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THE TWO CATHARINES OF EMILY BRONTE
THE TWO CATHARINES OF EMILY BRONTE
The heroines of Charlotte Bronte's other
books made no such impression upon her public as Jane Eyre, but perhaps one
heroine of the first rank is enough for one author; so many authors have invented
no memorable heroine at all. Jane Eyre
was an epochal book, assembling in itself the elements of that electrical
disturbance which had been gathering in the minds of women for a generation,
and discharging them in a type, a character, which expressed their discontent
with their helplessness, their protest against their conditions, their longing
for equality with men, as from time to time some real or imaginary personality
will. It is extremely interesting, viewed in this light, and if it expressed
the weakness that is always seeking to be at rest in strength, or to be changed
directly or indirectly into strength, then the fact has its own pathos, which
every true man must respect.
Rochester is such a man as most women, or
most girls, would like to be when they Oh to be men. They would like to be
rough if they cannot be strong on other terms; they would even be wicked if
they must, and would willingly suffer for their wickedness if only so they
could be strong. But failing all this, they would at least like to be the sort
of woman or sort of girl who is indispensable and vitally essential to
strength, as Jane Eyre is in her relation to Rochester. The pity is that they
should not see that Jane is really strong, and Rochester is really weak; but Jane
does not see this herself, and it is doubtful whether her author saw it. What
she and her lonely sisters worshipped in the dreary vicarage at Haworth was
manly strength; but from the father and brother, who were the only men they
knew, they could not imagine this apart from willfulness and caprice and error;
and so they gave us Rochester in Jane
Eyre, and Heathcliff in Wuthering
Heights, with women to suffer for them, and to illustrate or inspire their
power. Charlotte Bronte created the impassioned heroine, as I have called Jane
Eyre, and Emily Bronte created the lawless heroine, like the two Catharines;
but all their heroines measurably shared in the fascination which brutality,
the false image of strength, seems to have for weakness. In these characters
they changed the ideal of fiction for many a long day, and established the
bullied heroine in a supremacy which she held till the sinuous heroine began
softly but effectually to displace her.
I
The heroines of Emily Bronte have not the
artistic completeness of Charlotte Bronte's. They are blocked out with
hysterical force, and in their character there is something elemental, as if,
like the man who beat and browbeat them, they too were close to the savagery of
nature. The sort of supernaturalism which appears here and there in their story
wants the refinement of the telepathy and presentiment which play a part in
Jane Eyre, but it is still more effectual in the ruder clutch which it lays
upon the fancy.
In her dealing with the wild passion of
Heathcliff for the first Catharine, Emily Bronte does not keep even such slight
terms with convention as Charlotte does in the love of Rochester and Jane Eyre;
but this fierce longing, stated as it were in its own language, is still farther
from anything that corrupts or tempts; it is as wholesome and decent as a
thunder-storm, in the consciousness of the witness. The perversities of the
mutual attraction of the lovers are rendered without apparent sense on the part
of the author that they can seem out of nature, so deeply does she feel them to
be in nature, and there is no hint from her that they need any sort of proof.
It is vouchsafed us to know that Heathcliff is a foundling of unknown origin,
early fixed in his hereditary evils by the cruelty of Hindley Earnshaw, whose
father has adopted him; but it is not explained why he should have his malign
power upon Catharine. Perhaps it is enough that she is shown a willful, impetuous,
undisciplined girl, whose pity has been moved for the outcast before her fancy
is taken. After that we are told what happens and are left to account for it as
we maj7.
We are very badly told, in terms of
autobiography thrice involved. First, we have the narrative of Heath-cliff's
tenant, then within his the narrative of the tenant's housekeeper, as she
explains the situation she has witnessed at Heathcliff's house, and then within
hers the several narratives of the actors in the tragedy. Seldom has a great
romance been worse contrived, both as to generals and particulars, but the
essentials are all there, and the book has a tremendous vitality. If it were of
the fashion of any other book, it might have passed away, but it is of its own
fashion solely, and it endures like a piece of the country in which its scenes
are laid, enveloped in a lurid light and tempestuous atmosphere of its own.
