呼啸山庄 读后感 书评 Catherine's Choice

Catherine’s choice

The narrative of Wuthering Heights is a story of love and hatred. Many of the comments concentrate mainly on the human nature shown in the book, both on the pleasant and desperate side. Nevertheless after finishing the book, the most impressive plot to me is the love triangle between Senior Catherine, Edgar Linton and Heathcliff.

The author commenced her narration at a point where everything was trembling in the darkest and mistiest nighttime. Heathcliff was on his long way of revenge, while Hareton Enshaw, Senior Catherine’s nephew, was brought up to grow into a sort of rude, uneducated person. The Linton couple was dead, leaving their offspring miring in a family filled with hatred, widowed. Then, Mr. Lockwood, the narrator, led us to the past years by asking Nelly to recount the life story of our three main characters. Heathcliff was adopted by Catherine’s father. They live in Wuthering Heights, where Heathcliff and Catherine spent their early years together. The time of their childhood is the beginning and foundation of their lifelong lasting love. Catherine had had a kind of ‘wondrous constancy to old attachments’. She tended to rely on old things and old people. This partly contributes to the explanation why she was obsessed with Heathcliff all her life. After the death of Catherine’s father, the son, Hindley Enshaw inherited the fortune and took charge of the house and the family. He treated Heathcliff as a servant and refused to indulge the young lovers’ spending time together. Accidentally, Catherine became acquainted with the Linton’s settling in Thrushcross Grange. She fell for the elegant life and lost herself in vanity. Heathcliff, serving at the house in a lowest position, was deeply hurt by Catherine’s change. As time goes, the son of the Linton couple, Edgar Linton grew fondness to Catherine and finally proposed to her. Catherine was hesitating. She was too young and too shallow to understand her true love for Heathcliff. The remarks she made to Nelly about Edgar and Heathcliff explains the situation fully. She convinced herself that she loved Edgar, and the excuse for this ‘love’ were that he was handsome, young, cheerful, rich, and

loved her. By marry upon him she could be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and she would be proud of having such a husband. This stupid unthinking behaviour out of her strong will of chasing after the vain glory finally caused the miserable ending of both families. Catherine’s feelings for Heathcliff, however, were actually true love, the most passionate love I have ever seen. She claimed to share the same value and ways of love. As pleasant as Linton would make her, she could still sense the feeling of imposition. It was like a guilty soul got call up to heaven. Happy as it is, but never at peace. She cried for the misfortune happened to Heathcliff, frown for the pain that he was suffering. Even though she admitted that he was low, she chose to fell for him regardless of anything. ‘He's more myself than I am,’ she said, ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’

The love between Catherine and Heathcliff was like fire, burning inside their hearts. Anything tempting to stop this emotion would be burnt down to ash. Heathcliff disappeared when Catherine married Edgar, and when he was back, he was a whole other man, a man strong enough to destroy all the barriers ahead of his love. He did not care even on bit about the others except Catherine. They love each other only for the reason that they are just two people portrayed out of the same flesh and bones with the same soul. This love is pure and valuable, but overwhelming for the world, even for themselves. It’s what the author was aspiring after deep inside her heart.

Edgar Linton appeared to be a weak, faint little boy when the story first begins, but as he grown up, we find him a responsible gentleman, a caring husband. Though Heathcliff looked down upon Edgar’s love, it not fair when we ignore what he has down for Catherine. He loved his wife as a good husband. This love may not be the sparks came out when two souls met, but it was fine and steady, and most important of all, realistic. Catherine chose Edgar out of conceit, but it was, to be frank, a wise choice for most people. A man handsome, young, cheerful, rich is almost irresistible for most women, let alone Edgar also loved her deeply. In Pride and Prejudice, the reason why Lizzie chose Darcy was almost the same. What’s more, Edgar was in fact as decent as Darcy was. I can not see any objections for this marriage, and this is actually a usual marital relationship should be. Nonetheless, when compared with the