Goddammit, I swore I would move on from this book, but I keep having thoughts about it, especially the more I learn about the Brontes' lives. A video I listened to said that we don't like to talk about the most traumatic parts of our lives, let alone keep notes or reminders about them. So fiction is probably the closest and safest avenue in which a person might be able to process that trauma. This is something I can definitely relate with--it hurts thinking about the roughest parts of my life. But when I'm writing about other characters like the LISA cast, a bit of me bleeds into them without me realizing it until later, and that's okay. Like if you asked me to write my autobiography, you'd have to drag me kicking and screaming, but I feel safer in my stories and favorite characters (and OCs in the case of original writing)
I think Wuthering Heights disturbs me so much because it's abuse distilled to its very core. The hopelessness, the claustrophobia, how inescapable it seems. It's raw, honest, and cold. All this abuse and misery happens in an isolated place, but the biggest fear is that the outside world looks in, but instead of reacting in horror and trying to put a stop to it, they nod and even approve of what's happening. They think it's normal, acceptable, even good. It's the ugliest aspects of Victorian society, and naturally, it's repulsed by looking at a mirror of itself. That
can't be the way it really looks! They're too prim and proper for that! But can one blame the author's "sick imagination" if those are things the author experienced herself? Things she has seen and witnessed and can't scrub from her psyche? And honestly, is society that different now? Today it commits the same sins and refuses to take responsibility as ever. Cruelty is the norm. Victims deserve it. Evil exists because of skin tones, class, and lack of/the wrong religion. It can't be cultivated. It's never our fault. We are Christian. We are Pure.
The mainstream doesn't want to register the abuse, the pain. So it turns to Cathy and Heathcliff's love story instead. It's only another tale of star-crossed lovers, they say. They don't recognize the toxicity and obsession in their relationship because they've been conditioned to believe that "true love" is like this. They don't think any deeper why that relationship might be forbidden, why Heathcliff and Cathy are as wild as they are. It's safer to believe they're tragic lovers who
don't have a pile of bodies at their feet. Hell, I'm not going to pretend I understand them, because I clearly don't. I think we're not supposed to like or support them, but understand why they act the way they do. There's a theory that says that Heathcliff represents the "wild" and "ugly" parts of Emily, but also everything that she wishes she could be. Sort of like how some of us relate to fictional villains because they're so powerful and charismatic--traits that we as people pushed around by society and our own lives, wish we could have for ourselves. In the midst of purity culture where people are quick to judge, of course we have to explain that we don't want to be 100% like the villain or endorse everything he does. But god, imagine if after being mistreated for so long, we could do what we wanted and speak our minds without consequences. What if we can be fucked up and wrong and not have to be a role model to everyone who shares our minority status? Our wicked overlords and privileged politicians can be as despicable as they want, so why can't we? I wonder if this is that "wildness" that Emily is talking about. I don't know.
I don't know what I'm typing anymore. I think being trapped in this cursed administration is getting to me. I look at my rats and see the love in their eyes, and I'm reminded of Wuthering Heights and how there's people in real life who want to see that love and light snuffed out, leaving only misery, cruelty, and emptiness. Fuck.
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