Wuthering Heights - Episode 1 - Emily Bronte - Frame Stories, Awkward Guests And Creepiness! - a podcast by Christy and Garry Shriver

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Frame Stories, Awkward Guests And Creepiness!

 

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver.  We’re here to discuss books that changed the world and change us.

 

I’m Garry Shriver, and this is the How to Love Lit Podcasts. Today we begin another beloved classic that has never been out of print- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. 

 

A book- I must interrupt is Bella and Edwin’s favorite book- as expressed in the series Twilight. 

 

Well, if that’s not an endorsement- what is- although I should warn everyone right now- if you are reading this book for the first time- don’t expect a Bella and Edwin style love story- if you do, you’ll be angry and disappointed- look for something a little more tempestuous, to use a Bronte metaphor,  but before we get started as we do every week, we ask you to consider honoring us with the favor of texting this episode or any other one to a friend, sharing our work with others who may like it, and of course giving us a five star rating.  As awkward as it is to make this announcement every week, we have learned that we cannot grow on our own, we need YOUR help, and we appreciate it when you extend us that grace. 

 

We also appreciate any feedback, pictures, comments, suggestions even memes you don’t mind sharing of your experiences with the works we discuss- even the ones we’ve already done.  We’d love to feature you and your experiences on our Instagram, twitter and facebook page- (I would like to say tik tok because I’d really like to be that cool, but dang- I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to navigate that crazy world).

 

Indeed, social media world is fast pace and modern, but in some ways- the violence of emotion that’s the primordial characteristic of social media, is not too awfully far from the world of the metaphysical gothic writer, Emily Bronte.

 

It is interesting you would make that parallel, because Emily was so interested and reflective of the chaotic inner-feelings of humanity- and really, I guess that’s what social media does, if it does anything at at all, it expresses the chaotic inner extremities of the human experience, but before we give you Emily Bronte’s timeless take on what that is, we do need to slide her into her historical context as well as into the very unusual and talented family into which she was born.  I’m not sure there has EVER been a family with more literary genius- at least not one that comes to mind immediately- than the Bronte family.  Two sisters , really three sisters that have produced books that have maintained a popular presence for 150 years.  Unparalleled truly- The genius does stem from brilliant parents,

 

as parents, of course we always like to think that

 

So true, in this case, we’re talking about Patrick Bronte and his independent and seemingly wonderfully spirited wife, Maria Branwell.  Who knows what even greater pieces of art would have emerged had this woman lived, but Maria, died prematurely of cancer one year after her sixth child was born.   This death turned out to be the first of a long line of sadness that plagued Patrick Bronte’s entire life- he died at the age of 84- outliving every other member of his family by almost half a century- But starting here at Maria’s death, none of the four children really even remembered their mother.  Charlotte years later once found the love letters her mother had written her father and had this wonderful and sad comment about her mother, she said, “it was strange now to peruse, for the first time the records of a mind whence my own sprang; and most strange and at once sad and  sweet, to find that mind of a truly fine, pure, and elevated order…I wish she had lived and I had known her.”  Ugh- that breaks my heart.

 

Indeed, it’s also testimony to the idea that genius is nature- as well as nurture that she did identify her mother’s influence on her life just from reading letters she had written before she was even born.

 

Indeed, and although we could talk about Charlotte Bronte, as much as we could Emily, and we will when we do Jane Eyre eventually, but I want to move on from Charlotte and even the important cultural imprint of this thrilling book Wuthering Heights- although it’s had a powerful influence on culture over the years including among other things a lot of different movies.  It’s a book that has been hard to define, and very misunderstood.  It’s not a love story, really- it’s neither political or social- if I were to speak to what it really is- I’d say, it’s a book about abuse- generational abuse- mental abuse- all kinds of violence- something we don’t talk about a lot – and really haven’t for many years- and if we do talk about it- there’s usually not much positive to say- but I will give you this heads up if you haven’t finished the book yet- hang in there- as hard as this book is to read at times both with the language, the narrative form as well as the topics it deals with- it’s worth it because Emily DOES discover redemption.  There is redemption, even in abuse- and that’s worth reading for….and speaking of abuses- if we look at the dates of the book- it’s not surprising that a book so dark and so disturbing would come out of the throws of the worst abuses of the industrial revolution.  The Brontes lived in a part of England called Yorkshire in a little village called Haworth and that little place was particularly hard hit by the excesses of the industrial revolution.  Garry what can you tell us?

