Obsession, Voice, and Unreliable Narrators: Writing Lessons from Wuthering Heights

Savage, obsessive, and ferociously emotional—Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights defies every expectation of the romantic novel. With an audacious narrative structure, unreliable narrators, and a setting that functions as both atmosphere and antagonist, Brontë creates a world where love corrodes, revenge endures, and passion refuses to die. Join us as we dissect how Wuthering Heights became a perennial bestseller—not by comforting readers, but by unsettling them—and what modern authors can learn from Brontë’s fearless approach to voice, structure, and emotional extremity to write fiction that truly lingers.

Question: what is a story that has changed your life?

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Transcript

Kat Lewis 0:44

On the lonely Yorkshire Moores, the Earnshaw family takes in a homeless boy named Heathcliff. He grows up alongside Catherine Earnshaw, forming a bond that is intense, feral, and inseparable. Yet as they grow older, class and ambition intervene. Catherine chooses to marry the refined and wealthy Edgar Linton, believing it will secure her future. Heartbroken and humiliated, Heathcliff disappears. He returns years later, transformed rich, cold and and driven by revenge. One by one, he dismantles the lives of those he believes betrayed him, Edgar, Edgar's sister, Isabella, and even into the next generation. Love becomes punishment. Marriage becomes a weapon. The Moores Echo with grief, cruelty, and unfinished longing. Catherine dies young, but her presence never leaves Heathcliff. Haunted and unable to move on, he slowly loses his will to live. Only in the next generation does the cycle of vengeance begin to break.

Laurel Thomas 2:01

My name is Laurel Thomas and we are Stories That Change Us.. A podcast where four author friends read great fiction to write great fiction.

Micah Leydorf 2:11

And I am Micah Leydorf. I write inspirational Christian fiction and Bible studies.

Kat Lewis 2:17

My name is Kat Lewis and I write romantic thrillers and screenplays.

Melissa Grace 2:23

My name is Melissa Grace and I write Christian fiction for the general market.

Laurel Thomas 2:28

Okay, so we have a barn burner of a book tonight. We read Wuthering Heights, and let me tell you, we have some opinions. It is a classic. But it was so hard for me as a reader that I thought, I need to do a deep dive into the history because I'm not getting it. Some of the historical facts. Wuthering Heights is the only novel by English author Emily Bronte, and it was first published in 1847 under the pen name Ellis Bell. Emily of course is in a family of Charlotte, and Charlotte Bronte, her sister actually wrote Jane Eyre and under a pen name as well as Emily wrote Wuthering Heights. But Jane Eyre had this huge literary acclaim right off the bat, and people had no idea what to do with Wuthering Heights.

Micah Leydorf 3:29

They, so what was the reception immediately?

Laurel Thomas 3:31

Well, one of the critics said it's not gonna last a year,

Kat Lewis 3:36

joke on him.

Laurel Thomas 3:37

Yeah, kidding.

Kat Lewis 3:38

We're still obsessed with this book

Micah Leydorf 3:40

and actually one thing that people might have heard about this book is that there is a reportedly very steamy adaptation coming out early next year. So that might be what you know, if you don't remember it from your high school English class, what you might be seeing with them. Who is it? Margot Roby, and

Kat Lewis 3:59

I don't care to name,

Micah Leydorf 4:00

name the, the male protagonist. Okay.

Kat Lewis 4:04

Well, um, it, it's just, you know, Wuthering Heights is one of those books where once you have actually read the novel, you realize how little help it needs. So I feel like adding the extra steam and sex and all the stuff, it's just like,

Laurel Thomas 4:17

listen it steamy.

Kat Lewis 4:19

It's steamy!

Laurel Thomas 4:19

And it carries a lot of steam.

Kat Lewis 4:21

And it's spicy. I'm saying three outta five jalapenos.

Laurel Thomas 4:25

Listen, Emily wanted to pen a love story as wild as the Moors. And she did. She did. She did. And that was one of the complaints. You're like, this has no theme. This has, you know what? And unlike Jane Eyre that had very strong theme. And Jane Eyre is really a woman who perseveres through incredible abuse and stays intact basically through the whole novel, unlike Heathcliff.

Micah Leydorf 4:56

Okay? Nobody in this novel stays intact. No. No one's mental condition in this novel is healthy. I don't know if my memory was bad or if I never actually read the entire book before. It's been so long, I don't know, but reading this novel in the past couple weeks, it was not what I expected it to be. And I'm anxious Laurel, to hear what you learned in your deep dive that caused you to think differently. Because when I was reading it, my reaction was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe how dark this is. And why has this been quite so enduring?

