My copy of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights lies limp on my desk across from me. I had left it out to give it to a friend. A friend for whom reading is not their preferred hobby but had asked for a loan of the book after having seen Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” over the weekend. The conversation which followed went a bit like this:
‘You do realise there is no sex in it?’
‘That’s alright.’
‘I mean, it is nothing like the movie. If you want a smutty book I can give you a smutty book.’
‘No, honestly, I want to read it. I can’t stop thinking about the movie.’
‘But is that because of Jacob Elordi?’
‘…’
‘…’
This article won’t be a review of the movie; adding my views to an already oversaturated discussion is neither needed nor necessary. Nor will this be a deep analysis of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, as my fellow Strathclyde English students have had to deal with plenty of analysis on another of the Brontë sisters’ books… I’m looking at you Jane Eyre!
‘So why bother writing about it then Erin?’ I hear you cry! Thus, I ask you, why bother about anything at all then?
Sometimes, it’s just good to talk about art.
Art is important. All art is important. bad art, good art, ugly art, confusing art. The bottom line is. ART IS IMPORTANT. Aye, there’s the rub.
Something that I am extremely grateful for with the release of this movie is the discussion that it has generated about art. People weighing in, discussing why it was wrong, what it did right. It didn’t follow the plot; half the characters aren’t there. Why is Isabella barking like a dog? Why is Kathy masturbating on the moors? Why is Heathcliff watching like a voyeuristic pervert?
Is this really what Emily Brontë desired as a writer when she set to write Wuthering Heights over 178 years ago?
So many questions and not a single one of us can adequately produce an answer.
However, in the last week I have spoken to people in work and in class about whether they are a Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights type of person, for which someone responded, in an unprecedented move, that they were a The Tenant of Wildfell Hall type of gal. Needless to say, I instantly went to buy my own copy. Anne Brontë swooped in like the dark horse she is to my TBR list.
I myself have now started reading Charlotte Brontë’s Villette. The bus journey to Strath now beckons each morning gloriously!
I’ve had people tell me they love the film, and that they hate that they love the film, and that some found it amusing and that some had sobbed with gut-wrenching ferocity. My friend with whom I went to see the film was in the latter category. Whereas I couldn’t stop laughing (particularly at Isabella’s description of Romeo and Juliet). Some people are pleased that they hate it so much. Honestly, fair play.
My point is, protracted as it may be, is that the conversations people are having because of this movie are so important. Why has Heathcliff been whitewashed? Why has Fennell portrayed the working class in this manner? She herself is from a privileged background. What does this say about her interpretation of the story? Abuse and love are tightly entwined in the book, so what does it mean for the movie to be extremely erotic? Are we here only for the vibes? Is meaning necessary anymore?
I don’t want to trivialise these questions because they are necessary. Literary criticism and critical thinking need to persist in the face of growing technology and subsequent declining literacy rates. If we stop having discussions about a piece of art or literature, then we accept that substance is not required and that we need only pleasure or something easy and palatable to ensure that we enjoy it. Consumerism disguised as culture.
As you can tell, I love a rhetorical question. I can’t stop questioning what I think when it comes to this film. I thought I’d have an authority on the subject, having read the book and being three out of four years into an English degree. I don’t.
When Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights, it split critics and was negatively received by many, with one critic saying:
‘How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.’
A bit harsh, but if it split critics back in 1848, I can’t help but feel that the film is not so different to the book in that regard.
Similarly, until the 1970s the majority of literary criticism of the book focused on Heathcliff, with many believing he was at the centre of the book. Feminist criticism has given us a new perspective and changed this narrative for the better, same with critical race theory and with Marxism too.
Our relation to art is influenced by personal experience. For the first time, many people will be picking up Wuthering Heights and be attempting to read it, like my friend. Whilst many may dislike it and lament at the lack of clear communication between characters, confusing narrative structure and the fact that Kathy and Heathcliff are very dissimilar to how Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi portrayed them. However, there may be someone for which the film has sparked a new love of the book.
Who knows, if they pick up Wuthering Heights, they may pick up Jane Eyre, and if they do that, then it is only a hop, skip and a jump away from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Hi, I’m Erin. I’m currently studying English and History. She/her