 

Well, today Haworth, where the Brontes spent most of their lives is a small village in West Yorkshire- 212 miles north of London. The other big town people might know that’s close would be York which is only 43 miles away.  But, like all the other towns during the industrial revolution, this one blew up because of all the mills that were built bringing industry but also abuses and exploitations as we all know.  There is a LOT of history here- it’s actually interesting and involves social revolt, armed revolution such as those of the Luddites.  What happened all over England but specifically Yorkshire is that when the primarily rural countryside rural blew up with these factories and industrial progress, quality of life suffered in ways that were foreseeable but also unexpected.    And is with all new technologies, - and we see this very thing happening today with the information revolution and the internet, btw- when technology explodes – it explodes way faster than the legislation to control it- and this always leads to the ones in control exploiting their new found unsupervised powers.  Technology creates the means to provide lots of money and produce lots of products. (again something we see today)- but there is and will always be exploitation by those who control the technology until these things can get worked out.  In the case of the industrial revolution the most obvious abuse of power of the elite was in the exploitation of child labor, an obvious and visible human moral failure and something that was addressed through laws that came afterwards.  However, the environmental imprint as it affected the spread of disease, the food and water supply and other elements of public health was actually much more lethal, harder to see, and impossible to understand for a long time. And this is where we see the outside world intersect with the Bronte world. 

 

Correct, Patrick Bronte, was a minister, and it seems to me, really a wonderful minister and father (although not perfect).  He was appointed to be the preacher of this growing village in Yorkshire.  Howarth seemed wonderful, and the parsonage the Brontes lived in was much nicer than the one they had lived in before.  It was on top of a hill and overlooked this beautiful town.  As the Brontes walked out of their house down the hill towards the church was the church cemetery, and then the school.   If you looked the other way out of their house; however, you could wander and lose yourself in those fabled moors Emily uses so artfully to describe the violent passions in her book.

 

Let me point out, if you don’t know what we mean when we says moors- it’s worth googling.  The geography of this part of England is absolutely beautiful and very unique.  Moorland has peat and grasslands and a unique biodiversity.  When you read the book, Emily talks about them all the time, but doesn’t go into detail to tell you what they really look like.  I had to look up pictures to really visualize this world she drops us in.

 

I agree with that, in WH the moors are very much a part of the story, they’re almost a character= but Emily doesn’t really takes the time to describe them.  She assumes you can imagine them- which of course, we all can, but it might be nice Googling a look, unless you’re fortunate enough to be familiar with that part of the world.  Back to the town, however,  there was a design flaw in the layout of the town that was not outwardly apparent but became a hideous personal and professional problem for everyone- a problem that was especially apparent to the town minister. Patrick Bronte found himself conducting over 150 funerals a year.  His church was plagued by death.  Every day his daughters would walk across that cemetery underneath their home to go to church or to the town, and every year it was filled with more and more occupants.  Death was literally everywhere.  Patrick, among others, called for a health investigation.  Something was wrong. 

 

Terribly wrong, At one point 41% of the population was dead before reaching the age of six.  There was an epidemic of cholera worse than other places that could not be explained.  Finally the board of Health discovered that the key was literally under the Bronte’s noses.  Remember, their house was at the top of the hill, under them was the cemetery and under that was the church and the town.  Well, because of industrialization, disease and poor sanitation was a problem in the town, people would die because of sewage running in the streets or general filth, they were buried often six layers deep on this hill, and when it would rain (which it did a lot), the water would pour off the top of these graves, bring whatever killed these people- often cholera- back down to the town where it would get into the water systems and kill more people over and over again- a literal death factory.