Laurel Thomas 5:32

Yeah, if, if you wanted to rename it, you could name it"How to ruin a child." Anyway, we'll get into that a little bit, but here's a little bit of the history. So remember that Emily and Charlotte are pretty close in age. There are five daughters. So they arrive at this Milltown, in the the beginning of the industrial age. So they lived in this little town. They lived in a parsonage and. Within two years their mom died. And then there was a school, it was a boarding school for pastors daughters, or Parsons daughters, and it was free. So their dad thought, this is great, you know, a free education. Well, that school was, the school that Charlotte Bronte describes in Jane Eyre. It was abusive. They didn't have enough food. It was cold. Two of the sisters died as a result of that school.

Kat Lewis 6:35

Wow. Wow.

Laurel Thomas 6:36

So again, a milltown, the water was polluted. There was a lot of poverty and I thought it was interesting that abolition was being debated in the UK and the rigid class restrictions were also being questioned. So you see, I think a lot of that with Heathcliff, you know, because Heathcliff has no pedigree and he's a son that dad brought home, basically.

Micah Leydorf 7:06

Right. And that's actually one of things that we won't mention about the protagonist. We won't mention in the screen adaptation that's kind of controversial'cause. Heathcliff was very clearly in the novel described as being brown, right? He was a gypsy or of some ethnicity that was very obviously not the same as the rest of the family that he was brought in to be a part of the British family. I

Kat Lewis 7:29

will say that was actually what was really, shocking to me reading this and really reading it to study it as I was like, oh, Heathcliff was not white at all. And that added to the list of his many sins.

Laurel Thomas 7:42

Yeah, for sure. And I thought it was interesting about the sisters., They didn't have a lot of friends'cause they were well educated compared to the people in their small town. So when they were cold and hungry, they would make up stories and they made up kingdoms and they illustrated the kingdoms. They illustrated the characters, they illustrated the battles. This was not your normal everyday family. They were incredibly creative and their dad encouraged that creativity, but that creativity came out of being hungry and being cold.

Micah Leydorf 8:21

Well, I think we got the cold part. I think the cold part was communicated. In Wuthering Heights. This sounds like people who have experienced dark, cold, miserable winters. That's

Kat Lewis 8:32

Isn't it so crazy how you can have one sister who writes this story of this morally strong young woman. And then you have another sister who writes this wild, passionate. Vengeful. Unstable.

Laurel Thomas 8:43

She wasn't a nanny, kind of a nanny, but she was Irish and she would tell the girls, you know, Irish folklore with ghosts and fairies and goblins. And so the supernatural aspect of what Fannie told the girls shows up in Wuthering Heights.

Melissa Grace 9:04

Oh, definitely. Interesting. Yeah, it's a, it's a ghost story.

Micah Leydorf 9:07

It is. You know, I think it's more of a ghost story than it is a romance. Don't you think? I mean, I think you could make that argument.

Kat Lewis 9:13

I think you could.

Melissa Grace 9:14

When I think romance, I don't think of what was done, what really was Between a broad term. Yeah, yeah. Between Catherine and Heath Group, I didn't, I don't classify that a romance, really. So you don't think that Wuthering heights is a romance? Well, it's, it's not, well, it's not what I, it's not. Um,

Micah Leydorf 9:31

it's not Hallmark channel,

Melissa Grace 9:32

right? It's, it's, it feels more psychological like torment. There's just so much twisted there.

Kat Lewis 9:43

It feels like trauma bonding meets psych ward patient.

Melissa Grace 9:48

Meets two attractive people.

Kat Lewis 9:50

Totally.

Laurel Thomas 9:51

So, I, I have to disagree. Are you, because I think that what we see are, are two, Catherine and Heath Cliff they are kind of a shelter in the storm for each other, but they both have that adventurous spirit. And so when they're going off into the Moors, they're kind of kindred spirit. In fact, we're gonna talk about our favorite quotes, but at one point, Catherine says, I am Heath Cliff.

Micah Leydorf 10:20

You stole my favorite quote.

Kat Lewis 10:28

Let's dive in. Let's just dive in.

Laurel Thomas 10:32

Let's talk about. You know, Emily died a year after the story was published and shortly after that her youngest sister also died, and Charlotte was the only one left. She and her dad. So when you see the darkness of Wuthering Heights, although they were happy for the most part, they had a happy family for the most part, times were so dark and were so difficult. And so when you see Heathcliff being treated the way he's treated,

Micah Leydorf 11:03

Wait, when you said they had a happy family, for the most part, are you talking about the Bronte's? The, or are you talking about the Ernshaw's?