Its people are all of extreme types, and yet they do not seem unreal, like the
extravagant creations of Dickens's fancy; they have an intense and convincing
reality, the weak ones, such as Heathcliff's wife and son, equally with the
powerful, such as Heath-cliff himself and the Catharines, mother and daughter.
A weird malevolence broods over the gloomy
drama, and through all plays a force truly demoniacal, with scarcely the relief
of a moment's kindliness. The facts are simply conceived and stated without
shadow of apology or extenuation; and the imagination from which they sprang
cannot adequately be called morbid, for it deals with the brute motives
employed without a taint of sickly subjectiveness. The author remains throughout
superior to her material; her creations have all a distinct projection, and in
this Emily Bronte shows herself a greater talent than Charlotte, who is never
quite detached from her heroine, but is always trammeled in sympathy with Jane
Eyre, with whom she is united by ties of a like vocation and experience, as
governess. You feel that she is present in all Jane's sufferings, small and
great, if not in her raptures; but Emily Bronte keeps as sternly aloof from
both her Catharines as from Heathcliff himself. She bequeathed the world at
her early death a single book of as singular power as any in fiction; and
proved herself, in spite of its defective technique, a great artist, of as
realistic motive and ideal as any who have followed her.
II
It is not easy to gather up the thread of the
story from the several narratives within narratives and find one's way by the
tangled clew to the close. But after Earnshaw brings home from Liverpool the
gypsy foundling whom his son hates and misuses he dies, and as this son sinks
more and more into drunkenness, it is natural and fated that his willful sister
Catharine should pity the dark, silent boy, who repays her pity with all the
passion of his turbulent heart. When they are no longer girl and boy, and it is
a question of her loving Heathcliff, she marries if she does not love Edgar
Linton, of her own rank and kind, and Heathcliff, returning from years of
self-exile, marries Isabella Linton, against her brother's will and without the
pretense of love. His brute force fascinates the slight, romantic coquette, and
she dies of his cruelty, leaving a .son in whose feeble soul her folly centers,
with an infusion of the father's malevolence.
Catharine dies, and her daughter Catharine
inherits her waywardness without her powerful will, which could bend even
Heathcliff’s. He, by his ruthless cleverness, comes to dominate Hindley Earnshaw
through Earnshaw's besetting sin, and gathers the estate into his own control,
pushing aside the heir, Hareton Earnshaw, whom he has imbruted, as Hareton's father
imbruted him in his time, and kept ignorant as a peasant and even more savage.
After Catharine's death he schemes to marry her daughter to his son, and so
come into the Linton property as well. In spite of Edgar Linton, the broken and
dying father, he succeeds in enticing the girl to his house again and again,
and he does finally effect the union of the children, while they are yet
scarcely more than children. His son dies, and then Cathy lives with
Heathcliff, a terrorized torment, till Heathcliff dies too, hated as he has
been by all except the hapless Hareton Earnshaw, whom he has abused and
defrauded, but who truly laments him. The reader is left to forecast a marriage
between Hareton and Cathy, whom he has always loved, but who has outrageously
mocked and insulted him.
Within this outline the author makes it not
only possible but imperative for the reader to believe that in rural England of
the mid-century savageries were of occurrence among people of not ungentle
condition, and atrocious wrongs were perpetrated, such as would be incredible
without her compelling magic, though things like them are well enough known to
science.
Throughout there is a dumb ache in the
witness for help against Heathcliff, whose infernal will fulfills itself in
spite of everything, and whose cunning entrenches him so safely that he does
not defy so much as boldly ignore the laws under which other men live. Once or
twice he is in danger of them, but chance as well as his own hardihood and
subtlety befriend him; and when he dies successful in all his purposes, and
dominant over all those he has put under him, a thrill of perverse sympathy
with him softens the reader's heart. Heathcliff is a great creation, but the women
of the story are imagined with truth as great, and to hardly less tremendous
effect. I am not sure indeed that the effect in the case of the first Catharine
is less tremendous at all times, or at least I should be puzzled to match with
any scene in which he rules certain passages where she is the chief figure. The
reader will perhaps have in mind, as I have, their meeting when Catharine has
been sick wellnigh to death from the quarrel between Heathcliff and her
husband, and Heathcliff, always lurking about Linton's house, makes his
forbidden entrance, and finds his way to her room. It is Mrs. Dean, the
housekeeper, who tells the tale in this part.
