the eyes of Catherine who eventually turned to Edgar Linton despite her misgivings about marrying him as she herself puts it beautifully thus-“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changing the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath-a source of little visible delight, but necessary…”.When he returns to Wuthering Heights to primarily avenge Hindley Earnshaw, Isabella’s Linton’s attraction towards him presents him with a golden opportunity to avenge Edgar also and he aces it with diabolical cunning. On Hindley quitting the hell of his own making (within a few months of his sister quitting hers and again entirely her own making), Hareton has to bear the atrocious conduct of the sins of the father visited upon the son (and very pathetically without knowing about it).But, Edgar severing all ties with Isabella upon her marriage to Heathcliff and Isabella eventually running away from the Heights and taking refuge in London, it is somewhat of a poor consolation. This time, his own son becomes the pawn in his game to obtain the custody of Hareton Earnshaw and making him a servant in his own father’s house.

On Isabella’s death and Linton Heathcliff’s subsequent arrival at Wuthering Heights, his comfortable upbringing in the dismal and disorderly house is with the sole objective of making his own son the master of Wuthering Heights with his arch rival’s son now knowing his rightful place (if he couldn’t perceive the diabolical cunning behind Heathcliff’s indulgence towards him during his growing up years).By excellent scheming again Heathcliff puts together his Linton and Catherine’s daughter  in each other’s company and eventually gets them married knowing very well that his son would die and he would become the master of Edgar Linton’s estate which his son had come into possession on his marriage. Almost everything falls in place like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and he becomes the master of Edgar Linton’s estate also.

Heathcliff’s love for Catherine Earnshaw was of such a kind that she lived in his thoughts and everything evoked a memory of her. He himself puts it plainly thus “….what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her…The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist and that I have lost her!’. When I say that Catherine loved Heathcliff in his way, it is about the numerous instances where they have echoed each other.

Nelly,I am Heathcliff!He’s always,always in my mind-not as a pleasure,any more than I am always a  pleasure to myself,but as my own being”

“[…] I could as soon forget you as my existence”

“[…] he’s more myself than I am.Whatever our souls are made of,his and mine are the same;and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from from lightning,or frost from fire.”

“[..]What kind of living will it be when you—oh God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?“

 It was a cruel twist of fate for Heathcliff again when he had everybody in his power but he couldn’t strike the final blow as he saw Catherine Earnshaw instead of Hindley in Hareton now.But,the most compelling thing that made him reluctant was that he had a glimpse of his own youth which had seen his degradation and his subsequent hard life in reaffirming his place in the society -“He moves me differently-and yet if I  could do it without seeming insane, I’d never see him again! You’ll perhaps think me rather inclined to become so if  I try to describe the thousand forms of past associations, and ideas he awakens, or embodies” “[…]Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a human being. I felt to him in such a variety of ways….”.He couldn’t see something of himself in his own son or (more of)  Catherine in her daughter to have treated her better. It was an irony that he should see her and also himself in Hindley Earnshaw’s son.

Hareton’s aspect was the ghost of my immortal love,of my wild endeavors to hold my right,my degradation,my pride,my happiness and my anguish___

For somebody who lives only on memories and completely in the past,if Catherine’s ghost(as he says) has haunted him “killing not by inches,but by fractions of hairbreadths,to beguile [him] with the spectre of a hope,through eighteen years“,seeing the ghost of his former self  continuously in front of his eyes,was the final blow.It rendered him incapable of finishing the task that he had begun from the day he returned to Wuthering Heights a second time-to avenge his lost love,his degradation,his lost happiness and finally,the death of his only love.

As an afterthought ,Catherine,Heathcliff  and  Hindley were people who could not accept the changes or come to realize that moving on is the best thing for themselves and most importantly for those around them.It should be said to Catherine Linton’s credit that she was more of a Linton than Earnshaw in making peace with the present and moving on with the hope of a better future when she finally turned towards Hareton.

In the meanwhile,let’s get your views about my ideas to the question whether Heathcliff took his avenging mission to whole new heights in the comments section.

 

 

 

 

For the man who taught us to write better English

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We had Samuel Johnson’s Preface to the English Dictionary as one of the prose lessons during our 11th grade. Now, once you come to high school (why tell only in 11th and 12th), language subjects don’t count.English classes become a free hour where most of the class will be finishing their assignments for the other subjects while somebody keeps reading out the passages beautifully  with intonation so that atleast a few might be able to appreciate the beauty of the poem/prose. But in a class where almost everybody is already in the rat race for getting into reputed engineering/medical colleges (with the slightest clue about the Engineering course they would take or the specialization after MBBS),all the mellifluous reading falls on deaf ears. Looking back, my respect for my high school/higher secondary English teachers has increased manifold and each one of them seem to personify an epitome of patience.

So, when we started out with the Preface prose, the teacher gave us a quick brief up about who is Samuel Johnson-the guy who pored over n number of books and spent every day to put out the correct usage/spelling of the most common words-is it ake/ache or fuel/fewel so that people get the word/spelling/phrase correct. If he had not started putting out the dictionary, I can very well imagine the sorry state of my emails/posts(which are very few and get published on blue moon days) if I get confused between X/Y or M/N. Now, we have spell check, auto-correct, grammar check etc and its easy to forget the humble forerunner for all these in this day and age.

