The First Bronte

My favorite novel is actually one that we read in AP Lit: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, her only novel as her life was tragically cut short by consumption, a.k.a. tuberculosis, a.k.a. what Keats also succumbed to in the nineteenth century. As it is the cumulative text of the class, if you are taking AP Lit, you may want to wait to read it with me and the group to become part of the Bronte moors, the Byronic Hero archetype, and the minutia that makes this novel, read after read, a fascinating slice of personalities that do not mix. With that last thought in mind, though, you could do a read for pleasure (yes, that does still exist even after taking AP Lang and realizing how much you note shifts, juxtaposition, motifs, syntax, and those syndetons) for plot and character.

Now for those of you who like juxtaposition, this novel is made around the premise with 2 narrators (yes, Lockwood is a bother and there is no escaping it; Nelly is our source of true interest, imagination, and questions of her motive in depicted characters as such), 2 settings, and 2 generations of characters. In AP Lit studies of the novel, there is much depth to analyze with character development, the weather motifs, color symbolism, and commentary on the circumstances of nineteenth century class structure and how this pollutes the souls of those in the text (this novel, which is hard to categorize as it filters through various genres, is made for Marxist criticism, which is our underlying critical eye in class).

I first read the novel when I was sixteen. Why? Well, it all started with a film version, this one Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights starring the extraordinary Juliette Binoche as both Cathys (yep, there's two of them so keep on your toes at the beginning of the novel) and my beloved Ralph Fiennes as the magnetic, mysterious, mistreated, vengeful, cruel Byronic Hero Heathcliff. After watching the film, and falling madly for Ralph's Heathcliff, I picked up the novel and plunged into its specific milieu. My reading of the novel has changed over time, as does any time you read something over a 26 year period. I gravitate to different characters, see the flaws in the Byronic protagonist that were first ignored, pick up on the subtle projections of Nelly and how she is the real sculptor of the tale.

I do love all of the Bronte sisters and their works. There is a thought that you are either a Bronte or an Austen. While I do love my Jane Austen and her novels dearly, I do return back to the Brontes again and again. I guess that would be a fun class to take in the juxtaposition of the Romantic Hero vs. the Byronic Hero.

F.Y.I. The film version I mentioned is one of many, and it is the most accurate to the novel if you take my word for it. Most film versions cut the novel in half, taking away the second generational aspect.

When I was in college, a friend at the time recommended to me a novel called Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman as she said it was reminiscent of Wuthering Heights and its characters. And, yes it sure does modernize the Bronte characters - and the passionate situations that were once implied and now described. I always dreamed about teaching a class where we could read both novels to show that connection. Alice Hoffman is an amazing writer, and if you are looking for a modern author with a large canon of work, take a look at her texts and see if any are of interest to you.

Happy Reading!