Choose a character from the first ten chapters that you find particularly interesting for some reason.
Select a quote or two spoken by or about your character, and use those quotes as the basis of your analysis and reflection.
Please respond to / build off of others' responses.
Also, feel free, of course, to bring up any additional questions or insights you have!
Remember to sign your name.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ahhhh! I'm scared you're never going to finish this book...someone please post! :)
ReplyDeleteThe character I find most interesting is Mrs. Heathcliff. She does not speak very often and when she does she is very crude. "'I don't want your help.' she snapped; 'I can get them for myself'" (11). Mrs. Heathcliff has an attitude and there is no explaination for it. This character has some story in her past that caused her rude attitude. All we know about her is that she lives at Wuthering Heights and is Heathcliff's niece. I find her so interesting because she is a mystery and that leaves room for the imagination to wander and exhaust ideas of what her past was like.
ReplyDeleteKelsey G.
Kelsey G- I love you for posting....I know that you have read at least 11 pages, which is probably more that most others. :)
ReplyDeleteThe character that I have found to be the most interesting is Catherine. I like how she thinks on to different levels: necessity and want. The conflict with these is that they are two opposite things. After she agrees to marry Edgar Linton, Catherine says, "Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind- not as a pleasure, any more than I am a pleasure to myself, but as my own being" (80). This conflict that Catherine has between "being happy" and the necessity of money, looks, and a future, tears her apart. Her reconciliation to take the wealth from Edgar and funnel it into her true love with Heathcliff is a particularly interesting way to turn the story.
ReplyDelete-Jeff B
I find Hindley particularly interesting because his unhappiness and cruelty is all a reflection of the rejection he felt from his father. He was never truly happy after the arrival of Heathcliff. Although he did love his wife, he was never fully satisfied and lost everything after her death.
ReplyDeleteAfter Nelly tells Hindley to "have mercy on his own soul," Hindley replies, "Not I! On the contrary, I shall have great pleasure in sending it to perdition to punish its Maker"(74). On one level, it seems the "maker" is referring to God. However, Hindley could also mean he is attempting to bring shame to his father. I find it interesting that he is mirroring his father's rejection on him onto his own son, creating a cycle.
Shelby
Jeff- love the observation about necessity & want! I think it says a lot that she chose necessity...
ReplyDeleteShelby- excellent idea about this cycle...cycles and repeating the past are incredibly important in this novel.
Keep reading everyone. Say "no" to Spark Notes.
One character that I really found interesting in the first ten chapters was Heathcliff. When the reader first meets him, they are immediately inclined to dislike him. He is rude, cruel, and abusive. However as Nelly tells her story, we realize that Heathcliff acts this way because of his childhood. He was never accepted by anyone but Catherine and Nelly, and when Catherine left him because he would not be a good match for her, he ran away. Heathcliff is mysterious and it is hard to have a clear judgment on is character. The author keeps the reader confused because all the other characters in the book, including Heathcliff himself have mixed feelings about his character. It is interesting because everyone seems to agree that he is a dark, poor, foreboding, and disagreeable gentleman and that he would be a terrible match "I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a cold winter's day, as recommended you to bestow your heart on him!" (99). However, there are still many who love him, such as Catherine and Isabella Linton. We wonder what is so special about this seemingly terrible man that makes two women fall desperately in love with him. Heathcliff is a person of questionable character and is someone who keeps everyone guessing.