Laurel Thomas 11:07

The Bronte's. The bronte's, they, for the most part, they had a happy family. And Emily herself died the year after the book was published, so, there was a lot of loss. A lot of death.

Melissa Grace 11:19

I just wanna know what they talked about, like around the family, hear, you know, like, what did that look like? It was not, you know, well, what'd you do today mean? Mean? I mean to,

Laurel Thomas 11:33

they read to each other. They read woodsworth, they, they read to each other. It's just exactly like our. Critique groups, the four of us.

Kat Lewis 11:44

Here's the Crown prince of the arborist floating around.

Laurel Thomas 11:50

I love that. We'll identify with that. So let's just jump into our first question as far as our favorite quote, which I like to steal the favorite quote so Micah doesn't have one anymore.

Micah Leydorf 12:01

What? Oh, is that yours? Was that yours?

Laurel Thomas 12:05

It was because I just wanna read the whole quote. Okay, now this is, this was not the favorite quote, Micah. Mine was different, but, okay."Heathcliff had gone to loose the horse and shifted to its own stall. He was passing behind it when Henley knocked him under the horse and ran away. Heathcliff got up, went on exchanging saddles and sat down to overcome the violent blow before he entered the house. He complained so seldom that I really thought him not vindictive. I was completely deceived. As you will hear".,

Micah Leydorf 12:42

That's your favorite quote.

Laurel Thomas 12:43

It is.

Micah Leydorf 12:44

Okay. And so That'ss from Nelly because she's telling the story. So why is that your favorite quote, Laurel?

Laurel Thomas 12:49

Well, because Heathcliff was formed by. I mean here he's brought into a family. There's only one person who wants him there. Well, two, including Catherine.

Micah Leydorf 13:02

She doesn't at first.

Laurel Thomas 13:04

Not at first. Anyway,

Micah Leydorf 13:06

so, so nobody wants him except for the man who, for who brought him in except for Father. Father, the father.

Laurel Thomas 13:10

But didn't you read the abuse in the first part of the book against him? I mean, it got worse and worse. And then when Daddy Ernshaw died. It was way worse. There was no protection for him at all.

Micah Leydorf 13:23

You know, by the time you get to the end of the book and you read about how horrible he cliff is, you forget about all the abuse

Kat Lewis 13:31

And she almost does such a great job of like really building this climax of how unstable can you make somebody? But I do think that we do a disservice that we don't think about he did not wake up one day and just decide, I'm gonna be obsessive and vengeful and violent, you know? That is not an 8-year-old heath cliff. That's not how he started. And what was shocking to me about the abuse was that it it was nonstop. It just felt like somebody take Henley and go dunk him in the river. Like, oh my gosh. Like, you gotta

Laurel Thomas 14:03

let him up. Yeah.

Kat Lewis 14:04

it was crazy how cruel children can be the children.

Micah Leydorf 14:07

It's a little bit modern. When you think about kind of the modern tendency to write these backstories for villains. You think like the Joker or Maleficent or these various things. So, back in the old days you wrote more, like Jane Eyre, right? You wrote, oh, the protagonist who is virtuous and eventually gets their reward. Instead of, again, think about the Joker like again, by the time you read the Batman movies, it's like, how could you possibly defend this insane, horrible person? But then you go back to the beginning and say, okay, well they, they had a pretty rough, the beginning.

Melissa Grace 14:39

Well, my favorite quote was. Heath late in the book after he beat Catherine for the first time. The child, Kathy,"I know how to chastise children, you see?" Because it pulls back. From his backstory. It sums it all up. He learned, he learned as a child how you chastises children. It was really like, this was not a book that I was excited to read. I thought it was just terrible. And then I talked to Laurel and she's like, oh my goodness. All this wonderful stuff about children and the formation of children. And I was like, oh, I feel terrible now. I was just looking at it like

Kat Lewis 15:22

this was well, and this was a book that I was telling you guys that this was one of my favorite novels growing up. And coming back to this with like an adult perspective, I'm like, I can see how so many of the issues I had in my life was because I envied like this passionate, unstable thing, and I'm like, no, no, no. This is deeply problematic and

Melissa Grace 15:42

God's better for you, Kat.

Kat Lewis 15:44

Thank you. Thank you. Yes.

Laurel Thomas 15:46

Yes. I have to say though, that at the place where it seemed to be a turning point for Heathcliff, because Nellie would say you'll look bad. Smile. Well, then he'd immediately be slapped by Henley. But when he overheard Catherine say, I'm gonna marry Linton, he didn't hear the rest of it.

