In ancient Greek mythology, there was a monster with a lion's torso, a woman's head, and wings behind it, the Sphinx, which liked to sit on the cliffs near the city of Thebes and give riddles to passers-by: "What thing walks on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs at night?" "If passers-by guess wrong, it's a dead end."
One day, however, Oedipus passed by, listened to the riddle, and after thinking about it, guessed that the riddle was "man" at the end. Sphinx witnessed his riddle being cracked and jumped off a cliff to die. So later generations compared the Sphinx to a riddle or a riddle-like person.
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In the history of modern literature in the world, there is a writer known as "the Sphinx of our modern literature", this writer is no stranger to us, she is the author of "Wuthering Heights" and one of the "Brontë Sisters" Emily Brontë.
So why do people think emily Brontë is an enigmatic writer, and what mysterious and permanent charm does wuthering heights, the only novel in her life, have? Let's find out in this article!
1. Misread female writers
If we look back at the Nineteenth Century British literary scene, we will say the names of a large number of excellent female writers: Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot...
They may depict the romantic and elegant aristocratic manor life, perhaps show the beautiful love between gentlemen and ladies, or create a character with rich and delicate inner activities...
However, there is a writer who can be said to be "doing the opposite", she is so different, even called an outlier at the beginning, in her works, there is no warm sunshine, no leisurely and warm afternoon tea, no polite and elegant aristocratic style. Instead, all you can see is the fierce wind sweeping through the dead leaves, the torrential rain invading the desolate wilderness, the fiery burning love, the hatred that penetrates deep into the bone marrow, the human nature distorted by revenge, and the abyss-like depravity...
She was Emily Brontë. Some critics slammed: "Which person wrote such a work, how did he write more than ten chapters without committing suicide?" Some people even sneered: "The horror, horror, and disgusting novel should be renamed "Withered Mountain Villa." Even Emily's sister Charlotte Brontë could not understand her sister's thoughts.
Misread female writers, just because they are ahead of their thinking and different from others, are deeply involved in the vortex of being questioned and criticized. However, today we all know that good works can withstand the doubts of others and the tempering of time.
One critic pointed out: "In the nineteenth century, Wuthering Heights was the best prose poem a woman writer could write. Someone else suggested in the early twentieth century: "Emily Brontë is the greatest genius of the three sisters." ”
The once misread female writer's reputation gradually flourished, and people seemed to have found treasure, and even once appeared "Emily fever".
2. The growth environment is unveiled
Emily Brontë was born in 1818, but the writer died after only 30 years. Although her life was short, she lived independently, frankly, innocently and openly, and resolutely.
Emily was born into a poor pastoral family, her mother died when she was three years old, and she went to school with her sisters, but living in poor conditions, two sisters died one after another, and she had to stop school and go home.
Introverted herself, she began a long and lonely childhood, in the remote mountains of Yorkshire in the north of England, where she pinned her interest on books and read legendary stories in literature like crazy. Later, he grew up and worked as a teacher for half a year, and went to Brussels to learn French and German, but it was not long.
After returning to her hometown, she began to write literature, writing Wuthering Heights and writing a large number of poems. In 1847, Wuthering Heights was published.
In 1848, her dear brother fell ill due to long-term alcoholism. This caused a lot of blows to Emily, who also weakened due to excessive sadness, and died depressed on December 19 of the same year, at the age of thirty.
Unmarried and unsociable, she devoted much of her time to reading, writing, and the Yorkshire Wasteland. Many people are curious about her life, why she is a woman, why she has a male way of thinking and writing thinking.
In fact, all the mysteries can be found in emily Brontë's upbringing.
Emily grew up in the Great Wilderness of Yorkshire, a vast mountainous region in the north that shaped her tough character. She spends all day with nature, wastelands, gravel, rocks, canyons, swamps... There are no other partners to play with, no whispers between girls, some are just herself between heaven and earth, far away from the hustle and bustle, native to the most free nature, she poured the energy she drew from nature into her works.
Emily has spent her life exploring the relationship between man and nature, and the simple cosmology of the unity of heaven and man has overshadowed her life and works. However, at the beginning of human birth, itself is in line with nature, and Emily's exploration is just a return to the original intention, with the most primitive and sincere and moving power.
I prefer to call Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights the "Book of Solitude," first of all the only novels of her life, and secondly, the whole work.
1. Destiny
The heroine, Catherine O'Shaw, falls in love with Hickory, an abandoned child adopted by her father at home, from the very beginning of her love affair. But by chance, Edgar Lindun, the owner of the thrush farm, fell in love with the beautiful Catherine, and in order to use Edgar's wealth to help Hickley get rid of his brother's persecution, the simple Catherine resolutely married Edgar.
When Hickory learned that his sweetheart had married someone else, he was distraught and angrily left home. And all the twists and turns and storms began from this point. Hickory later took Edgar's sister Isabella to elope in retaliation.
Although Catherine and Hickory both have families and children, they have never forgotten each other. The impermanence of the world and the passion of revenge block the burst of love, and love and hate are only between one thought.
