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A daily record of what I'm thinking about what I'm reading

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Saturday, August 4, 2012

The 3 generations in Wuthering Heights

As I'm about to move onto the "3rd generation" in Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" (actually, some of whom we met, as adults, in the opening chapters - Lockwood's arrival at Thruschcross Grange and his initial visits to WH), I'm going to pause for a moment and take stock of who the characters are and what their relations are to one another. Strange that even as I'm reading the novel I can't keep track of all of these names and relations - it's as tough as a Russian novel in that regard - partly because Bronte is oblivious of or indifferent to the advice that all novice screenwriters receive: give each character a different and distinct name, and by all means do not give them names beginning with the same letter. Well, Shakespeare didn't follow that advice (Edgar/Edmond, Orsino/Olivia, e.g.) so Bronte won't either: Shakespare being by far her most permeating influence: note even the name Heathcliff (which oddly seems to be both his first and last name, like Madonna or Cher?) - and its obvious reference to King Lear. Anyway, here's a brief summary of the characters, which if nothing else will help me keep them straight during 2nd half of the novel: Oldest generation: Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw, of Wuthering Heights. (Is there a senior Linton generation, at Thruschcross Grange?) The Earnshaws have two children, Hindley (son) and Catherine. Then, Mr. E goes off, supposedly, to Liverpool, and returns with a foundling whom they will raise: Heathcliff (hard to believe that he's not E's son and the half-sibling for Hindley and Catherine). As they mature into adulthood, the Lintons enter as tenants at TG: brother and sister, Edmund (?) and Isabella. Linton marries Catherine Earnshaw; Heathcliff marries Isabella Linton. By end of first half: the elder Earnshaws are dead, Catherine dies (despair?), Isabella departs for London area and we learn that she dies shortly. And Hindley dies (alcoholism). There are 3 children in the next generation: Hindley's son, Hareton (did he have a wife? who is Hareton's mother) and Catherine-Heathcliff daughter, also Catherine (Cathy), both of whom we met as 20-somethings in first chapter. And Isabella's son, named Linton (at this point, he's referenced but hasn't appeared in the novel). Framing all this: Lockwood, the new tenant at TG, who puts together all these pieces into the novel; and the servants: Nelly/Ellen Dean, of TG and the Lintons, who narrates almost the whole novel to Lockwood, and Joseph, of WH - both of whom "endure" through all 3 generations of characters.

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