Micah Leydorf 16:08

Right. Which of course is my favorite quote. She's discussing with Nelly about her decision whether or not to marry this other boy, Linton, her cousin. Because that's how things were back then. And she said it would degrade me to marry Heath Cliff now. But he didn't hear the last part said, so he shall never know how I love him and that, not because he's handsome Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's as different as a moonbeam from Lightning or frost from fire." But then it continues with Nelly. She says,"ever this speech ended, I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence and having moved and I turned my head. And again, he had listened until he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him. And then he heard her say no farther."

Laurel Thomas 16:57

It's such a turning point, right.

Micah Leydorf 16:59

But I do love that quote because emily Bronte has succeeded in creating this passionate connection between Heathcliff and Catherine that has captured young girls imaginations for centuries. Literally. Yes. Like,'cause it gets crazy.'Cause Heath clip is such a reprobate. He is such a horrible but not person.

Laurel Thomas 17:24

Not at that point.

Micah Leydorf 17:26

He's not. Well, I know, but that she could create a passion that would allow you to overlook his horrible, horrible behavior like that is remarkable. And I feel like this is what, that that line, that's what does it,

Kat Lewis 17:38

she does such an excellent job of like encapsulating the kind of like visceral connection that we want to have with somebody, right? And even women will overlook a lot of trash if we think that we have that kind of connection. My favorite quote is from Heathcliff. And there were just a lot of moments. I don't know if I was just going through a thing you guys, but I cried so much

Micah Leydorf 18:06

you did

Kat Lewis 18:06

in this book because I felt the hopelessness. Without getting like spiritual, anything that we are obsessed with that is not, the Lord will always fail us. And I feel like she just did like this really intense, deep dive into what does clinging to those things with this obsessive clawed hand, what does it do to you? And so, at one point Keith Cliff says, um, and he's speaking to Catherine, he says:"be with me. Always take any form, drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you. Oh God, it is unutterable. I cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul." And it just made me cry because I just thought, how many people are walking around clutching things that will fail them? And yet they love it and they have built their life around it in the same way that Heath Cliff built his life around Catherine. It was a toxic rollercoaster for me because there are moments where I was swept up in love, and there are moments where I feel like I need a therapy session.

Micah Leydorf 19:15

I'm so glad you said that, Kat. Because again, I was reading this kind of struggling, like, okay. Where is the redemption? Where's the true, good and beautiful? And what you said just then, it's like, oh yeah, you're right. Like this is the truth. This is what happens when you clinging to the thing that will not satisfy and you, instead of the thing that will like this is what happens. And so that's the truth. I mean, it's ugly. But it's, it's true.

Kat Lewis 19:43

And I, I just love how you have Emily and Charlotte who wrote two very different stories. But I just love how I can just tell that Emily, she probably was like the, uh.

Micah Leydorf 19:54

She was the Kat.

Kat Lewis 19:55

She was the Kat. I know.

Micah Leydorf 19:56

I think Melissa was the Charlotte.

Kat Lewis 19:58

I could tell the introvert extrovert. I can tell Emily was probably like the vibrant rainbow of color.

Laurel Thomas 20:04

She was the strange one. They called her that. In fact, when you study Emily. I mean, this drives me kind of crazy, but people say she was probably on the spectrum, which I think is script for saying she was,

Kat Lewis 20:18

She wasn't the docile British woman, so No.

Micah Leydorf 20:21

And she, she broke the mold. She loved being in the moors fit in the box. Yeah.

Laurel Thomas 20:26

She loved being, and she loved nature and in fact, when she had to get a real job and be a governess, I think. She almost died of homesickness. They brought her back. She did not do well outside of home.

Melissa Grace 20:41

How fun That, that very unusual person wanted to write, you know? So we have this novel that like a vanilla person could never have written. Or we wouldn't have this as weird and uncomfortable as is.

Kat Lewis 20:56

I just love the explosive emotion. I feel like that's also like a real selling point of this novel it vomits emotion from moment one to the point that.

Micah Leydorf 21:06

Well, yeah. The scene is again, this ghost fighting to get, lemme in grabbing it. I mean, like, oh my gosh, what is this?

Laurel Thomas 21:17

Well, that's, I mean, that's the beauty, the supernatural aspect in this book is so the Moores. Mm-hmm. And it's so associated with the Moores. I have to say, I don't think Heath Cliff was a monster until he heard Catherine say I'm gonna marry Linton. And she wouldn't lower herself to marry. That's all he heard. He left at that point. We don't really know what he did, but when he came back, it was with vengeance on his mind and even vengeance against Catherine.

