lip lit: are we supposed to find wuthering heights romantic?

Recently, I was in equal measures horrified and amused by this cover of the Bronte classic Wuthering Heights. Yes, my darlings, Twilight phenomena has grown to include the rebranding of literary classics. All around the world, teenage girls are suddenly clapping to see Wuthering Heights on their required reading list. Not to sound like a complete literary snob, but I think the majority of them are in for a rude awakening. Or maybe not. If the book isn’t too challenging for them (Bronte’s prose is a little more sophisticated than “His skin was icy as ever, but the trail his fingers left on my skin was alarmingly warm-like I’d been burned, but didn’t feel the pain of it yet”), then they’d probably love it.  After all, like Twlight, Wuthering Heights is all about a sadistic relationship. Who bets the girls who think both are the epitome of romance will grow up to have cats named Edward and Heathcliff?

I first read Wuthering Heights when I was sixteen. It was the summer before my last year in high school, and it was one of the upcoming required texts (yes, okay, I was that girl. But only when it came to English).

After getting through the stifling part on Lockwood, I was captivated. I’ve since studied the text at University level, and have read it on average twice a year over the past nine years. I’ve even grown to love the Lockwood parts, mostly because he’s such a socially inept dweeb (we laugh at Lockwood, not with him).

Now, please don’t mistake me for a girl who holds her heart in the air. My love for Wuthering Heights has nothing to do with me being a hopeless romantic. Heathcliff is an abusive jerk. Catherine is a masochistic brat. If the two actually had gotten married, their relationship would have burnt out within five years (not to mention the walls of their house being caved in by the amount of holes). But that’s why I love it. It’s this dark, twisted book about how two people destroy the lives of everyone around them because of their obsession. And then, with the second generation of Linton-Earnshaw-Heathcliffs, it displays hope. Perhaps, sins do die with our fathers, and cycles of abuse can be broken.

I also love the book because of the character of Isabella Linton. The majority of people in my year twelve English class hated her. They thought she was an annoying Princess, and okay, I will give them that. They also thought she was spineless. I will never give them that. Read in context — and beware, spoilers ahoy — Isabella was kinda kick-ass. After her older brother disowned her (and of course, he controlled her wealth), she left her emotionally and physically abusive husband. And, oh, she was pregnant at the time. Also? It was in the 1700s. She couldn’t exactly go get a job or be easily remarried.

I think that Wuthering Heights is extremely misunderstood. I don’t believe Bronte wrote it for us to be swept away. I think she would be horrified to know that there is a legion of women fawning over Heathcliff (I think she’d like to sit these girls down with a big glass of red wine and say, “Oh, honey, no”). It’s a book of devastation. The love story isn’t meant to lie with the Heathcliff and Catherine; it’s meant for Hareton and Cathy.

So, if you haven’t already, give Wuthering Heights a chance. And if you’re not seduced by Heathcliff? You’ve probably got a healthy attitude towards relationships. So go pour a big glass of red* for your Heathcliff and Edward loving friend and get her to see that there ain’t no healthy romance in the moors.

*Unless she is under eighteen, in which case, give her strong coffee instead.