 

We can only imagine how this affected everyone’s psyche- and of course death is prominent in all the Bronte writings, but especially in Emily’s writings, although really she only wrote one book (that we still have) and some poems, she presents for us a strange and interesting religiously heterodox perspective of life and death.  Emily looked at all this and saw something different from everyone else- although she does have a firm belief in the afterlife.  I say heterodox because she is a girl raised in a very religious household but in Wuthering Heights we see a perspective of faith and divinity that is mystical and non-traditional.  There is one very traditional professing religious character in Joseph, but he’s an extremely unlikeable and ignorant character- he does not represent the best of faith, he’s barely understandable when he talks and personifies a religion without love and without kindness- this is not the religion of Emily’s father.  There is something more unusual and definitely more overwhelming in the book besides this superficial abuse of religion, and we see it a lot with this prominent role of nature throughout.  Emily expresses the external world of nature and the internal world of humans as dramatic and often uncontainable forces- the supernatural of Emily Bronte is not a kind grandfatherly gentle force that desires to make everyone’s life just a little bit easier. Bronte’s supernatural elements are overwhelming and uncontainable.   She expresses all of the powerful forces she sees from the universe exemplified in her community, in her family-notably in her brother- and even in herself.

 

Well, it is worth mentioning that the Haworth community was not the only place the Brontes encountered death.  Emily’s oldest sisters died of tuberculosis at the age of 12 and 10, something they contracted at a boarding school supposedly advertised as a charity school for the daughters of ministers- but that ended up being a factory of death with almost half of them dying of preventable diseases caused by malnutrition, disease and exposure. 

 

Yes- when that happened Patrick yanked the other girls out of that school and homeschooled all of the kids as a single dad until they were teenagers- something they actually seemed to enjoy, although Branwell, the son, may could have used some more structure.  The children read all kinds of literature.  The father was very politically and socially involved in his community, and discussed everything that was going on in the outside world with his children – they truly experienced a classical education- they read all sorts of classics of literature, history as well as contemporary writers, modern magazines, journals of science, politics and philosophy.  One of the great outcomes of this somewhat non-traditional homeschool is that the children spent all of their time reading and writing – honing a craft that would become their legacy- their written art.

 

Don’t forget also running around like crazy people in the moors- Emily, particularly loved nature and animals and felt totally comfortable outside in those uninhabited areas.

 

And like we’ve said, people write from what they know, but also it’s interesting how these child-hood prodigies often have childhoods that were unique and gives them opportunities early in life to work on their craft.  Where Brittany Spears and Dolly Parton learned to sing as children, and Tiger Woods learned to golf with his dad, The Brontes learned to write and craft stories from each other at this unusual homeschool.

 

True- that’s exactly how it played out- they apparently created fantasy worlds like JR Tolkein but with romantic characters like pirates, and castles and nobles who rescued people and claimed thrones.  Emily and Anne (the youngest) created a country they called Gondal was ruled by a Queen (of course) with rival lovers.  This is cute as an anecdote, but why this is worth mentioning is because it gives us an understanding of where all the dramatics from Wuthering Heights comes from.  People who study these things suggest that many of Emily’s come out  of these gondal stories.  And this is what I mean- when you read Wuthering Heights- you see crazy people- horrible people extreme versions of human personality- like we would find in fantasy literature- .  Heathcliff is over-the-top vengeful and cruel.  Cathy is selfish, catty and ambitious- and you have to wonder- where the heck does a sweet little homeschool child come up with these awful characters.  The obvious answer for most scholars, is from her reading about these things and she spent her childhood injecting them into all of the creative writing.  All of the children delved into the imaginary worlds of romantic and gothic literature; they took the ideas  of romantic writers like lord Byron- for one example- but they created these fantastical stories, they acted them out together as siblings playing acting, but Emily took it to one very adult level- she domesticated these characters of fantasy. She grew them up and injected then into the real world, her world, one she knew intimately- the world of the moors and  with these fantastical characters, hyperboles of all of us perhaps, she produced a tale so terrible and haunting- readers admit to both hating it but also being unable to stop reading it all at the same time- something mesmerizing

 

 

Mesmerizing, but not well-received at the time by the literary critics.  Emily, like her sisters, concealed her gender identity when she published the book (the publisher was in on it to).  She went by the name of Ellis Bell for the obvious reason of avoiding the prejudice of being a woman writer.  So, when the reviews came out  they were unified in this same assessment you just described- they all hated the book but at the same time couldn’t put it down- From the perspective of history, it’s kind of funny that later on, after Emily’s death, when Charlotte told the world the novel was written by a young 27 year old single girl with no lived experience- it blew all of  their minds- how did she imagine such evil?  Let’s read some of the original reviews of the book written before that revelation- just for fun-

 

Here’s one-This is a strange book. It is not without evidences of considerable power: but, as a whole, it is wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable; and the people who make up the drama, which is tragic enough in its consequences, are savages ruder than those who lived before the days of Homer.