Micah Leydorf 21:51

So we heard like she chose not to marry him. That justifies now you go and try to like ruin everyone's life and because someone chooses not to marry you.

Kat Lewis 22:02

No, her love of him represented all of the good things that everything else in his life was trying to kill. He was like, I have built my whole life on her belief of me, because not everybody else is trying to destroy this teenager, but like Catherine is the one who's like, no, like you're we're of the same kind and of the same mind.

Melissa Grace 22:24

And yeah, I just, but that's, yeah. To me that is not necessarily that flattering of a thing to say we're of the same'cause Catherine is so she's not great herself. This is under my visceral moment or whatever, but at one point she says something to the effect of, how is marrying Linton gonna make me give up Heathcliff. He'll still be, he'll still be my heart and soul. I could never pay that great a price.

Micah Leydorf 22:52

Here's the problem with this book, or at least the one I had, which was like none of these characters are likable. I mean, to me, I was like, I was like, Catherine is a horrible person. Heathcliff is a horrible person. Linton is a horrible person. Kathy's not so great. Like,

Melissa Grace 23:08

we don't even love Nelly all the time.

Micah Leydorf 23:11

No, I mean like, like none of these people are very lovable.

Laurel Thomas 23:15

I love that fact though, because none of them are sanitized and it makes total sense to me that Heathcliff and Catherine would have an obsessive relationship. And especially from Heath Cliff's point of view, she's the only thing he has. I can totally see how that obsession would grow and then to say, I am Heath Cliff. And he hears I'm not gonna lower myself to marry him. You're not talking about sanitized characters here?

Micah Leydorf 23:47

Melissa's pointing out, that's not a great character.

Melissa Grace 23:49

It's not a character of great that we would esteem, but it is a great character. I think it's interesting, you can look at my copy here and most pages have a little here because it's like, anytime we have a hard time not sticking to our, you know, um, we're gonna talk about literary elements, we're gonna talk about more of a technical thing, than just sitting here talking about these characters and how they captivated us to me, that is a signal. It's a really good book. Oh, it's true, because we're having a hard time getting away from just our opinion about the characters.

Kat Lewis 24:31

And I will say one thing about all of these characters. All these characters don't fit within a modern context of anything. But man, they're fantastic characters for the story and for the time period.

Laurel Thomas 24:42

Exactly.

Kat Lewis 24:42

Because for the time period, Catherine is a really great heroine.'Cause she is the wealthy girl who's out here. I mean, you think about like the class wars going on.

Laurel Thomas 24:50

She's crossing a major barrier.

Kat Lewis 24:51

She totally is. She totally is.

Laurel Thomas 24:54

Well, let's talk about the literary elements, I thought that was interesting and I was surprised that Catherine's death came at the midpoint. Yes. Oh, I was like, I always thought that was at the end. Of course I never read it, so I didn't know., So let's talk about what some of your favorite literary elements were.

Melissa Grace 25:14

Well, I've liked that, that it's such a perfect example of Chiastic structure because it's a whole different book after the midpoint. It is a completely different story.

Micah Leydorf 25:26

So you wanna clue in people on what is Chiastic structure.

Melissa Grace 25:30

Well, I don't have a great handle on it. I think that the way I think of it is a huge hinge at the midpoint,

Kat Lewis 25:39

um, well, to your point, I think that Chiastic, first of all, it's a kind of a story structure that goes back to like the Psalms in the Bible. And so think of it as like an a sideways V where all of the elements leading downward, they come to this hinge in the midpoint, but then all of the elements leading back upward are a reflection of what just happened. Very,. So you talk about how like Kathy's death is like the midpoint and you're like, what is happening? But we almost see a reversal of Heath Cliff as the abuser abusing Kathy, abusing all of these people. You see that mirroring exactly what happened in the opening stages of the book.

Micah Leydorf 26:20

So that is an interesting literary element. I think you already kind of nailed it a little bit earlier, Melissa, in talking about what she does so exceptionally well. And there's two things that are obvious to me. One of them is the setting, right? Like the setting is practically a character in itself. My favorite of the characters. The Moores and the Dark English houses and you know, just all of that. But again, the strength of the characters is unbelievable. Like why does everyone know Heathcliff, right? Like we don't even have to, it's kinda like Dracula we talked about like you made this character that is known far beyond. You know, even the people who actually read this book, because he has written so well. Yeah,

Kat Lewis 27:02

yeah. I would follow that up with her tone. You know, she really chose a really dark, emotional, romantic tone, and she does not deviate that from that tension one bit. I mean, just like tension throughout. Mm-hmm. But just like styling and word choice and even like, you know, building and elevating that tension to the climax. Like she. We don't get any sassy jokes, I don't think. I laughed one time like she was like, if I'm gonna write a dark gothic romance, it's gonna be the darkest dang thing pouring outta my soul. And I can appreciate how her tone was very consistent throughout. Mm-hmm. That's something that I really walked away from is if you're gonna commit to your genre, commit to it. I know that we kind of are in a blending the genres moment, especially when it comes to screenwriting. Where they're like, we want like a dark comedy and we want like a redemptive action flick. And Emily Bronte would say,

Laurel Thomas 27:59

I'm giving it to you dark.

