Wuthering Heights

What I find most interesting about this novel is its characters and the way they interact (especially Catherine). At first, the amount of characters and their relations to one another was greatly confusing - I found myself extremely overwhelmed. Then when Ellen Dean began her story of their histories, the twisted tangle of the relations of family disfunction became clear. I was somewhat amazed by old Mr. Earnshaw's fondness of a stranger child as compared with his own blood. His compassion was astounding and it is easy to see how these children grew to become the adults that they eventually transformed into. Heathcliff, originally insensitive, is ironically sensitive to Hindley's blows and insults as he makes it his life goal to seek revenge on him. Catherine's adoration for Heathcliff, yet hatred for his "gypsy" origins, sends her into hysteria. She is completely torn by what her heart and her mind are telling her. Edgar's incessant need to make Catherine happy, yet never truly being able to fulfill her (at least not like Heathcliff can) makes him less worthy than Heathcliff, even though in society, Edgar would be seen as more worthy on the surface. And then the fact that it is his fervent pursuit of happiness that splinters their relationship even further, making everyone miserable is certainly a form of irony. It seems to me that all of this could be simplified if Catherine had confessed her love for Heathcliff and if he could have accepted it. However, the involvement of complex emotions deeply entangles the story. In turn, Wuthering Heights has become a place of somber, gloomy confinement of human distraught.