Wuthering Heights and Beyond

I have attempted to read Joyce Carol Oates’ essay “The Magnanimity of Wuthering Heights,” which you can find here:
http://jco.usfca.edu/wuthering.html

Oates’s depth of understanding of the book and her articulateness and intelligence in analyzing the book is quite intimidating! I won’t even attempt to summarize, but she has many interesting comments on Heathcliff as the anti-Gothic romantic hero and why this works so well. She also looks at the marriage of the second Catherine and Hareton as an optimistic statement about the future, as they move out of Wuthering Heights and to Thrushcross Grange to build their life together.

I like what she said about what she calls the “Chinese Box” structure of the story, the way the historical part of the story (the story of the relationship of Heathcliff and Cathy) is placed within the contemporary story that is playing out (the second Catherine and Hareton). Oates says that while Bronte didn’t invent this technique, she uses it masterfully. I had found this approach to be distancing and felt that it detracted from the emotional immediacy of the story, but Oates points out that this overall structure of the book enables the author to so successfully contrast the early Gothic style of the book with the later Realism, and the earlier failed relationship with the present ultimately successful relationship.

And now I will leave this classic behind, although it remains rich with material for study and interpretation, and get back to my present day reading. I have filled you in on most of my summer reading, and meanwhile I have been very busy this fall with many more books and am eager to get back to the present! Yesterday was my birthday. I had a lovely day, thank you! Went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art with my husband and then to lunch at a French bistro on Rittenhouse Square. The weather was lovely and we sat outside! Then spent the evening with husband and kiddies, working on Halloween costumes and raking leaves and enjoy the beautiful evening.
And today is a new day, I am one year older, and I have many books on my reading list!