Kat Lewis 28:00

I'm giving it to you dark, and I don't want any guff about your opinion about what it is.

Micah Leydorf 28:06

So do you think like maybe there's a hint of letting up with Lockwood, you know?'cause we have like, we have the whole story. It's very unusual. It's a first person narrative, but it's an outsider who's giving the first. It's like this guy who just comes up there, never met these people before. He's just the renter. And he's just like, I just walked into this house and there's these like, oh my gosh, there's this grumpy man and there's, see that's what attacked by the dog.

Melissa Grace 28:32

I thought that's what she did so well. Showing versus telling. She explained those characters through their interaction. Just that was such a great exposition of what those characters in that house were like. Just him spending an afternoon with them. We came out of that afternoon knowing, just knowing so much and also wanting to know more. About why this dynamic.

Micah Leydorf 29:00

It was, it's really brilliant. Like, who else has ever even done that? Like again? Gives you this scenario, then goes back and has the nurse tell him the story and, and begin. But whenever you pull back to Lockwood's perspective, it gives you a little bit of break in that tone. Right?

Kat Lewis 29:14

That's true, that's true.

Micah Leydorf 29:15

Like, it's like, okay, now we're back. And he's like, well, maybe I could like be interested in her. You know? And then it's almost a little bit humorous, like, really, you think she's gonna go for you?

Kat Lewis 29:25

And, and I'm sorry my guy does this. Seem like a family. You want to marry him to like they've got big problems.

Laurel Thomas 29:34

Well, and you know, it's interesting as far as literary element because, well, they would say there's no theme. But actually, Melissa's hit on theme a little bit, but I have to say that even though he intentionally sets out to ruin Hareton and Catherine. In the end, when they fall in love, it's a picture of redemption in the next generation because he couldn't ruin Harton. He tried.

Melissa Grace 30:02

He couldn't ruin Kathy because she was too much like Catherine. Well, he, he tried. He tried, but she had the same kind of backbone as Catherine.

Laurel Thomas 30:15

I see redemption in that. Yeah. I see it in the next generation. But, let's talk about social commentary because well, you have to know the history to know if there's a social commentary. Yeah, if they were just beginning to talk about rigid class system, it totally makes sense.

Kat Lewis 30:36

Yeah. And I do think that picturing Heath Cliff as non-white, so as brown, as African, as whatever. It actually makes so much more sense the townspeople's reaction to Heathcliff. Mm-hmm. Because you, again, there's these slavery uprisings and the abolitionist movement. Mm-hmm. There's a lot going on in the world. Mm-hmm. And story actually feels a little out of place. If it's Englishman Englishman, like why would they be reacting to Heath Cliff in that kind of way? It's like there's like a viciousness to the way that everybody is responding to Heath Cliff, that when you look at it from a perspective of No, he was probably brown or black. You're like, oh, okay. I also will say, as I'm thinking about this, there's a twilight esque quality to this story. Mm-hmm. In that obsessive love. Yes. In that we are going to literally die. We are gonna bet the farm. Burn it all down. If I don't have this person,

Laurel Thomas 31:31

we're gonna lie in the grave. We're gonna Oh my gosh. With the dead court,

Kat Lewis 31:35

I have, I have this image. Laurel and I were talking about our favorite film adaptation for this novel, and it's whatever one Tom Hardy stars in. And I just have this heartbreaking image of him digging up this grave and like climbing into the coffin and stroking her bones. And in his mind he sees Kathy in the flesh. But the viewer is seeing like the actual carnal remains. And I just thought, you know. It is problematic to have obsessive love like it really is. That might be a theme, you know,

Micah Leydorf 32:08

because Girl Kat, but that's why I, again, I go back to you saying like, this is just a picture of if you take it to kind of a spiritual level, like say, this is what we do, we hang on to, I mean, what is that scripture about? Like, you know, their God is their stomach and their, you know, glory is their shame and like, you know, the thing that you. It, it's so ugly if you see it for the truth of what it is that you are hanging onto and like, you know, again, digging up a corpse and stroking it, like that's what we're doing when we hang on to these.