ReplyDelete-Allison
One character that I personally find to be particularly intriguing is Hindley Earnshaw. His feelings and attitudes towards everyone in “Wuthering Heights,” including his own son, embody utter hatred. We first see this bitterness when he is a young boy and his family takes custody of Heathcliff. Heathcliff is raised in Wuthering Heights, and is treated by Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw as a son. Catherine Earnshaw regards Heathcliff as her brother, whereas Hindley does not. Hindley has a mysterious resentment towards Heathcliff, one that does not seem to be justified. Later, when Hindley marries and has a child of his own, named Hareton, this hatred is ironically displaced onto his son as well. Hindley spurns Nelly, his servant and Hareton’s caretaker for his mother Frances dies soon after childbirth. Hindley consistently yells at Hareton, calling him a “hideous little villain” and demanding, “’Kiss me. What! it won’t? Kiss me, Hareton! Damn thee, kiss me! By God, as if I were to rear such a monster! As sure as I am living, I will break the brat’s neck’”(72). Not only does Hindley call his son a “hideous little villain” and a brat, but he in addition refers to him as “it.” Hindley clearly does not understand that his son is a young boy, merely three years of age. He does not understand what his father is saying, and furthermore probably does not even recognize this man to be his father. Hindley never passes any affection onto Hareton, so it is not surprising that the child is hesitant to kiss his father. Hindley’s fits of rage to his own son, in addition to many other characters throughout the book, poses a real question to his character. His motives in regards to being cruel to all those he comes into contact with makes his identity and past very mysterious and intriguing.
ReplyDelete-Kelsey F.
I was gonna post something similar to Jeff, but I guess I'll have to write about something else. Like in some other novels I've read (such as Pride and Prejudice), the characters are expected to do as social classes would dictate instead of their own heart.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I also find Lockwood to be an interesting character. He quickly shows that he may not be a particularly reliable narrator by goofing up on multiple occasions in his attempts to discern the relationships between the characters. First, he mistakenly tells Heathcliff, "Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean," when in fact she is merely is daughter-in-law (13). This is despite the fact that there is, as Lockwood later notes, "too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife" (13). He later inaccurately believes Hareton to be the wife of Catherine and son of Heathcliff. These two early blunders raise doubts that Lockwood will be an accurate narrator for the rest of novel. Later, Nelly takes up the narration role, but she also proves to biased toward each individual character in her recollections. She seems to show jealousy towards the original Catherine, possibly for her stature and beauty, while remaining sympathetic towards Heathcliff and Hareton.
Excellent insights Jason, Kelsey F, and Allison! Great point about Lockwood's fallability as a narrator, Hindley's nastiness, and Heathcliff's mysterious power to attract women (and to also repel men).
ReplyDeleteLC
My favorite character is Nelly Dean. She serves as the narrator inside the already present story. Lockwood inquires about the history of Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights,"It will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my neighbors; I feel I shall not rest, if I go to bed; so be good enough to sit and chat an hour;" and Nelly consents to tell it. 'O certainly sir I'll just fetch a little sewing, and then i'll sit as long as you please.' (38) As Mrs. Dean returns she passionately answers every question Lockwood asks and does it with feeling. I enjoy her narration because she seems very much affected by the characters and it shows in her speaking. She appears modest and content with her not so glamorous life, and is an overall genuine person. She is a servant or maid the entire story but does not focus on that.
ReplyDeleteAmanda
Amanda- Do you think, perhaps, she gets TOO involved, or does it make sense beacuse she grew up with these people and, in a way, they are her family, too. There are some places where she reveals to not be the kindest of servants, but perhaps she is only human.
ReplyDeleteActually as I reread some of those scenes it does seem that she gets aggressive to specific characters she does not like, but I feel they basically are her family. Her whole past and present are based on these people and this place. I am sort of torn now about how i feel.
ReplyDelete"What vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable..." (32)
ReplyDeleteI find Mr. Lockwood to be the most interesting character. This quote shows that he came to Wuthering Heights to be "independent of all social intercourse," and not knowing anything about him or his past, we don't know why. And from this quote it is understood that is IS there to keep himself isolated for a reason, which I've found interesting. He's really nosy and, not just him probing Nelly for the story and that they are indeed curious people, but that he got to the point in the first place where he he is that interested in them, I think says something about him, exposes his character somewhat. There's a pattern of him awkwardly making assumptions about the people and suggesting them, rather boldly, to those people, which tends to get him in trouble. For instance when he came to Wuthering Heights during the storm and he got on their bad side and he got beat up--and he came with the notion that they would be hospitable and let him spend the night. That seemed to be his intention. And his explanation to Heathcliff after his encounter with the ghost: started talking to him about Catherine and what he's learned about the family's past and he gets Heathcliff upset...He's really pushy and nosy and I'd wonder why he's really there. His single occupation since he arrived is to learn as much about the family as he can, and it would be more normal to just butt out, that would be more professional and he of course he'd become sick, so he says, and with nothing better to do, but his social aggressiveness got him in that position in the first place.
