A number of years ago a mystery novel was published that has, as it's secret, the discovery of the complete manuscript of a second novel by Emily Bronte. Unfortunately nothing like that has ever surfaced, so we are stuck with only one book penned by her. If that one book was THE PROFESSOR or SHIRLEY (Charlotte's two least good novels), Emily would long ago have been forgotten, and we would see more interest in her younger sister Anne. But Emily left us WUTHERING HEIGHTS. It is rare for a writer to turn out such a stunning masterpiece only once and never write anything again.
JANE EYRE is a well structured organized novel, and it has passions revealed. As I have mentioned elsewhere it is a novel where the heroine was in a lowly position and dared to love her employer (something shocking in 1847). But WUTHERING HEIGHTS has a similar story but with more symbolic raw power. Here it is not a female servant loving her master but a male (of gypsy heritage) who loves and is loved by the daughter of his patron. But the patron dies, and his jealous son treats the gypsy as the lowliest of servants. How the gypsy boy finds his love seemingly rejected, and how he eventually lives only for revenge against those he feels wronged him becomes the meat of the plot here. And all the sturm und drang is played out against the wild moors with their hints of sexual freedom.
It was powerful stuff in 1847 Victorian England, and it remains really powerful today. If Bronte could not write anything else due to her early death, this novel still enshrined her among the great novelists.
The only element of the plot that is lost is Hindley's family. He has a wife briefly in the novel (that is how he has a son named Hareton that Heathcliff torments in his revenge). The wife, named Frances, dies soon after giving birth. No mention of her, nor of Hareton and young Cathy and Heathcliff's son by Isabelle called Linton. Possibly, like the streamlining of the 1944 JANE EYRE by dropping the Rivers from the story, this was just as well.
Olivier had the Byronic good looks (of a dark, saturnine type) that fit the part of the tormented, devilish Heathcliff. And Merle Oberon (who had already appeared opposite Olivier in THE DIVORCE OF LADY X) was given her best part as the confused, doomed Cathy: she loves Heathcliff (as she tells Nellie - Flora Robson) but she has a willingness to take up with Edgar (David Niven) because he is civilized, and caring when she is injured, and she thinks Heathcliff deserted her. Niven really had his first meaty dramatic role as Edgar, and Geraldine Fitzgerald was quite good as the sadly disillusioned Isabel (who loved not wisely but too well).
The stark cinematography by Gregg Toland, and direction by William Wyler makes this the best film made of any of the Bronte novels to date.
JANE EYRE is a well structured organized novel, and it has passions revealed. As I have mentioned elsewhere it is a novel where the heroine was in a lowly position and dared to love her employer (something shocking in 1847). But WUTHERING HEIGHTS has a similar story but with more symbolic raw power. Here it is not a female servant loving her master but a male (of gypsy heritage) who loves and is loved by the daughter of his patron. But the patron dies, and his jealous son treats the gypsy as the lowliest of servants. How the gypsy boy finds his love seemingly rejected, and how he eventually lives only for revenge against those he feels wronged him becomes the meat of the plot here. And all the sturm und drang is played out against the wild moors with their hints of sexual freedom.
It was powerful stuff in 1847 Victorian England, and it remains really powerful today. If Bronte could not write anything else due to her early death, this novel still enshrined her among the great novelists.
The only element of the plot that is lost is Hindley's family. He has a wife briefly in the novel (that is how he has a son named Hareton that Heathcliff torments in his revenge). The wife, named Frances, dies soon after giving birth. No mention of her, nor of Hareton and young Cathy and Heathcliff's son by Isabelle called Linton. Possibly, like the streamlining of the 1944 JANE EYRE by dropping the Rivers from the story, this was just as well.
Olivier had the Byronic good looks (of a dark, saturnine type) that fit the part of the tormented, devilish Heathcliff. And Merle Oberon (who had already appeared opposite Olivier in THE DIVORCE OF LADY X) was given her best part as the confused, doomed Cathy: she loves Heathcliff (as she tells Nellie - Flora Robson) but she has a willingness to take up with Edgar (David Niven) because he is civilized, and caring when she is injured, and she thinks Heathcliff deserted her. Niven really had his first meaty dramatic role as Edgar, and Geraldine Fitzgerald was quite good as the sadly disillusioned Isabel (who loved not wisely but too well).
The stark cinematography by Gregg Toland, and direction by William Wyler makes this the best film made of any of the Bronte novels to date.