"He did not hit the right door directly;
she motioned to me to admit him, but he found it ere I could reach the door,
and in a stride or two he was at her side, and had grasped her in his arms. He
neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which period he
bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I dare say: but then
my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear,
for downright agony, to look in her face. . . . ' Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! How
can I bear it?' was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek
to disguise his despair. . . . 'What now?' said Catharine, leaning back and
returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: her humor was a mere vane for
constantly varying caprices. 'You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff.
And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to
be pitied 1 I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me, and thriven
on it, I think. How strong you arel How many years do you mean to live after I
am gone?' Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to support her; he attempted to
rise, but she seized his hair and kept him down. 'I wish 1 could hold you,' she
bitterly continued, ' till we were both dead. I shouldn't care what you
suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do!
Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say,
twenty years hence, "That's the grave of Catharine Earnshaw. I loved her
long ago, and was wretched to lose her, but that's past. I've loved many others
since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and at death I shall not
rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them." Will
you say that, Heathcliff?' 'Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself,'
cried he, wrenching his head free and grinding his teeth. . . . While raising
himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate
was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his
letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colorless skin.
'Are you possessed with a devil?' he pursued savagely, ' to talk in that manner
to me when you are dying? You know you lie when you say that I have killed you
; and, Catharine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my own existence!
Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness that while you are at peace
I shall writhe in the torments of hell?' ' I shall not be at peace/ moaned
Catharine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal
throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of
agitation. She said nothing farther till the paroxysm was over; then she
continued more kindly— 'I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have,
Heathcliff. I only wish us never to be parted. . . . Won't you come here again?
Do!' Heathcliff went back to her chair and leant over her, but not so far as to
let her see his face, which was livid with emotion. She bent round to look at
him: he would not permit it: turning abruptly, he walked to the fireplace,
where he stood silent with his back towards us. . . . In her eagerness she
rose, and supported herself on the arm of her chair. At that earnest appeal he
turned to her. . . . An instant they held asunder; and then how they met I
hardly knew, but Catharine made a spring and he caught her, and they were
locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released
alive. . . . She put up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring his cheek to her
own. . . . 'You teach me now how cruel you have been—cruel and false. Why did
you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word
of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me
and cry; and wring out my tears and kisses: they'll blight you, they'll damn
you. You loved me—then what right had you to leave me? What right—answer me —for
the poor fancy you felt for Linton?' . . . 'Let me alone. Let me alone,' sobbed
Catharine. ' If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough. You left me
too, but I won't upbraid you. I forgive you; forgive me!' 'It is hard to forgive,
and look at those eyes, and feel these wasted hands,' he answered. ' Kiss me
again, and don't let me see your eyes! I can forgive you for what you've done
to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?' They were
silent—their faces hid against each other, and washed by each other's tears. '
Service is over,' I announced. 'My master will be here in half an hour.'
Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catharine closer: she never stirred. .
. . 'Now he is here,' I exclaimed. 'For heaven's sake hurry down. You'll not
meet any one at the front stairs.' ' I must go, Cathy,' said Heathcliff,
seeking to extricate himself from his companion's arms. . . . 'You must not
go!' she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength allowed. 'You shall
not, I tell you.' He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the act; she
clung fast, gasping. 'No!' she shrieked. 'Oh, don't, don't go! It is the last
time! Edgar will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!' ' Damn
the fool! There he is!' cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his seat. 'Hush, my
darling! Hush, hush, Catharine! I'll stay. If he shot me so, I'd expire with a
blessing on my lips.' . . . Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with
astonishment and rage. What he meant to do I cannot tell; however, the other
stopped all demonstrations at once by placing the lifeless form in his arms.
'Look there!' he said; 'unless you be a fiend, help her first—then you shall
speak to me.'"
