Wuthering Heights

[@burningthefields]

SHort reminder Wuthering Heights is set mostly in the 18th century, with the latest point in the book (the ending) being 1807. It is not set in the time that it was written

[@alaamfaddi7360]

From Kuwait: this video is very helpful! thank you, Dr!

[@lindosland]

It is not true that women could not own property before the married women's property act. Even before the nineteenth century single women could own property, and would also inherit property, including a house and land if their were no male heirs to inherit. The law simply gave precedence to the man in a marriage, but said nothing about single women or widows. As another has commented here, the story is not set in the nineteenth century, but around a hundred years earlier than when it was written. Cathy did not have to marry, she could have taken here chances with Heathcliff, the man she really wanted, rather than being seduced by the high life of the Lintons. If she had stayed at home, there is a real possibility that she would indeed have inherited Wuthering Heights, with so many people dying early. I get fed up with the constant stressing of the feminist viewpoint in relation to the Brontes. While they wanted fairness, they said nothing in favour of what we would call feminism, and it should be noted that they did not even support votes for men! This is made clear in a letter home, in which one of them (I forget which) expresses relief that the reform act, which would bring universal suffrage for men (only some men could vote back then), had failed to be passed. They were conservatives who championed powerful men like the Duke of Wellington (and Rochester). Cathy is the one to be condemned, for choosing wealth and status over true feelings, betraying the man who really stood by her. Heathcliff acts according to his feelings throughout, showing the power of revenge as a very real human trait. So many readers back then, and also today, condemn Heathcliff, unable to realise that the condemnation of revenge is a Christian value, and Emily Bronte was a heretic opposed to Christianity. She is simply setting out how people are really driven to interact, and she despises not class, but the insincerity of those who choose superficiality over the 'truth within'. As for Heathcliff coming from Liverpool, with links to slavery; of course he didn't. When Nelly tells us that old Earnshaw walked sixty miles there and sixty miles back she is hinting at the impossibility of such a thing, without giving the game away too obviously about her employer and respected father figure! Can you show me any man today who could walk sixty miles in a day and then sixty miles back; and with a six year old child? Of course not! Heathcliff is not particularly dark skinned (we are told he turned white as the wall behind him with shock). He is Earnshaw's illegitimate son, by the local gypsy woman! We are given a clue here when Edgar's sister, on seeing Heathcliff says that he is EXACTLY like the son of the gypsy woman who told her fortune. Gypsies were either Romani or Irish, and Irish gypsies were not particularly dark skinned. Nothing suggests that Heathcliff had slave connections. He was essentially white.

[@user-oo8xp2rf1k]

I'm sure all you say is true. I'm not saying these are invalid stances. But one might say Mein Kampf is a story of an assertion of the power of the village (die volk) against the urban capitalist structures of the city. That would be true, but it doesn't make Heathcliff or Hitler any less monstrous. So when we say Heathcliff subverts imperialism, we can accept that this is true..but we should be clear in what sense it is true. I hope my rather strongly worded observation isn't taken as a personal attack on anybody. It is intended as a perspective as grist to your mill. You may or may not agree with it!