In this blog post, I’d like to explore why Emily Brontë’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ can be read not merely as a story of tempestuous love, but as an epic drama spanning three generations.
Emily Brontë was born on July 30, 1818, in a rural village in Yorkshire, northern England, and spent most of her life at the Haworth parsonage—where her father, Patrick Brontë, served as a minister—until her death at the age of thirty. At this location—now the Brontë Museum—Reverend Patrick Brontë and his wife, Maria Branwell, raised six children born almost one year apart, with Emily being the fifth. Her older siblings were Maria (born in 1814), Elizabeth (born in 1815), Charlotte (born in 1816), and her brother Branwell (born in 1817), while her younger sister, Anne, was born in 1820. At the time, Haworth was one of the most desolate and remote villages in Yorkshire, but thanks to Patrick Brontë, a graduate of St. John’s College, Cambridge, the six siblings were able to grow up surrounded by books and writing. Haworth, a heath-covered wasteland, was home mainly to poor farmers, many of whom spoke the local dialect and used a blunt, rough manner of speech. The word “Wuthering,” used in the title of the novel, is also a local dialect term, signifying a turbulent atmosphere exposed to storms. I felt that Old Joseph, with his rough dialect and brusque manner of speaking, was a representative character who embodied the rugged and desolate atmosphere of the region.
In 1821, the year after her younger sister Anne was born, her mother passed away from illness, and her unmarried eldest aunt took charge of the household. Emily enrolled at Carow Bridge School in 1824, when she was six years old, but returned home the following year after her sisters Maria and Elizabeth contracted tuberculosis and died due to the poor conditions there. In 1835, she enrolled at Roehead School, where her older sister Charlotte was teaching, but returned home a few months later due to homesickness; after that, she spent most of her time in Haworth, except for a few brief periods when she left home to work as a teacher on three or four occasions. Emily, who loved the heath-covered Haworth, planned to run a boarding school at home rather than work as a teacher elsewhere; to that end, she traveled to a school in Brussels in February 1842 to obtain a qualification as a foreign language teacher. However, upon hearing in November of that same year that her eldest aunt, who had been managing the household, had passed away, she returned to Haworth.
Living together in the parsonage, which had little contact with the outside world, the Brontë sisters continued their creative work. It is remarkable that, in an era when female authors were rare, works destined to leave a lasting mark on the history of British literature were born in such an environment. To avoid the prejudices against female writers at the time, the three sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—adopted male pen names. Using the surname “Bell” and incorporating the first letter of their respective first names, they published poetry collections under the names Currer Bell, Ellis Bell, and Acton Bell. However, the poetry collections did not receive a warm reception from the public. Subsequently, the three sisters each wrote novels, and after various twists and turns, Charlotte published ‘Jane Eyre’ in October 1847; in December of the same year, Emily’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ and their younger sister Anne’s ‘Agnes Grey’ were published.
Unlike ‘Jane Eyre’, which received critical acclaim immediately upon publication, ‘Wuthering Heights’ was shunned by the public until Emily’s death the following year, in 1848, and remained out of the public eye for a long time afterward. Even after the author’s identity was revealed, readers at the time believed that a female writer could not have created a male character as close to madness as Heathcliff. Heathcliff, a character forever remembered in British literature today, was born out of precisely that era’s atmosphere. In the well-known portrait of the Brontë sisters—which depicts the sisters themselves—the face of Branwell, who painted the portrait, has been deliberately erased; one cannot help but wonder if he wanted to erase his own unhappy life. Branswell, who had dreamed of becoming a painter, fell in love with his employer’s wife while working as a tutor; after being rejected, he turned to alcohol and drugs, and passed away in September 1848 at the age of thirty-one. Emily, whose tuberculosis had worsened after she caught a cold at her brother’s funeral, also passed away three months later, on December 19, at the age of thirty. Perhaps due to the desolate and harsh conditions in Haworth, tuberculosis severed the fates of the four Brontë sisters. Their eldest sister, Maria, died at age 11; Elizabeth at age 10; Emily at age 30; and the youngest, Anne, passed away at age 29 in 1849, the year after Emily’s death.