-Annalise
I think it's funny that Lockwood describes himself as a "vain weathercock"...it's fitty, and pretty witty,too...like a weathervane...
ReplyDeleteDo you think that he is like a weathervane, in a way? Spinning all around, disoriented?
Since my post is so late (sorry!) I’m going to add to Allison’s a little.
ReplyDelete“He is a dark- skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman:”
This description about Heathcliff is directly in the beginning which is an attempt to set the scene. His character wants to be perceived as a person of wealth. Although he may be well off, he sees to become angry and temperamental, especially with Lockwood. Allison says that he is “a character that keeps everyone guessing” so I think that this description is so fitting for him. By saying that he is “gipsy” in aspect it describes his need for change within his own personality.
And to add on to Annalise, Ms. Coppens had asked, “Do you think that he is like a weathervane, in a way? Spinning all around, disoriented?”
Yes, I do believe that he does spin all around like he is disoriented. For example, when he is tracing over the carved names of Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff and Catherine Linton he seems to be revolving within a circle, much like a weathervane. His constant need for human interaction, as well as the want to be left alone leaves him to be a person not completely comfortable within his own skin.
nicole labelle
Well, I believe others will be later than you, Nicole. No need to apologize. Nice ideas to build off previous ones.
ReplyDeleteLC
One character that I found very interesting was Catherine. I found that Catherine tends to be influenced by whomever she is with. She almost does not have a sense of self being, for she is always swayed in the direction of the person she is with. When Catherine is with Linton she acts differently than when she is withh Heathcliff. Nelly says that "she had no temptation to show her rough side in their company" which is unlike the way she acts with Heathcliff (65). This shows how she has two sides to her and will conform to the kind of people that she is with. Nelly also says that Catherine "adopt[ed] a double character without exactly intending to decieve anyone"(65). This proves that Catherine does in fact have two sides too her. I find this statement by Nelly very relevant to todays society. I believe that Catherine represents how many people act today. In this day we always see people conform to the people they are with, just so that they can get them to like them.
ReplyDelete- Haley
Good choice Haley- do you think it's as simple as wanting to be liked, or could it be that Catherine doesn't know who she truly is?
ReplyDeleteLC
The character I found most interesting thus far is Nelly Dean. I think it is extremely important to consider the narrator and the source of all of the information we are receiving. In this post, I’d like to consider the reliability of Nelly as a narrator. While I was reading, I kept in mind the possibility of any bias she may have towards certain characters or the situation as a whole. Though there are passages where Nelly shows emotion to a certain character, I think overall, she is a fairly reliable narrator. I’d like to respond to Mrs. Coppens post regarding Nelly’s involvement in the story. From what she claims, it seems as if Nelly is extremely involved in the story, however, it is almost always as a witness. Her role is not one that shows direct involvement in the affairs, but rather one of observation. As she described, her role was: “I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because, my mother had nursed Mr Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton's father, and I got used to playing with the children -- I ran errands too, and helped to make hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody would set me to.” I feel that her role in the household is one that is suitable for narration. She was able to observe from a distance without becoming excessively entangled in the actual events. Throughout the story, I’m interested in continuing my observations of Nelly and her narrations.
ReplyDelete-Sydney
Good point, Sydney. DOes she seem to harbor any personal feelings toward or favor any of the characters over others?
ReplyDeleteLC
The character that I found most interesting early in the book was Heathcliff. When Lockwood first meets him, he describes him physically and then describes his instincts about Heathcliff. When discussing Heathcliff, Lockwood says, "He'll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again," (6). I found this quote very interesting because when reflecting upon Heathcliff's actions in Nelly Dean's narrative, this assumption about Heathcliff appeared to be true. He was a man that was capable of equally loving and hating at the same time. He proved to be a concrete example of the concept of the reconciliation of opposites. Because of this, he struck me as one of the more Romantic chracters throughout the novel.
ReplyDeleteKyle S.
Interesting quote choice & excellent point, Kyle.
ReplyDelete=LC