 

-Wuthering Heights is a strange sort of book,—baffling all regular criticism; yet, it is impossible to begin and not finish it; and quite as impossible to lay it aside afterwards and say nothing about it…. In Wuthering Heights the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance, and along come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love—even over demons in the human form. The women in the book are of a strange fiendish-angelic nature, tantalising, and terrible, and the men are indescribable out of the book itself. Yet, towards the close of the story occurs the following pretty, soft picture, which comes like the rainbow after a storm….

 

-Wuthering Heights is a strange, inartistic story. There are evidences in every chapter of a sort of rugged power—an unconscious strength—which the possessor seems never to think of turning to the best advantage. The general effect is inexpressibly painful. We know nothing in the whole range of our fictitious literature which presents such shocking pictures of the worst forms of humanity.

 

Every one of those reviewers calls it strange.   Here’s a horrible one- “How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery,”

 

 

Gosh- They talk about it with disgust, but then admit they can’t stop reading it, which I guess is the exact same reaction I have.  You can’t really love this novel in the way you’d love a Christmas classic like Elf or National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. 

 

 

No- I’d say- this might be what you get if you crossed Edgar Allan Poe with A Christmas story—and maybe a little Deadpool thrown in.

 

 

HA! on that note introduction- should we switch from the biography to the book.

 

 

Sounds good, although I think we should probably finish by telling the sad ending of Emily. Her brother Branwell, who by the way at this point in their lives was a drunk and a drug addict- another sad story for another day- died in their family home in 1847,  just a year after Emily’s book came out.  Emily caught a cold at his funeral, but refused to be treated by a doctor (who knows if that would have helped). Her cold developed into tuberculosis and she died less than three months after her brother.  For a family that was so close knit- this was beyond tragic.  It wasn’t, btw, too awfully long that the other two daughters pass as well.  Patrick Bronte, who had been a engaged lively extrovert in his early years with a household of children, had the life literally torn out of him by the time his wife and four children died. 

 

 

Indeed, and of course they say- although it’s an unproven rumor, that Charlotte, took the sequel to Wuthering Heights after Emily’s death- and burned it (who knows if it was out of respect of jealously since Wuthering Heights did blow up to great success) either way if that’s true it’s yet another  incredibly tragic personal story for all of them…as well as for us…so here we are 150 years later…Emily lives though this single powerful tale and invites us together with our guide Lockwood to the land of the moors.  We will take a peak into this strange place called Wuthering Heights- wuthering means strong winds, btw.  I always get it confused with withering. 

 

  Let’s read page one of this wild tale…

 

 

Let’s, and just to provide orientation, I’m always one for knowing the play- our reading goal for this week is chapters 1-3.  Next week, if all goes to plan, we’ll manage through chapter 14, but no promises for sure, that’s the goal.

 

Garry read paragraph 1.

 

Ha!  Just for starters, we start with a year 1801- we’ll talk about the chronology next week, but it’s good to pay attention to.  Next we meet our first unreliable Narrator- and he’s kind of a buffoon.  Now, one of the many things that makes this novel extremely confusing is this unusual narrative style we learned about when we studied Frankenstien, the frame narrative.  If you remember, Mary Shelley  had one narrator tell a story to another who told it to another- like a Russian matroshka doll- it’s kind of the same way here.  We are entering the world of Wuthering Heights under the auspices of Lockwood- Lockwood is this ultra-civilized goofy stereotype really- a gentleman with all the trappings of good breedings, clearly someone who has led an uncomplicated life.  He comes across to me as someone who sees himself slightly better than average and has made it a point to have all the right opinions and prejudices looking slightly down on those who may not have his fine sensibilities.  A man like Lockwood would never be anything like that the extreme people whose lives he’s walking into- but in these first three chapters- Emily points out to the careful reader- that Lockwood, and perhaps us, if we are like him- doesn’t know anything and misjudges everything- including himself.  When he gets to WH, he very obviously and absolutely misjudges every single thing he sees- Mr. Heathcliff is a “perfect misanthrope” (which comes across as endearing), he and Mr. Heathcliff are a “suitable pair”, he’s a “capital fellow”.  Maybe this is what Lockwood wants to be true, but it doesn’t take the reader too long to figure out this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  He also messes up all the relationships- the girl is NOT Mrs. Heathcliff as in heathcliff’s wife, she is not married to Hareton and Hareton is not Heathcliff’s son. Lockwood foolishly goes back to a place he probably shouldn’t be for a second day in a row, and this time he really steps into nonsense’ telling Heathcliff to his face that the woman was t”he presiding genius over his home and heart”…if you know the story- there could not be a worse mischaracterization between this girl that he doesn’t even know her name and Heathcliff- for one thing Heathliff is over 40 and the girl, even to Lockwood does not look 17.    Then  Heathcliff has to tell him that her husband is dead.  It’s just one awkward conversation after another.  Fact that Lockwood is always being attacked by dogs- finally we get to to the ultimate awkwardness- Lockwood gets snowed in and spends the night in this unwelcoming place. 

