Text | Shuiqing · Anchor | Xia Meng
Ten O'Clock Reading Signed Author
There is an interesting saying in the West that people can be divided into three types: one is the person who likes Jane Eyre, one is the person who likes Pride and Prejudice, and the other is the person who likes Wuthering Heights.
People who like "Jane Eyre", sober and rational and independent, in their minds, self-growth is much more important than love;
People who like "Pride and Prejudice" are more earthly pyrotechnic, and in the face of marriage, they will reasonably consider external conditions such as income, status, and appearance;
And those who like "Wuthering Heights" believe in the supremacy of true love, even if they taste the love-hate hatred with the power to destroy the decay, they are willing.
In Wuthering Heights, there are four levels of love, which one are you?
The first layer: the love of reality
In the north of England, there is a nearly isolated "Wuthering Heights". One day, the owner of the estate, Old Enshaw, adopted a discarded child and named it Heathcliff.
Old Enshaw took pains to guard against the ill will of the others toward Heathcliff, and he gave the poor boy warm paternal love and care.
Old Enshaw had a pair of children. Daughter Catherine has a strange temper, is naughty and rebellious. His son Hindley, jealous of Heathcliff's taking away his father's love, often tortured him in private.
After the death of the elder Enshaw, Hindley abused and insulted Heathcliff in every way, which in turn promoted Heathcliff and Catherine's love.
In the vast universe, for thousands of generations, the only person Heathcliff loves is Catherine.
He who had suffered and humiliated in his childhood could only be himself easily in front of Catherine; only in her, he could see his most authentic self.
Why didn't Catherine fall deeply in love with Heathcliff? For his sake, she did not hesitate to disobey her brother.
She also confided in her heart: "I love him, not because of his beauty, but because he is more like myself than me." 」 ”
He and she, souls, are inseparable.
One day, the two went out to play and met Linton, the little owner of the thrush farm. Linton was young and handsome, gentle, and noble, and had a fatal allure for Catherine, who was not well versed in the world.
Through Linton, she saw the luxurious prom, the beautiful costumes and the courtesy of the opposite sex that she had never seen before, all of which awakened Catherine's sleeping worldly concept of hierarchy and the vanity of a girl.
Heathcliff was no longer her only, though she still loved him.
Linton proposed to her, and she agreed. Against her own heart, she also said, "Marrying Heathcliff will lower my status."
It just so happened that this sentence was heard by Heathcliff, who was distraught by her betrayal, so on that rainy night, he went away in anger.
Canadian sociologist John Lee divides the love between men and women into six forms, namely: the love of lust, the love of play, the love of friendship, the love of attachment, the love of reality, and the love of altruism.
The love between Catherine and Linton is the love of reality. Realistic love pays attention to reality and will consider the realistic conditions of the other party in order to increase its return and reduce the cost of payment.
Linton loves Catherine's beauty, and Catherine loves the aura that hangs over Linton, his identity, his status, and his wealth.
This aura satisfied Catherine with vanity, stimulated her class consciousness, and made her subconsciously feel that marrying Heathcliff would lower her status and self-destruct her future; but marrying Linton would make herself a noble woman.
If this layer of love is removed, and only those who are not attached to any external worldly conditions are left, can this love still be maintained?
This is the case with the marriage of most people in the world, not from the natural attraction and desire of the soul, but from the fact that the external conditions of the world can be right, which is the so-called good match.
After marriage, although Linton was gentle and considerate, Catherine hid her original wild and free self under the identity of a graceful and luxurious noblewoman, and she was not happy.
The second layer: the love of attachment
A few years later, Heathcliff returned home.
Hindley had long since become the owner of Wuthering Heights, but he drank heavily and squandered his family wealth all day long. Soon after, Heathcliff used a trick to get Hindley to mortgage the property to him little by little, eventually taking Wuthering Heights.
Heathcliff frequented Thrush Farms, and Linton had a sister, Isabella, who fell hopelessly in love with him the first time she saw him.
She imagined Heathcliff as a legendary hero and a princess who loved desperately.
She did not know that at this time, Heathcliff, under the handsome appearance, hid a deep hatred and scars for Hindley, Linton and others.
He had long been secretly determined to take the fiercest revenge on them. Taking Wuthering Heights was one of his plans.
As for Isabella, who appeared unplanned, he regarded her as a pitiful, ridiculous pawn for revenge, how could he love her?
He seduced her, and Isabella was ecstatic, did not listen to anyone's advice, and abandoned her rich life and relatives, and eloped with him to Wuthering Heights.
Isabella's love for Heathcliff is the love of attachment. People who hold this kind of love have a very large demand for emotions, and they often lose their minds for the impulse of love.
Heathcliff's love for her is the love of games. People who hold this kind of love have never had a real emotional investment.
Such an unbalanced feeling, tragedy is conceivable.
Heathcliff brutally imprisoned Isabella in Wuthering Heights and tortured her fiercely. There, she often starved. An irrational marriage has caused her to fall into hell.
Uddhav once said: "Reason without emotion is a glorious nugget of gold; and irrational emotion is a wild horse without stirrups." ”
Love is the sweetest sugar and the most intoxicating wine, but we must keep a calm and rational mind when facing love. Unrealistic and reckless blind impulses often have irreparable consequences.
It was only then that Isabella recognized Heathcliff's true mask and his true purpose in marrying her: to get revenge on Linton and Catherine by torturing her, and then to obtain the Thrush Farm.