III
It might be thought that Catharine Linton was
sufficiently involved in her ungoverned impulses; but her daughter Catharine
is of a still more labyrinthine lawlessness. She has her father's violent
temperament, as well as his complexion; her malice, if qualities can be
assigned a tint, is peculiarly blond, while her mother's fury was brunette. She
lends herself to Heathcliff's purposes by her disobedience to her father, and
first puts herself in his power by a romantic fancy for his weakling son, whom
she only despises when Heath-cliff has forced their marriage, and her husband
willingly and even gladly abandons her to his father's barbarity. She
effectively lives Heathcliff's prisoner till he dies, but she never yields in
spirit to him, though quelled by blows into a literal submission; and from time
to time she breaks out into reckless taunts and defiances. It is an exposition
of woman's nature unparalleled in some traits. She has been delicately bred in
her father's house, and educated, if not disciplined; she would be expected to
have the instincts of a class; but she seems not to feel the insult of
Heathcliff's blows so much as to dread the mere pain; and you cannot help
believing these are the facts of the case. You know it to be also true that he
never relents to her out of tenderness for her mother's memory; and that in the
mere wantonness of her power she is quite capable of lacerating the proud,
ignorant soul of the only man who could have protected her against his ferocity.
Surely that side of a girl's nature was never so unsparingly studied as in the
love-making between Hareton and Catharine, who first rouses all the wild beast
in him by laughing at his crude attempts to learn from her teaching, and then
tames it to her will by the arts which her growing fancy for him inspires.
"Earnshaw sat, morose as usual, at the
chimney corner, and my little mistress was beguiling an idle hour with drawing
pictures on the window-panes, varying her amusement by smothered bursts of
songs, and whispered ejaculations, and quick looks of annoyance and impatience
in the direction of her cousin, who steadfastly smoked and looked into the
grate. . . . Presently I heard her begin, ' I've found out, Hareton, that I
want—that I'm glad—that I should like you to be my cousin now, if you had not
grown so cross to me and so rough.' Hareton returned no answer… 'Let me take
that pipe,” she said, cautiously advancing her hand and abstracting it from his
mouth. Before he could attempt to recover it, it was broken and behind the
fire. He swore at her and seized another. 'Stop,’ she cried; ‘you must listen
to me first, and I can't speak while those clouds are floating in my face.'
'Will you go to the devil!' he exclaimed, ferociously, 'and let me be!' 'No,'
she persisted, 'I won't. Come, you shall take notice of me, Hareton: you
are my cousin, and you
shall own me.' 'I shall have nothing to do with you and your mucky pride, and your damned mocking tricks. Side o' t' gate, now, this minute!' Catharine frowned, and retreated to the window-seat, chewing her lip, and endeavoring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing tendency to sob. . . . 'You hate me, as much as Mr. Heathcliff does, and more.' ‘You're a damned liar,' began Earnshaw. 'Why have I made him angry, by taking your part, a hundred times? And that when you sneered at me and despised me, and—' 'I didn't know you took my part,' she answered, drying her eyes,' and I was miserable, and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and beg you to for give me: what can I do besides?' She returned to the hearth and frankly extended her hand. He blackened and scowled like a thunder-cloud, and kept his fists resolutely clinched, and his gaze fixed on the ground. Catharine, by instinct, must have divined that it was obdurate perversity and not dislike that prompted this dogged conduct, for, after remaining an instant undecided, she stooped and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss. Say you forgive me, Hareton, do. You can make me so happy by speaking that little word.' He muttered something inaudible. 'And you'll be my friend?' added Catharine, interrogatively. 'Nay, you'll be ashamed of me every day of your life,’ he answered, ' and the more ashamed the more you know me, and I cannot bide it.' 'So you won't be my friend?' she said, smiling as sweet as honey and creeping close up."
No one can deny the charm of this, the
absolute reality, the consummate art, which is still art, however unconscious.
Did the dying girl who wrote the strange book, where it is only one of so many
scenes of unfaltering truth, know how great it was, with all its defects? In
any case criticism must recognize its mastery and rejoice in its courage.
Book: Heroines
of Fiction
Labels: emily bronte |
posted by Marciano Guerrero at 5:08 PM
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