 

This part is where the book really starts getting spooky.  The creepy housekeeper walks him up creepy stairs and tells him the house has strange things going on.  She puts him in a bedroom, and he sees all these names scratched on the paint in various places- Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff, Catherine Linton.  And of course, he picks up to read, which is very nosy of him- what seems to be Catherine’s diary.

 

True- this is very nosy, and it serves him right that he falls asleep and begins to dream this very tormented dream where he and Joseph, the creepy servant, he’s just met go to a church service together in the snow and listen to a sermon  “Seventy times Seven and the First of the Seventy First” that has 490 parts- each part addressing a separate sin.

 

Christy, is all that numerology something that matters?

 

Funny you should ask that?  Of course it does.  For one thing 490 is 70 times 7- which if you know something about the New Testament and Emily Bronte does- that number is associated with how many times Jesus tells his disciples to forgive others- well Lockwood in his dream gets up in the service and denounces Jabe Branderham  the preacher, as the sinner no Christian should need to pardon.  To which Jabe gets all the congregation to attack Lockwood. Lockwood wakes up startled by the noise of a branch from a tree. But again drops into a second dream.. in this one Lockwood is seized by Cathy’s icy fingers.  .There’s a voice sobbing, “let me in…let me in..” He asks who are you and the voice answers” Catherine Linton. I’m come home; I’d lost my way on the moor”. 

 

This is Creepy stuff.

 

 

Well, it is..but what is the connection between the two dreams.  Bronte connects the two very clearly.  Since Lockwood has arrived at WH, he’s been abused verbally by Heathcliff, physically by the dogs, his nose bleeds, and now by these horrifying dreams.  The first dream talks about forgiveness, unforgiveness, what things are unforgiveable-  in the second dream a girl comes claiming to be a waif for 20 years (an English term for a female outlaw)- this ghost has been condemned- but for what?  What did she do wrong?  We’re going to find out what she’s done wrong and perhaps it’s unforgiveable- apparently there is such a thing?  When Lockwood wakes up and screams, Heathcliff emerges for an interesting exchange…Lockwood claims the house is swarming with ghosts and goblins…and Heathcliff…let’s read the rest of it.

 

Pages 25-26

 

Lockwood eventually figures that WH is a mess.  And if we noticed carefully, Lockwood is more aggressive and meaner for it.  When he finally gets back to Thrushcrash Grange – he tells Nelly that people in remote regions, “do live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface, change and frivolous external things than city dwellers’ to which Nelly replies, “Oh, we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us.” 

 

And there is our invitation- leave the world of Lockwood- the world where you take on the social expectations and prejudices of your society.  Instead open your mind to the possibility that you may know these people, or worse- you may be more like these people in many ways, if you’re honest with yourself- something our narrators will not be.   And that’s what great about literature.  I’ve always thought writers were the first psychologists and this seems to be the case with this book.  This book seems to be about storms, and it also seems that maybe Bronte tries to understand the storms that pervade our world- both on the inside and the outside. 

 

And next week, we’ll open up the next narrative frame, as Lockwood retreats back to safety and inquires at a safe distance from Nelly, the housekeeper to  show us who these people are. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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