Wuthering Heights (and The Count of Monte Cristo)

Wuthering Heights is a little too long for me to write a brief summary. To read a full summary, there is a great one in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuthering_Heights

Love and Hatred in Wuthering Heights
To discuss love and hatred portrayed in Wuthering Heights, it would be best to examine each character one by one.

Heathcliff's love is passionate to the degree of insanity. His love is not bound by life and death and seems to be everlasting. After Catherine's Death, he even opens her coffin to see her, and he often sees hallucinations of her. He feels extreme jealousy and animosity toward Edgar.

Catherine's love is also ardent and permanent, but she oscillates between two men. She does not truly love Edgar Linton, but she marries him anyway because of his social status.

Edgar's love is rather superficial. This does not mean that he does not love Catherine. He loves her, and when she dies, he feels grief and sorrow. However, he loves the civilized side of Catherine, which is not her true self. When she acts rather hysterically, he tries to pretend like he has not seen her like that.

Isabella's love is also very superficial. As a child, she hates Heathcliff because he looks filthy and uncivilized. However, when he returns with completely different looks and manners, she claims that she is in love with him. She realizes too late that Heathcliff is wicked on the inside.


Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo

In both Wuthering Heights and The Count of Monte Cristo, loss of love (both women marry somebody else) triggers hatred and revenge. Heathcliff and Edmond Dantes try to avenge themselves by taking away everything their enemy owns--property, status, and even love. It is interesting because in both stories, Heathcliff and the count take away, or win the favor of, the enemy's son. This is probably done to deprive their enemy of his family's love.

At the end, they both succeed in revenge but fails to find happiness. They initially think that their revenge will bring everything back to the way it was, but they discover that nothing changes. No matter what Heathcliff does, Catherine is gone. No matter how many enemies the Count destroys, he does not feel trully satisfied.

Nevertheless, both stories end in a happy ending, or at least in a glimpse of such hope. In The Count of Monte Cristo, the Count finds love again in Heidi, a girl he saves in a foreign country. In Wuthering Heights, Cathy finally becomes less prejudiced about Hindley and they "sort of" fall in love.


My Personal Response to Wuthering Heights
Personally I find Catherine responsible for all the tragedy. It is her decision to marry Edgar Linton that makes everyone——Heathcliff, Edgar, and even Catherine herself——unhappy. Had she followed her heart and married Heathcliff instead, things would have been much more different.