Classics Without All the Class discussion

Discuss thoughts, comments, emotions, etc you have for the opening of the story.

Wuthering Heights is a book that's notoriously hard to get into, and on re-reading it, it's not hard to see why. Readers expecting to be swept away by the passion of Heathcliff and Cathy find themselves instead inside the head of the narrator Lockwood - and a self-absorbed, snobbish, wordy narrator he is too. Then when he starts relating Nelly Dean's account, and she recounts Heathcliff's tale (in chapter 6), we end up with a story within a story within a story. Very complicated.

The effect all this nesting of stories is to make the events seem at a remove from the reader. Seen through Lockwoods's eyes, the moors are a wild, primitive place unchanged for centuries; the people are equally uncivilized, and the stories he hears seem to take on a sort of mythical quality.

None of the characters are, at this point of the book, particularly sympathetic. Hindley is snivelling and spiteful, Cathy is wayward, and the glimpses of the Linton children show them as spoilt and fretful. Heathcliff is in some ways the best of them - certainly the most resilient and uncomplaining. The only scene of domestic harmony in these early chapters is, ironically, when old Mr Earnshaw dies.

Great summation and perspective. I had a hard time getting into it originally as well. People who love it lead you to believe it's this rainbow and puppy dogs type of story...and it isn't.

I enjoyed the nesting of povs and stories. It was interesting to see how everyone portrayed situations and each other.

Heathcliff is such one of those characters with layers the reader gets to peel back as the story continues. Seeing him as child gave me the ability to have sympathy and care for him throughout the story. Even today.

I love the book. But I'd never call it a rainbow and puppy dogs type. Infact it's quite the opposite. It's like a stormy night with howling wolves! It's passionate but there's certainly nothing moons and stars about it. And that makes for the reason why I love this book!

I enjoy different perceptions of the characters too. And I feel sad for Heath. He's been mistreated by everyone around him and that's turned him skeptic and doubtful of everyone and everything around him. A lot of what happened with him was their fault but I can't say that some of it isn't his own. Still, as we move along the story, my sympathies for Heath only increases.

I just finished chapter six today and I'm fascinated. There's been virtually zero action but the tension is incredible. Great characters too.

I feel like I need a graphic to show me how all of these people are related to each other. If I understand it correctly, the narration by Nelly involves the elder Mr. Earnshaw and his daughter, Cathy, plus the child he takes in, Heathcliff. The younger Cathy, who is his DIL, has not yet entered Nelly's tale (I presume because it's many years before she's born?)

Gets confusing when cousins marry cousins, too....

Hi, Alana

You're not alone! It does get complicated and confusing with the names that sound so much alike, too.

I notice that if you Google a family tree for Wuthering Heights, many fans have made some interesting ones, some more helpful and clear than others.

When my mom did our family tree, it got very confusing, with all of the families in small towns marrying the same few other families, and naming their children after the mother and father, or the uncle, or the mother's maiden name, etc. Dizzying!