When he returns, Hickley has become a hateful revenge machine, rebelling against the injustice that fate has inflicted on him, monopolizing the family business of Hindley and Edgar that once hurt him, and making the next generation who is completely innocent suffer. The terrifying spirit of rebellion is like a night in a mysterious and terrifying wasteland, enveloping everyone's life.
2. Love
Once the housekeeper, Nari, asked Catherine if she loved her husband, Edgar Lindun, and Catherine replied that she loved. Nari then asks why love? Catherine said it was because of appearance, because they were happy together, because they were young, because they loved themselves.
When Nari asked about Hickory, Catherine suddenly became very emotional.
She exclaimed, "He'll never know how much I love him; and I love him not because he's handsome, Nari, but because he's more of my own than I am." Whatever material our souls are made of, he and I are the same material, but Lyndon is as different from us as moonlight and lightning, frost and fire. ”
Catherine married Edgar in order to help Hickory raise his head and arrange for Hickory to never be bullied by Catherine's brother again. But Catherine's true love in her heart is still Hickory, and she compares her love for Hickory to an eternal rock under her feet, which has few sources of happiness but is indispensable.
"Nari, I'm Hickory!" He is always in my heart—not as a joy, just as I can't always be my own joy, but because he is my own being. Catherine shouted.
There is a kind of love that can set off the waves of life, the tremor of the soul, and that is that I am in love with the "other me" in the world - my lover, who is like a mirror of mine, and he calls me every time, just like my soul is calling to myself.
。 It's like God created Adam and Eve with the same material, the same mold. At this time, Catherine's yearning for love is not just a simple pursuit of the passion of love, her pursuit contains the component of self-pursuit, that is, in the heart-to-heart lover, discover, explore, and further recognize herself.
After Catherine's death, Hickory also became a lone ghost in the wasteland, thinking of Catherine day and night, and finally passed away by calling out the name of his lover.
In the end of love, love and hate were opposed to each other, and eventually merged into one. Emily's love abandons the template of the contemporary "romantic nobility", but like a fire, it has its own strong vitality.
3. Human nature
Human nature, everything points to human nature. The whole book "Wuthering Heights" is a sharp sword standing on the wasteland, it unveils the false and calm illusion of wind and sun, the sword picks up the sky, cuts a bloody opening, fully exposes the degeneration and awakening of human nature, and spreads out the complex human nature to the reader.
From this point of view, it also confirms the "Sphinx Mystery", the mystery happens to be "people", there is no doubt that Emily tries to express her humanitarian spirit in the exploration of complex human nature, so that the reader can get a spiritual sublimation in feelings.
The outcast Hickory has tasted the heat and coldness of the world. His biological parents abandoned him, and the adoptive father's son hated him and persecuted him with revenge all the time.
It was hard to get a wisp of warmth and deep love from the love with Catherine, how to know that the "teammate" Catherine was too naïve and naïve, abandoned their team halfway, married someone else's wife, and thought that she sacrificed for peace, but she did not know that it was this act.
The two of them were originally loyal partners in the common struggle against fate, but because of different choices, they eventually bore their own destinies. Just like with - decided to stay in the wilderness of the torrential rain, how strong the love is, how strong the hatred is, and opens the nightmare of human depravity; and the warmth of the surface of the thrush farm step by step, but because he does not love the person he marries, he buries his youth and love, and finally buries his life.
As soon as Catherine dies, the madness of Hickory accelerates the progress of his revenge, human nature is cruelly twisted and destroyed, he can't see anything beautiful in his eyes, and all that is left is fangs and violence. The enemy was dead, the enemy's family property was taken away by him, and even the enemy's descendants were tortured by him.
It was as if the roaring north had swept across the hills, and the grass and trees were gone, and the mountains and rivers were gray.
Does such a repressive, frightening narrative herald an abrupt end to the story? The revenge is over, the purpose has been achieved, how bad can Hickory be? However, at this time, Emily's pen turns sharply, even the extremely bad weather will eventually pass, nature does not believe in endless evil, there will be spring breeze, there will be green shoots, so at the end of the novel, human nature is revived.
Hickory is bent on breaking up Cassie Jr. and Harrington, but the two lovers are united against Hickory because of their indestructible and pure love, and, unguarded, the love in their hearts breaks through and overcomes the hate, and he can't bear to take revenge endlessly, so he decides not to suppress the couple anymore.
And the revival of human nature also makes Hickory's heart no longer frost and frozen, he is deeply remorseful, gives up the narrow hatred in his heart, and in his unswerving love for Catherine's life and death, he follows Catherine's footsteps and dies of hunger strike.
Human nature, the main thread that runs through the whole text, finally reveals to us that love is more powerful than hate.
Approaching Emily Brontë, approaching the mystery itself, understanding her life, and interpreting Wuthering Heights, we will find that the mystery is not complicated at all.
Everything is nothing more than "humanity" and "human nature". Heidegger said, "Man, poetically inhabited." "The poetry here is not only about poetry and distant reverie, but also a call to the beautiful side of human nature." The need for love is human nature, and no matter how harsh the environment is, the glimmer of human nature can still light up love and let love exert its unparalleled energy.
From this point of view, Wuthering Heights is worth reading again and again because of it.