by Emily Bronte
The first time I read this book I was just barely sixteen. It was required summer reading for Ms. Sledge's American Literature class in my junior year. As I recall, I was one of the few students who really enjoyed it. I don't remember why I liked it so much. It maybe have only been because it was such a refreshing change from the dry reading I had endured the previous year.
Upon rereading it I still enjoyed it, though not as much as I remembered liking it the first time. It was just before this reading that I learned something of Bronte's upbringing. Knowing that she and her sisters were so sheltered and that she likely never experienced or witnessed great love makes her writing all the more intriguing. Her characters each have a unique fire burning in them, giving light to their respective faults and virtues. Their development is solid and their souls are complex. Some aspects of the characters and plot show her naivety, but they are genuine and tell me that she was likely very intuitive.
The character I was most drawn to was Harton. He spends much of the story in the background, but I found him to be a diamond in the rough. Or course, in the end, Catherine sees this as well. His childhood is heartbreaking and I wonder how much time Nelly spend lamenting the loss of the boy she nursed to the hands of Hindley and Heathcliff.
Every so often I find myself drawn to a character as if he were a real person. I feel I understand him and want to know more about him. This was the case with Harton. Bronte shows enough about him to understand his faults and where he cam from, but she also hints at his inner toil and yearning to be something greater than he is. In a way I feel Harton and Heathcliff are each others opposites. Heathcliff begins....
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I guess I got interrupted on this one. Who knows where I was going with it.
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