Isabella was completely awake. Late one night, she seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and fled back to the Thrush Farm. Then he escaped to a distant place overnight, completely ending the terrifying life of sleeping with wolves.
In the face of unhappy marriages, we must not resign ourselves to the idea that time will change everything. When the break is broken, give up the misfortune, in order to stop the loss in time and have the opportunity to regain happiness.
The third layer: the love of friendship
There is a touching love story in Wuthering Heights from the pair of lovers Heathcliff and Catherine:
If our souls are exactly the same, then it means that in the universe, the lonely self has another place to depend on. Neither heaven nor hell is as good as the place in your heart, and it makes me feel warm and familiar.
In the vast sea of people, in the lonely world, there is a person who communicates with his soul, what a happy thing! The feelings of the two are strong and hot, and the resonance of the heart has sublimated the vitality of both sides.
Their feelings are the love of friendship, green plum bamboo horse, with the same interests and three views, warm and affectionate.
However, Catherine surrendered first, succumbing to weaknesses in human nature: selfishness and vanity.
Catherine, who married Linton, was not happy, she and Linton did not know each other, she gradually lost herself, lost her original liveliness.
There was a grave in her heart, buried in the undead, and she could not bear the pain of losing Heathcliff.
Her reunion with Heathcliff left her ecstatic and even foolishly oblivious to Linton's existence.
Heathcliff, how could his feelings for Catherine have cooled by half a point? Especially when it was certain that Catherine was still in love with him in her heart, he fell into a crazy love affair. Catherine was his life, his only hope for survival.
However, by this time Catherine was pregnant with Linton's child, and she could not leave her husband on impulse alone.
The ignorance of her youth led to today's dilemma, with her struggling between Linton and Heathcliff. Regret, guilt, and pain never fade away.
Catherine was schizophrenic in the midst of contradictions and pains, did not eat or drink for three days and three nights, and hallucinated. Heathcliff wandered the garden all night, wanting to see her.
Since giving birth to her daughter Katie, Catherine's health has been getting worse and worse. Soon after, she died. Until her death, she never walked out of the thrush farm.
In excruciating pain, Heathcliff secretly went to see Catherine's body. He cut off his own hair and placed it in her coffin.
His love for Catherine is like the wind in the wilderness, endless. How much he longed for death, and only death could truly unite with Catherine.
Although the love between the two is fierce, Catherine has her own selfishness and vanity, and Heathcliff often does not put himself in Catherine's shoes. This kind of friendship love, the love from the fourth layer, is ultimately separated by one layer.
The fourth layer: altruistic love
Catherine's death made Heathcliff's hatred gush like a volcano, and even if it hurts the innocent, he doesn't care.
Hindley died of alcoholism less than half a year after Catherine's death, and his son Harrington fell into Heathcliff's hands.
Fleeing Wuthering Heights, Isabella gave birth to a son with Heathcliff, named Lynton Heathcliff. 12 years later, Isabella fell ill and died, and Heathcliff took back his son.
Linton was critically ill, and Heathcliff took the opportunity to take Lynton and Catherine's daughter Katie and force her to marry her son. Shortly after the marriage, Lynton Heathcliff died. Linton also died, and the thrush farm naturally fell into Heathcliff's deception.
Harrington liked Katie from the beginning, but the two were actually people from two different worlds. Katie grew up under the care of her father, Linton, and was intellectually gentle. Harrington's father, Hindley, never cared about him, nor did he have any education.
But Harrington is generous and loyal by nature, and in order to get closer to Katie, he seriously learns cultural knowledge alone.
Although Katie initially looked down on Harrington, after realizing her mistake, she was full of enthusiasm to help him learn. Harrington made a little progress, and Katie rewarded him with a sweet kiss.
With Cathy's help, Harrington gradually broke free from rudeness and ignorance. Love, like the buds of early spring, arises subtly.
Harrington and Katie's love, how much like Heathcliff and Catherine's love. However, compared with the painful love of the previous generation, this pair of young people is more attached to the true feelings in their hearts, and they have a common yearning for good things and happy lives.
The most important thing is that they all strive to make themselves better and better for love, and they are willing to help each other become better people.
Wang Xiaobo once said: "I love you to the point of not being selfish, just like a man who has a pigeon in his hand flies away, and he blesses the flight of the pigeon from his heart." ”
This is the fourth level of love: altruistic love.
This kind of love is willing to sacrifice itself for the partner, and is willing to give everything to the lover's happiness, and does not ask the other party to reciprocate. If a third party appears, if the other person will be happier, he will also generously quit.
Seeing the little lovers, Heathcliff was furious. However, when he saw the happy appearance of the two snuggling up to study, the scene of Catherine falling in love with him could not help but come to mind.
The kindness and tenderness buried in the bottom of human nature eventually made the hatred in his heart fade.
Catherine's soul seems to have been wandering in Wuthering Heights, and finally on a snowy night, Heathcliff called Out Catherine's name affectionately, walked out of the cottage, and passed away in the vast snow and wind.
After Heathcliff's death, Harrington and Katie inherited the entire estate. Everything is calm again, the sun is warm, the fragrance of flowers is overflowing...
Four different types of love, four different endings, four levels of love. Emily Brontë shows us the love-hate relationship between two generations, a war of love and humanity.
And the love and kindness at the bottom of human nature are our hopes after all. May each of us be able to love ourselves, but also love others, and know better how to love.