Eternal Love and Inner Peace?

I knew by the end of this book my heart go out to the elder Cathrine and Heathcliff and that was the last thing I wanted. That's right, I didn't want to give in and let the two wicked people be the ones tugging at my heart strings! There, had to get that out first and foremost, but enough of the emotions!

Getting back to the actual text I felt as though up until the end I was entertaining some form of British soap opera with all the revenge and planning and manipulating. However, by the end it was as though I was stuck watching the decent of a mad-man. In thinking of Heathcliff as a man lost in insanity I began going back through the rest of the text and found that everyone is a little mad.  Suddenly I was feeling like Alice in wonderland speaking to my Bronte-cat and informing her that I did not want to hang out with mad people, I could feel her smile grow as she taunted me back saying that everyone was mad here and even I was mad, why else would I be here. 

All of the characters who slip into madness seem to do so in connection with their own self despair.  This despairing madness can be seen first on page 74 with Hindley when his wife passes and him giving "himself up for reckless dissipation". Hindley's madness only increases as time goes on, (due to in part the effect of all his drinking,) and it seems to come to a head in chapter 13 on page 134 when he confesses his desire to murder Heathcliff because, "some devil urges him." However, Hindley is not alone in his madness. Catherine faces similar types of madness when it comes to the issue of Heathcliff. When Heathcliff is courting Isabella, (which you might even call her utter blinding devoting a kind of madness,) Catherine has her own fit of madness in chapter 11 after a fight between Edgar and Heathcliff. Catherine's decline is steady from this moment onward and in the next chapter we see just how far her sanity has fallen and that recovery is unlikely. Like the elder Catherine I found Cathy to be filled with her own type of madness for example at the end of chapter 28 when she reveals how she threw a fit in order to frighten Linton so he would release her. I don't want to make to big of a medical dispute on the subject of clinical madness with these characters but a sister, brother, and daughter...maybe there is something to form of heredity madness.

On the other hand, all this madness could be purely emotional. In talking with a friend of mine who absolutely loves this book and hails it as the greatest tragic romance since Romeo and Juliet she said is inclined to believe that all the character's madness are just another form of eternal love. In a way that makes a lot of sense. Hindley doesn't go mad until the death of his wife. Catherine doesn't have her first fit until she realizes she is losing Heathcliff. Cathy starts to slip when she hears of her father's impending death. Even Heathcliff's blinding madness can easily be seen as his own pledge of everlasting love to Catherine. In thinking about all of this with the idea of eternal love I could feel this twisted sense of passion in such passages as:  Catherine telling Nelly that her and Heathcliff are one (88), and Heathcliff's mad confession to Nelly and Cathy that there is one who doesn't shrink from him and one who is always with him (285). Is the tragedy of Heathcliff and Cathrine really the tragedy of all great lovers in that their paths are set and destined to never full entwine? Or, is the tragedy that two self-centered selfish creatures such as Catherine and Heathcliff could never obtain true love without destroying each other regardless of their circumstances?

I find myself with more questions than answers at this point and one of my biggest being, how did Bronte view the relationships between men and women? One of my favorite points in the book is when Heathcliff is telling Nelly his funeral arrangements and how he is happy his end his near. "No minister need some; nor need anything be said over me -- I tell you, I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncovered by me!" (284). The Heights is described so bleakly, barren,gloomy, and completely uninviting (much similar to the description of the characters) in the first chapter of the book and yet by the end Mr. Lockwood is giving a almost complete reversal description of the place speaking of the flowers that covered the wall and the gates were open. Not only are the gates open but so is communication. When Lockwood first arrived no one wished to speak to him nor to anyone else and this time Lockwood stumbles upon Cathy and Hareton reading and engaging each other in conversation. Heathcliff in the above mentioned quote says that he was near his heaven and that was because at this point he has been in communication (or at least he feels he has been in communication,) with the spirit of Catherine. Taking the romance out of the equation for a moment it made me think that heaven, being a state of supreme happiness and peace, can be found in simple socialization and communication. Could it be the way to find true inner peace and happiness is by taking focus off the self and learning to live and function with others?  Maybe this wasn't Bronte's main purpose for writing this novel, but it has gotten me to thinking more.