You can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

First I feel like I need to confess that I have put off reading this book for years because it seems to be wrapped in a cloud of gloom.  I know all stories can't be happy go lucky, but this particular one seems to have an ominousness air about it. I mean even the title Wuthering Hieghts, it just sounds bleak....but I  digress.

 I would like to come back to the idea of bleak. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary on-line bleak is defined as: Exposed and barren and often windswept. Cold. Raw. Lacking in warmth, life, or kindliness, grim. Not hopeful or encouraging, depressing. Severely simple or austere.

All of those define the characters and environment of Wuthering Heights. As a reader my heart goes out to the characters, especially Heathcliff because I almost feel they are all creations of their environment and that from the beginning their path is laid out for them. Then I stumbled upon an interesting comment that the narrator Mr. Lockwood makes.  On page 71 in our editions he says, "I perceive that people in these regions acquire over  people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the looker-on. They do live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface change, and frivolous external things." In other words, there is this self-centered introversion that just about all of the characters possess It is a blend of self-preservation and just plain selfishness.

I am starting to get the idea that maybe my sympathy for them is misplaced. If I spend all my time just focused on myself then of course my inner demons are going to start to rule me, and I get a feeling that is what's happening with the characters. As human beings we are by nature social people meaning that we need contact with others to live normal healthy lives. With the idea of social behavior in mind I start to read the book feeling more and more like I am reading a case study for a psychology class. While the family lives together they certainly do not communicate with each other in so much as they speak but do not listen.


While finishing up my readings I was reminded of the song, Hotel California, by The Eagles and the last line that says, "You can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave." I feel as though the house of Wuthering Heights is another version of the Hotel California. All the characters seem trapped within this place and even the spirit of the departed Catherine seems to cling to it's wall. This book needs a What's Eating Gilbert Grape, kind of ending. They just needs to set fire to the place and burn away all that remains of the past.