Laurel Thomas 32:40

I'm not sure that Emily really was concerned about writing any kind of moral to this story, but there are plenty.

Kat Lewis 32:48

And I think she does a really good job of taking the characters to the furthest extreme of what we thought this character could do. We are continuing to turn pages shocked at Catherine, shocked at Heath cliff. Shocked at Henley. We're like, can people really be this twisted and evil? And she's like, if you're not a believer at the beginning of this book, you'll be a believer by the end.

Melissa Grace 33:09

Well, and that is something to put in your pocket and take to your writing. You know about making characters don't hold back. True. People you would really wanna be friends with probably aren't gonna be good characters.

Laurel Thomas 33:22

Yeah. And the dialogue, you know, the dialogue can't be How are you? Uh, you look great today. I like your hair.

Melissa Grace 33:28

It has to be Be with me. Always. Take any form. Drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you. Well, maybe not all of it, but

Laurel Thomas 33:39

Well, but I mean, that's, we remember. Yeah. Well, so let's talk about a character that had a high impact on the story and this can refer to character arc or moving the plot forward, or theme or symbolism. What was your character that you felt was the strongest?

Melissa Grace 33:58

Well, I think Linton comes to my mind so I thought he was so interesting because you looked for him to be a sympathetic character and he was horrible. He was just more horrible. Yeah.

Micah Leydorf 34:11

He was almost more horrible than Heathcliff.

Melissa Grace 34:14

Yes, he was. He was like, yes, and, and there was a line that I thought was just so well written that said something to the effect of, if he had the physical strength of his father, maybe he wouldn't be so awful. But anyway, he was the, a key as a plot driver because that was the only way that Heathcliff could try to gain control over Kathy by having them marry. He was a fascinating character to me. It was like you were saying, she did not let up. Mm-hmm. She was like, oh, this is another way dysfunction looks and this is another way dysfunction looks.

Micah Leydorf 34:48

I don't wanna say liked because I really disliked the character of Clinton. But I admired the way he was written. Yes. In that, like you say, he's this little invalid. You would think he is a sympathetic character. Should be sympathetic. He should be. That's right. And yet he's so naughty, evil. He's so evil. He's so horrible. And his actions and his lack of empathy for others and his, and um, so yes, it's just was a great example of villains don't always look like great big brutes who beat up other people. They always look like

Laurel Thomas 35:24

Keith

Micah Leydorf 35:25

Cliff. They don't always look like Keith Exactly's. They don't look like this big brown, dark, scary brute. You have this little blonde invalid boy who has no physical power whatsoever, and yet he is also as evil as this other completely opposite image.

Laurel Thomas 35:45

It's interesting because Heathcliff, he grooms Linton to be like he's the privileged one. Harriton was the one who had to take care of the horses and the stables, so he groomed them both. And yet Hareton turns out to be like a heroic character. Even at the end when Heathcliff dies, he weeps bitterly. He loves Heathcliff. Yeah. So it's, it's interesting. And how she did those characters, because Hareton was the son of his abuser. And he actually on purpose, took Hareton and made him him. He said, you can't, you don't have any place in this home. You work in the stables. You have no class.

Micah Leydorf 36:30

So that goes against your, like Heathcliff was made because Harriton was treated exactly worse almost than Heath Cliff, because Heath Cliff didn't have an inheritance to steal. And he stole Harriton's inheritance, and he treated him horribly. And what happened, like you said, he was a heroic character. Mm-hmm. Whereas Heath Cliff was not. So it's kind of like there's not an excuse for how horrible Heath Cliff was.

Laurel Thomas 36:54

Well, we see that of course, in Jane Eyre, you know, in the main character because she continues that nobility of heart all the way through. It's interesting that she didn't put any kind of, morality as far as that kind of issue. She just showed you both. She just showed. Yes. Yes. She

Melissa Grace 37:12

There's another quote that I love when Heathcliff comes and takes, Linton to live with him. He says, now, my Bonnie Lad, you are mine. And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another with the same wind to twist it. Mm-hmm. I mean, it, it is theme all the way through. The theme of what you put into a child is what you get out of a child basically.

Laurel Thomas 37:35

But I just love the way that she doesn't moralize. She just shows you in the characters this broad spectrum of response.

