I've been meaning to write this post for several days now. I just finished up the reread of WH for next school year, and I guess I had forgotten a huge amount of that book. One thing that struck me this time through was the incredible selfishness of the doomed pair, Cathy and Heathcliff. I'm almost positive I thought their attachment had the glamour of romance the last time I dealt with this book.
Cathy struck me as one of the most emotionally immature women I've "read" lately. Everything she does is totally without consideration of how it will affect any other person. She is careless and although lots of critics talk about her as though she's a force of nature, her caprices do not strike me as natural for any adult. Even when she's pregnant (of course that's not mentioned, but suddenly, BAM, there's Cathy, Jr.), she throws a tantrum worthy of any two-year-old just because she's displeased with recent events in the house, and she winds up damaging herself in such a way that she's never able to recover.
Nobody in that whole book, with the possible exception of Nelly Dean, is normal. Edgar Linton might have had a chance if he'd married somebody sane, same thing for Isabella. Heathcliff's borderline necrophiliac obsession for Cathy Sr. is another act of selfishness. His diabolic actions toward Isabella and the children, Hareton and Catherine, are directly related to his selfish desire to get revenge when revenge won't ever take away the pain of what was done to him as a child.
The two of them seem like caricatures to me, and I wonder if that wasn't the effect Bronte was going for. Maybe she wanted them to be caricature warnings: grow up and set your priorities right or suffer.
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And then you said.....