Heathcliff felt real. When he’s explaining his plans to Nelly he just feels so frighteningly real. Which is worse because he’s not just an angry character, he’s a calculating one, and we know his revenge is inevitable.
Linton, Hareton, Heathcliff and Hindley were interesting characters. They could all have been good people, and Hareton proves this, but they all become either obnoxious or downright hateful because of the circumstances in which they were raised. Which means I can understand what has made them that way, even if I struggle to like their characters later on.
Nelly and Lockwood are good narrators - very, very unreliable. Nelly skews our interpretations of the characters to her own preferences, whilst Lockwood is entirely absorbed in himself.
The ending was something quite beautiful too. I haven’t looked into it much, this is just my first impressions, but when Linton died, right, who of the younger generation were we left with? Hareton, raised by Heathcliff, and Cathy, Catherine’s daughter. And I would say she’s more Catherine’s than Edgar’s, because despite her physical resemblance to the Lintons, her personality is very much that of Catherine’s - albeit with softer edges and a kinder nature.
So anyway, we’ve looped back to the start of the novel, and it’s Heathcliff and Catherine reunited, but this time it’s Hareton and Cathy, and they’re growing into their own people and building a kinder future, working to abandon the cruelty of their past. And I think that was the perfect ending, though that may just be the teen side of me that really really needed something happy after 300 bleak pages of depression.
Heathcliff felt real. When he’s explaining his plans to Nelly he just feels so frighteningly real. Which is worse because he’s not just an angry character, he’s a calculating one, and we know his revenge is inevitable.
Linton, Hareton, Heathcliff and Hindley were interesting characters. They could all have been good people, and Hareton proves this, but they all become either obnoxious or downright hateful because of the circumstances in which they were raised. Which means I can understand what has made them that way, even if I struggle to like their characters later on.
Nelly and Lockwood are good narrators - very, very unreliable. Nelly skews our interpretations of the characters to her own preferences, whilst Lockwood is entirely absorbed in himself.
The ending was something quite beautiful too. I haven’t looked into it much, this is just my first impressions, but when Linton died, right, who of the younger generation were we left with? Hareton, raised by Heathcliff, and Cathy, Catherine’s daughter. And I would say she’s more Catherine’s than Edgar’s, because despite her physical resemblance to the Lintons, her personality is very much that of Catherine’s - albeit with softer edges and a kinder nature.
So anyway, we’ve looped back to the start of the novel, and it’s Heathcliff and Catherine reunited, but this time it’s Hareton and Cathy, and they’re growing into their own people and building a kinder future, working to abandon the cruelty of their past. And I think that was the perfect ending, though that may just be the teen side of me that really really needed something happy after 300 bleak pages of depression.