Kat Lewis 37:47

Yeah. That's really powerful.'cause honestly it was, there's no point in this story where it's a happy, safe story for anyone. No. You know, so it is, it's like how do you put everybody in an emotional war zone and then instead of telling us, Kathy was determined and she was rebellious, and you show all of those things and you show Heath Cliff really deciding. There are just moments where I feel like Heath Cliff just decided that he was like, i'm gonna be as much of a villain as they think that I am. Yeah. You know, and maybe that gave him satisfaction, but to your point of not having any long breathy preaching soliloquy, it was, you were just caught up in the straight up dysfunction and how some characters really shine and some characters, um, were like, you

Laurel Thomas 38:37

need. Well, it's interesting you need a Xanax at the end. And, and Catherine, you know, because there really are two different classes and Catherine makes fun of Harton. She teaches, you know, when Harton tries to, to practice reading from her books, she teases him and basically calls him stupid. And so, but then you see in the end that. You know, they, they come together, of course C Kathy, was it C or Catherine? It's Kathy. Kathy, you know, basically teaches Harton or helps him learn, and then they fall in love. So it's this bridging of these two impossible classes that if you were gonna look at the industrial age and look at rigid class systems, it was bridged in hereon and, and Kathy? I don't

Melissa Grace 39:33

agree. Okay. Because. They make a point all through the book to say that Harton really is of that class. They are of the same class. He just was treated as if he wasn't of that class. Yeah. He, cliff stole his inheritance and downgraded and it's, but he was like, yeah, and it is almost like she is saying there was something bred into Heron that had to eventually come out.

Micah Leydorf 40:00

That's true. That's true. Well, it was, it was quite the read. It was wild, right? It was, and that's

Melissa Grace 40:09

what, and that, you know, dysfunctional characters and craziness and readers are all over it. 150 years later or 200, almost 200 later. I mean, if

Laurel Thomas 40:21

you can read it, you should read it because it, it, it is, it is a representative like Ka said of, of a time and in history. But there are so many universals in that story. And so if you expect a story like Jane Eyre, you're gonna be very disappointed because it, she never went that

Kat Lewis 40:42

way. You're not gonna be disappointed. You're gonna be shocked in the clutching your pearls. You're be like,

Laurel Thomas 40:48

holy toto help. Help. But we've loved discussing Wuthering heights. Are there any other insights that anybody wants to bring up before we say goodbye?

Melissa Grace 41:01

Watch Bluey after you read it

Kat Lewis 41:05

Cartoon. That is

Melissa Grace 41:06

hilarious.

Kat Lewis 41:06

I mean, I would, I, I am curious about this new movie adaptation and to see what they do with it. Again, I feel like you, cheapen is not quite the word I want to use. Um, but I feel like you cheapen a story when you add in gratuitous sex. Especially to a story that's pretty spicy as it is and doesn't need that extra, you know, that. So I, I am curious to see, um, what, uh, you know, what that film adaptation looks like and kind of how people receive it.

Micah Leydorf 41:37

Yeah. I always like, again, we're talking like how passionate this is, how it's like, but there, I mean, here's spoiler alert. There is no sex. There's no sex in this book. Yeah. Like, and yet it is like incredibly. Sensual. Sensual. It's it's, and so it's like you don't need that. You don't need that. Do I dare

Laurel Thomas 41:56

say, it reminds me a little bit of it ends with us.

Kat Lewis 42:04

Okay. I was, I was thinking that as a modern comparison, but it ends with us, does not go nearly into the abuse, like or the romance either or the,

Micah Leydorf 42:14

for that matter.

Kat Lewis 42:15

For that. Speaking of, yeah. I, I, yeah, I don't, I think that if, if it, it ends with us demonstrated and depicted the kind of abuse that we saw in Wuthering Heights, I think it is with us to be blacklisted because people will be like. She, she would've had to have shown the real thing in such an ugly trueness that I think it would've really shocked her.

Micah Leydorf 42:36

Actually. I'm glad you brought up that comparison, Laurel, because to me, like just even thinking about in Ends with us and comparing it to Wuthering Heights just shows you like how shallow most of the modern literature is compared to. Like, like that is so true. Is there

Laurel Thomas 42:54

richness that charact like, oh my gosh, there's

Micah Leydorf 42:55

no comparison. There's no comparison in the romance, there's no comparison in the abuse, there's no comparison in the cha, the strength of the characters they built. It's like, oh, but that it's just. Yeah, don't, don't read it Ends with us. Do read, do read Wuthering heights like, and then think about whether or not you wanna be married to that man. And the answer is no. Say, say more. Say no. Say more. So

Laurel Thomas 43:18

now we have the theme. Okay. Well, we love being with you and of course we love being together. So, um, thank you for listening and join us again for stories that change us.