“Wuthering Heights,” the only novel by this author who died at the age of thirty, has generally been translated into Korean as “Stormy Heights.” However, after reading the work, the title “Wuthering Heights” felt more appropriate for understanding the novel’s meaning. While the translation “Stormy Heights” is not semantically incorrect, there is significance in retaining the original name, as it is a proper noun referring to the house where the Earnshaw family resides. Above all, it is worth considering that the existing translation tends to narrow the work’s meaning to the tempestuous love between Catherine and Heathcliff, leading readers to perceive the novel as a romance. In fact, “Wuthering Heights” can be seen less as the name of a specific house and more as an expression that captures the atmosphere of the entire Haworth region.
Since Emily Brontë’s portrayal of Heathcliff and his frenzied love for Catherine left such a powerful impression on readers, it is a natural interpretation to view this work as the story of the two lovers’ tormented romance. This interpretation is also evident in film adaptations. The 1939 film directed by William Wyler adapted only the first half of the novel and concluded with the idea that the two continued their love even after death. However, the story in the novel spans three generations, depicting not only the couple’s tempestuous love but also the lives of their descendants and a stark portrayal of the society of that time. Thus, as I read this work, I found myself considering not only the love between Heathcliff and Catherine but also the stories of the successive generations that unfolded around that love.
‘Wuthering Heights’ is a first-person novel; the narrative unfolds as the first-person narrator, Lockwood, moves into Thrushcross Grange as a tenant and observes and recounts the events from the present-day perspective of 1801. The person who relays the past events to Lockwood is the household’s housekeeper, known as Nelly. Nelly has lived at this house for 18 years; before that, she lived at Wuthering Heights and accompanied Catherine Earnshaw when she married into the Linton family. The novel begins in the winter of 1801 with a scene in which Lockwood, a tenant at Thrushcross Grange, visits Wuthering Heights, meets the owner, Heathcliff, and engages in conversation with him. Nelly answers the various questions that arose during Lockwood’s two consecutive days of visits to Wuthering Heights and recounts stories from the past. Thus, the main characters forming the novel’s outer frame are Lockwood and Nelly, while the story unfolding within constitutes the core of the work.
The story within this frame unfolds over three generations, involving Mr. and Mrs. Linton, their son Edgar, and their daughter Isabella, who live at Thrushcross Grange; Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw, their son Hindley, and their daughter Catherine, who live at Wuthering Heights; and Heathcliff, whom Mr. Earnshaw brought home. While the story of the first generation centers on the adults of the two families and their children in their youth, the second generation features the children of these families getting married and their descendants entering the narrative. Hindley Unshaw, who had been studying abroad, returns home for his father’s funeral and brings with him Frances, whom he met while away. Frances, who was frail, gives birth to Hareton Unshaw and soon passes away. Edgar Linton, the eldest son of the Grange, marries Catherine Earnshaw and has a daughter, Cathy Linton. However, Catherine dies just two hours after giving birth to Cathy, without ever regaining consciousness.
Meanwhile, Catherine—who had accepted Edgar Linton’s proposal but was still in love with Heathcliff—told him she could not marry him because he was an orphan. Heathcliff, who overheard this by chance, left home that very night. Three years later, Heathcliff returns as a successful man and begins his revenge against Hindley Unshaw—who had abused him—and Edgar Linton, whom he believes stole his soulmate. After Hindley Unshaw’s death, Heathcliff takes possession of Wuthering Heights and marries Edgar’s sister, Isabella, in order to seize Thrushcross Grange as well. However, less than a day after their wedding, Isabella, having discovered Heathcliff’s true intentions, flees Wuthering Heights and heads south. There, she gives birth to and raises her son, Linton, before passing away the year he turns twelve.
