Well at first i found it intersting when Catherine stated "i could not recollect. i pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven years of my life drew a blank" (121). By this i find it itnersting because it seems as though Catherine tends to fold when she exerts pressure upon herself. she seems to be in a sense of panic, and is very upset, and with that, her mind goes blank and she can not recall on teh past, in which she is trying to draw infromation from. what i also found interesting about this was that as she (catherine) was reminisching, she went straight back to the days of her child hood with heatcliff, thus skipping out on the 7 years of her life, right back to the day that her and heatcliff were separated. i find this especially itnersting because it seems as though catherien is blaming this separation on her present troubles, and current dispair. its very itnersting because this memory seems so prominent in catherine's mind taht it is almsot trauamtizing to her and her well being, jsut looking back on such event gets her extremely emotional. she clearly is still in love with heathcliff, to such an extent that she can never let go, and in turn is becming very distraught.
In this section Catherine is now having to deal with her guilt of leaving Heathcliff, and not following her heart. She just starved herself for a couple days, so of course she is going to be a little out of it, but she seems to be affected by her guilt much more than normal. It seems to be physically hurting her, and she needs to be close to Heathcliff. She wants to return to her old life and just be with him. I found it interesting that she wanted to go outdoors and felt better when the windows were open. Then, Edgar and Ellen's way of curing her was keeping her locked up in her room in the dark away from the sun and the fresh air. That did her more harm than good. I also found it interesting that Catherine started predicting her own death, and saying that she will leave Edgar and he wont be able to follow, but then she knows that Heathcliff will follow eventually. kori
I loved this passage because it sparked so many feelings in me as a reader. The first part of her speech, where she first talks about her blackout and desperation and she blames edward for not coming to see her, made me so angry for she said originally that she planed on faking sick to hurt him and make him responsive to her again. It was a bit confusing and incredibly frustrating going through this passage because of the contrast between her original plan and what she states as happening. However, when she started talking about Wuthering Heights, my anger softened a bit into sadness. Her attachment to the heights really shows how important Heathcliff is to her because she discusses the anguish of her early years but ultimately expresses her desire to be at the heights forever. I think the heights are the one thing that ties Catherine's unsettled life together. The house becomes a living entity for her as a girl who has watched everything she loves leave her in one way or another. And as she begins fantasizing about the house and being able to see her room and joseph, I think its a big foreshadow that she's about to die because she's going back to her past, making the final connections for her future, preparing her spirit to move on with out ever actually moving on. The house is truly a symbol for heathcliff, for even though he leaves her and she leaves him, the house is always there, always constant, and always reminding them of each other, and it is for this reason that Catherine goes back to the house at the end of her life, even if it is just in her head. -Victoria
I really, really like this passage; it's very interesting to look at what has happened to Catherine, but at the same time how little difference there really is between her mindset now and her mindset years ago. She recalls back to seven years ago (when she cannot the space of time in between now and then), saying "I was a chid; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff" (121). There are definite parallels between her misery then and her misery now. She and Heathcliff are still separated, and she is at the Grange, as she soon will be in the parallelled younger version of herself. But the new distortions are shown in the way she looks at everything now, "supposing, at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, had been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world" (121). In her currenty misery, she's now fully realized the effect Heathcliff has continuously had on her life, and she's wondering aloud if it would have been better the other way around, at the Grange instead. She then proceeds to answer her own question, almost illustrating two personalities within herself-- that of Catherine as she is now, and that of her as a young child. She cries, "I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free...and laughing at injries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed" (121)? Even though there is evidently no way she can make things to back to the way they were, she knows in her distorted state of mind that it was better at the Heights with Heathcliff. I think a lot of her misery at this point comes from the knowledge that she will never get this back.
5 comments:
Well at first i found it intersting when Catherine stated "i could not recollect. i pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven years of my life drew a blank" (121). By this i find it itnersting because it seems as though Catherine tends to fold when she exerts pressure upon herself. she seems to be in a sense of panic, and is very upset, and with that, her mind goes blank and she can not recall on teh past, in which she is trying to draw infromation from. what i also found interesting about this was that as she (catherine) was reminisching, she went straight back to the days of her child hood with heatcliff, thus skipping out on the 7 years of her life, right back to the day that her and heatcliff were separated. i find this especially itnersting because it seems as though catherien is blaming this separation on her present troubles, and current dispair. its very itnersting because this memory seems so prominent in catherine's mind taht it is almsot trauamtizing to her and her well being, jsut looking back on such event gets her extremely emotional. she clearly is still in love with heathcliff, to such an extent that she can never let go, and in turn is becming very distraught.
In this section Catherine is now having to deal with her guilt of leaving Heathcliff, and not following her heart. She just starved herself for a couple days, so of course she is going to be a little out of it, but she seems to be affected by her guilt much more than normal. It seems to be physically hurting her, and she needs to be close to Heathcliff. She wants to return to her old life and just be with him. I found it interesting that she wanted to go outdoors and felt better when the windows were open. Then, Edgar and Ellen's way of curing her was keeping her locked up in her room in the dark away from the sun and the fresh air. That did her more harm than good. I also found it interesting that Catherine started predicting her own death, and saying that she will leave Edgar and he wont be able to follow, but then she knows that Heathcliff will follow eventually.
kori
I loved this passage because it sparked so many feelings in me as a reader. The first part of her speech, where she first talks about her blackout and desperation and she blames edward for not coming to see her, made me so angry for she said originally that she planed on faking sick to hurt him and make him responsive to her again. It was a bit confusing and incredibly frustrating going through this passage because of the contrast between her original plan and what she states as happening.
However, when she started talking about Wuthering Heights, my anger softened a bit into sadness. Her attachment to the heights really shows how important Heathcliff is to her because she discusses the anguish of her early years but ultimately expresses her desire to be at the heights forever. I think the heights are the one thing that ties Catherine's unsettled life together. The house becomes a living entity for her as a girl who has watched everything she loves leave her in one way or another. And as she begins fantasizing about the house and being able to see her room and joseph, I think its a big foreshadow that she's about to die because she's going back to her past, making the final connections for her future, preparing her spirit to move on with out ever actually moving on. The house is truly a symbol for heathcliff, for even though he leaves her and she leaves him, the house is always there, always constant, and always reminding them of each other, and it is for this reason that Catherine goes back to the house at the end of her life, even if it is just in her head.
-Victoria
I really, really like this passage; it's very interesting to look at what has happened to Catherine, but at the same time how little difference there really is between her mindset now and her mindset years ago. She recalls back to seven years ago (when she cannot the space of time in between now and then), saying "I was a chid; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff" (121). There are definite parallels between her misery then and her misery now. She and Heathcliff are still separated, and she is at the Grange, as she soon will be in the parallelled younger version of herself. But the new distortions are shown in the way she looks at everything now, "supposing, at twelve years old, I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, had been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world" (121). In her currenty misery, she's now fully realized the effect Heathcliff has continuously had on her life, and she's wondering aloud if it would have been better the other way around, at the Grange instead. She then proceeds to answer her own question, almost illustrating two personalities within herself-- that of Catherine as she is now, and that of her as a young child. She cries, "I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free...and laughing at injries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed" (121)? Even though there is evidently no way she can make things to back to the way they were, she knows in her distorted state of mind that it was better at the Heights with Heathcliff. I think a lot of her misery at this point comes from the knowledge that she will never get this back.
Post a Comment