The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 17 February 1998
by Emily Brontë
With this classic novel, Emily Brontë portrays a depressing view of life along the moors of England. A tortured life of love and loss plagues all the characters of the tale, set in a pair of houses, Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. The protagonists, Heathcliff, Catherine and their families, exchange their loves for social graces, abandoning the compulsions of the heart. This reader found the tale difficult to accept in its extremity of suffering, seemingly born of minor affronts. The characters die one by one, almost to the relief of the reader, and with the relief of those who survive them. Though the story is a classic of romantic literature, characters trapped in the mannerisms of their time, one might feel only grateful in its conclusion. Perhaps it deserves more than one reading.