I remember thinking to myself-“which guy starts a preface on such a grudging/pessimistic tone?” on seeing these words “It is the fate of those who toil at the lower employments of life, to be rather driven by the fear of evil, than attracted by the prospect of good; to be exposed to censure, without hope of praise; to be disgraced by miscarriage, or punished for neglect, where success would have been without applause, and diligence without reward. Among these unhappy mortals is the writer of dictionaries...”But as the lesson progressed, I had almost decided that the author wanted the world to know of his hardships in completing this “monumental” work but still I could not help admiring the way he had with words-shooting straight and getting the correct words so that nothing is left unsaid. Still, it seemed to be  too much of a rant and rave about his hardships and not in the tone of the regular prefaces in novels-Some authors thank their kids, grand-kids(probably for being well behaved children and not playing with their writing materials/drafts),pets. Although put in a lighter note, I had never come across such a preface during the entire reading years of my life.

But when we reached the end of the lesson, these words “I may surely be contented without the praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me? I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please, have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds…”made me understand somewhat why the tone had been so embittered– and for the first time I could sympathize with him. And these words,” I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please, have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds…” touched a raw nerve as even a happy-go-lucky 17-year old could understand that he was referring to his wife.

On Sep 18th,this year,which happened to Johnson’s 308th birthday, Google had a regular super-creative doodle commemorating his birthday and by habit I fell to reading about the doodle. Seeing Johnson’s name, I was piqued and read the extensive but very informative Wikipedia article about Johnson. Johnson’s life loomed before my eyes and the words “…. the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow” also would not convey enough about the challenges and difficulties he had to face not only while working on the English dictionary but his whole life having to deal with Tourette’s syndrome,bouts of depression and a host of other illnesses and not-so-stable finances(to the point of getting arrested for an outstanding debt of  £5 18s). I could for the first time understand the complexity of the task he had undertaken after getting to read the historic context about how the  dictionary came about.And above all,he was a visionary  and of generous nature when he writes thus:

The chief glory of every people arises from its authours[…]but I shall not think my employment useless or ignoble, if by my assistance foreign nations, and distant ages, gain access to the propagators of knowledge, and understand the teachers of truth; if my labours afford light to the repositories of science, and add celebrity to Bacon, to Hooker, to Milton, and to Boyle.

If there is a higher purpose then this says it all:tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language. 

But I can say that the most crushing blow for him was solitude after all his near and dear ones predeceased him.He puts it  forth very clearly when he wrote:

The black dog I hope always to resist, and in time to drive, though I am deprived of almost all those that used to help me. The neighbourhood is impoverished. I had once Richardson and Lawrence in my reach. Mrs. Allen is dead. My house has lost Levet, a man who took interest in everything, and therefore ready at conversation. Mrs. Williams is so weak that she can be a companion no longer. When I rise my breakfast is solitary, the black dog waits to share it, from breakfast to dinner he continues barking, except that Dr. Brocklesby for a little keeps him at a distance. Dinner with a sick woman you may venture to suppose not much better than solitary. After dinner, what remains but to count the clock, and hope for that sleep which I can scarce expect. Night comes at last, and some hours of restlessness and confusion bring me again to a day of solitude. What shall exclude the black dog from an habitation like this?

And my next read was no doubt his Preface to the English Dictionary. And this time,the words were not only awe-inspiring for their sheer eloquence but also for putting forth the trials in as-is tone without meaning to evoke sympathy-his fighting spirit shone forth will superb brilliance when he elaborates his extensive research and the factors influencing his choices in spelling a word or usage of phrase despite knowing that the work he had undertaken was not a one-man-task and can never be immortal.For a person to sit at it for 9 years,day in and day out -it surely shows you the man’s dedication and above all the courage and determination.

Johnson writes  with a tinge of regret “…whether I shall add any thing by my own writings to the reputation of English literature, must be left to time: much of my life has been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was passing over me…..“.Be assured,Dr.Johnson,that having read only this preface to the dictionary was enough to see the writer in you.Not only the preface,the writings to friends,patrons have shown the eloquence of your language.

Thanks Google for that bang-on doodle on Dr.Johnson.

I just got to see the bigger picture about Johnson.My English teachers tried their best for making the English classes count.I guess that they succeeded with atleast a few of us..

Just wondering how Johnson would feel if he gets to see some of our chats or social media hashtags/posts where we take spelling to a whole new level.Now,now,I don’t want to start sounding like Spelling Martinet….Maybe we are  moving towards the place where we started out from.Most importantly,from where  Dr.Johnson and scores of other lexicographers had brought us to where the English language is today and just telling ourselves that we sound cool.A huge relief is that thankfully people have some sense to keep it only with the social media.

P.S:This is probably a very late post(almost a month late).Thankfully,it has not become an idea that did not get time to become a full fledged post.And like every other post,let me remind you to share your thoughts about the post.And don’t stop with only the post-Give me some good book recommendations.Finally could spare some quality time for Option B.Thanks Accidental Iowan.Just hoping that the next blue moon comes sooner 😛