In the story of the third generation, in order to seize Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff—after Isabella’s death—arranges for his son Linton to marry Catherine Linton, the daughter of Edgar Linton. Linton, who was frail, eventually dies shortly after the wedding; just before his death, he draws up a will bequeathing his entire estate to his father, Heathcliff, thereby ensuring that Wuthering Heights also falls into Heathcliff’s hands. After Linton’s death, Catherine—who remains at Wuthering Heights as Heathcliff’s daughter-in-law—reconciles with Hareton Unshaw, the son of Hindley Unshaw, whom she had previously ignored and disliked. The novel concludes with the two of them getting married.
On his deathbed, Heathcliff gazes intently at Hareton Earnshaw—the son of Hindley, who had hated and tormented him—and Catherine, the daughter of Edgar, whom he believed had taken Catherine away from him, as they study together affectionately. In that moment, he realizes just how futilely the endeavor he had fought so fiercely for has ultimately ended. He had prepared even a lever and a pickaxe to bring both families to their knees and was determined to carry out a Herculean task, but once he had gathered all his strength and made all his preparations, he found he no longer had the will to remove even a single roof tile from either house. I was deeply moved by this scene, in which the revenge and obsession to which Heathcliff had devoted his entire life ultimately became meaningless even to himself.
Catherine says of Heathcliff, “Heathcliff is a friend more like me than I am myself. I don’t know how our souls were made, but our souls are one.” It is hard to deny that one of the most powerful reasons ‘Wuthering Heights’ has captivated readers for so long is the fateful love between Heathcliff and Catherine. Catherine, who married Edgar Linton but loved Heathcliff—her very alter ego—until her dying breath, makes the confession, “I am Heathcliff.” These words give the impression of encountering one of the most romantic and fateful love stories in British literature.
However, if one reads this work solely as a love story between these two characters, one misses much of what Emily Brontë embedded in the novel. Set against the backdrop of a rural village in Yorkshire and heath-covered fields, two worlds coexist side by side. One is the Unshaws, symbolizing the storm, and the other is the Lintons, symbolizing tranquility. And standing between them, like a heretic, is Heathcliff. After his death, order is restored as Hareton and Cathy—descendants of the two families—are reunited. As you follow this narrative arc, ‘Wuthering Heights’ comes across not merely as a novel about the love between two lovers, but as an epic drama in which the fates of various characters and generations are intricately intertwined.
The story of how Heathcliff legally seizes both estates using the legal system of the time is also an essential part of this work that cannot be overlooked. Though different from a tempestuous love, the love between Hareton Unshaw and Cathy—who, as time passes, resolve their misunderstandings and become one—also stands as a significant narrative. Twenty-three-year-old Hareton and eighteen-year-old Cathy sometimes relate to each other like a teacher and student learning to read and write, and at other times rely on one another like innocent lovers, creating a new beginning between the two families after the storm has passed. At the end of the novel, Nelly, upon Rockwood’s return from London, describes the lovely couple to him, explaining that because one person wanted to love and accept the other, and the other likewise wanted to love and be accepted, both ultimately fulfilled those desires.
This scene made me realize once again that the ending of ‘Wuthering Heights’ is not merely a tragedy. While it is true that Heathcliff and Catherine’s love is so intense that it dominates the entire novel, I felt that another crucial aspect of the work is how the wounds left by that love and hatred across generations ultimately lead to a new order and the possibility of reconciliation through the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy. Only after a stormy love has swept through and left everything in its wake can a new relationship truly begin.
Therefore, it is difficult to describe ‘Wuthering Heights’ as merely a novel depicting the frenzied love between one man and one woman. The conflict and revenge between the two families, the society and legal system of the time, two worlds with distinct characters, and the characters from three generations living within them all make up the work. While Heathcliff and Catherine’s love is the most intense force driving this entire narrative, what remains at the end of the work is not just that love itself. As the past—marked by revenge and obsession—comes to an end and Heathcliff and Catherine build a relationship based on mutual love and acceptance, the possibility of a new beginning remains in the wake of the long storm. In that sense, I believe ‘Wuthering Heights’ is not only a story of tempestuous love but also an epic drama spanning three generations that shows how the wounds and conflicts left by that love are transformed and overcome by the next generation.
