#Like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears

[thelesbiancitizen]

bruh. I need to reread Wuthering Heights

[burningvelvet]

For the past few days this passage from Wuthering Heights has been stuck in my head...

"'[..] Her life closed in a gentle dream — may she wake as kindly in the other world!'

'May she wake in torment!' he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. 'Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there — not in heaven — not perished — where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer — I repeat it till my tongue stiffens — Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you — haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!'

He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears. I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night. It hardly moved my compassion — it appalled me: still, I felt reluctant to quit him so. But the moment he recollected himself enough to notice me watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed. He was beyond my skill to quiet or console!"

[cicerobussytransplant]

‘May she wake in torment!’ he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. ‘Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form— drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!’

He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears. I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night.

i dont think even God himself can understand the impact this has had on my mental health. my nerves. my feelings

[dahlia-coccinea]

So I think @longagoitwastuesday and I have chatted before about Nelly perhaps having a preference for Heathcliff over Cathy? But I saw it mentioned today and thought it would be interesting to look at some of the instances I can remember that perhaps show this. Personally, I think she doesn’t really defend or is biased towards him (I’d go so far as to say I think she sometimes shows prejudice against him) but they do have an interesting connection since in many ways she was a mother figure to him from 7 to 16 years old. My opinion of Nelly is that once she’s made a judgment about a person it takes quite a lot for her to reshape her opinion of them. Her opinions are also very much emblematic of her position as a servant in the house and that has been discussed already by some critics. 

Regarding her biases towards Catherine and Heathcliff, it is apparent Cathy was always the wayward daughter in her mind in part because she caused her master, Mr. Earnshaw, much anxiety and distress. Heathcliff on the other hand inspired sympathy in part because of Mr. Earnshaw’s feelings towards him as we see in Chapter 7:

“I remembered how old Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass, and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmas-box; and from that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should suffer neglect after death had removed him: and that naturally led me to consider the poor lad’s situation now, and from singing I changed my mind to crying”

In another scene, a little earlier in Chapter 4, we see where her sympathy for him started to grow while all the children were sick, and after her initial siding with Hindley:

“Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and while he lay at the worst he would have me constantly by his pillow: I suppose he felt I did a good deal for him, and he hadn’t wit to guess that I was compelled to do it. However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse watched over. The difference between him and the others forced me to be less partial. Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly: he was as uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble.”

And again in the same chapter after Hindley throws an iron weight at Heathcliff and Heathcliff mentions that Hindley has given him “three thrashings” that week alone and his arm is “black to the shoulder”: 

“He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these, that I really thought him not vindictive: I was deceived completely, as you will hear.”

Eventually, she recants a lot of this early partial softness towards him and she shows fear and hatred towards him notably during the scene of catching him kissing Isabella when she cries, “Judas! Traitor!...You are a hypocrite, too, are you? A deliberate deceiver.” Before that, she describes his visits to the Grange and how she decided she must keep a close eye on him, Catherine, and Isabella, saying:

“I wanted something to happen which might have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent. His visits were a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also.”

But there is something the returns to her now and then, that makes her sympathize with him. After Catherine’s death in Chapter 16, she tells Lockwood:

“Poor wretch!” I thought; “you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men! Why should you be anxious to conceal them? Your pride cannot blind God! You tempt him to wring them, till he forces a cry of humiliation.”

Surprisingly these feelings of sympathy are during his mistreatment of Isabella. A few days later, being aware that he stayed outside of the Grange, she “opened one of the windows; moved by his perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu.” He completely does not deserve her kindness - yet since Nelly does seem to make lasting judgments of people she can’t help but feel for him.

The scene that I think is perhaps most representative of her confused feelings towards him is when she informs him of Catherine’s death:

“He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears. I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night. It hardly moved my compassion—it appalled me: still, I felt reluctant to quit him so.”

Her feelings aren’t always so confused though - there are times when her aversion is clear. In Chapter 11 when she talks to little Hareton and “bade him tell his father that a woman called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him.” When Hareton brings out Heathcliff instead, she is so struck by fear and dread that she “turned directly and ran down the road as hard as ever I could race, making no halt till I gained the guide-post, and feeling as scared as if I had raised a goblin.”

I know I’m missing quite a few scenes where she expresses true disgust and hatred towards Heathcliff and his actions towards Cathy and Linton but this is getting quite long lol. I think these are enough to show that she does have a complicated understanding of her feelings towards Heathcliff - at least much less clear than her obvious dislike of Catherine. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, a lot of her judgments are long-lasting, and tend to side with her master. This is repeated with Cathy II who behaves intolerably to Hareton, yet Nelly is quick to defend or only lightly admonish her, compared to how she easily condemns her mother as “haughty,” “headstrong,” and “saucy.” Some critics believe this is because Cathy II is still good to Edgar, who is Nelly’s master, compared to the grief Catherine Earnshaw caused her father...but I’ll leave those thoughts for another time.

[hauntmethen]

“My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger.” ~Brontë, 79

“I want you to be aware that I know you have treated me infernally--infernally!” ~Brontë, 108

“Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever--your veins are full of ice-water--but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance.” ~Brontë, 113

“I would never have banished him from her society, as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood!” ~Brontë, 143

“If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day.” ~Brontë, 143

“He stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears int his eyes; but they burned with anguish, they did not melt.” ~Brontë, 152

“He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species.” ~Brontë, 154

“I have not broken your heart--you have broken it--and in breaking it, you have broken mine.” ~Brontë, 155

“He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears.” ~Brontë, 161