Q: What does the article by James Phillips, The Two Faces of Love In "Wuthering Heights", do that helps people better understand the scene in Volume I Chapter IX when Catherine confesses her love for Heathcliff to Nelly.
In class there was much discussion on the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine. The opposing viewpoints were that they should be together, and the other that it was right that they were not together. The scene created confusion, because we were unsure of what Catherine truely meant in her confession. It was difficult to decipher what she meant by: "...he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am" (Bronte 71). Does Catherine mean that she would not be with Heathcliff because everyday of her life she would be talking to a replica of herself? Or because her materialistic mind won't allow her to be with the man who completes her? Of course it was my belief that Catherine was an idiot for marrying Mr. Linton and not following her heart, her sense of self, by marrying Heathcliff. If Heathcliff is herself more than she is, wouldn't she then be leading an incomplete life without him?
The majority of the class believes otherwise, mainly because of Heathcliff's barbaric nature. They, and I agree, believe that Heathcliff and Catherine bring out the worst in one another. But isn't that because they are not together? I counter their actions by saying that they are a product of the situation of the two lovers. Here I go again, defending my opinion. Catherine, as well as the readers of our classroom, cannot truely understand what this confession, this scene of passion, is truely about. "In whichever place the soul lives--in my soul, and in my heart, I'm convinced I'm wrong!" (Bronte 70). But through her later speech she answers this cloud of confussion, and it is with the article by James Phillips that we can translate what she means.
In Phillips's article, he breaks apart our definition of love, for that is what is molding our reaction to this passage as well as defining our misgivings about it. My definition of their love is different from the class' definition--I believe it to be the force that should guide them and unite them, whereas others think it to be an educated decision--for Catherine to marry Linton, so that she experiences variety of character and stability of a lifestyle. Love to us is a single idea that can be handled by different attitudes and approaches. Phillips re-guises love by presenting it in a Janus-like model, stating that there are two sides to love, and that it is not a single idea but an idea with two catagories. "Where Heathcliff is the transcendental face of love, Linton is its empirical face." We can see this because though she has loved Heathcliff from the beginning, she marries instead Linton--then on the day that she dies, it is still Heathcliff that her heart belongs to. Linton's influence cannot disturb her ever-lasting, ever-feeling passion for Heathcliff, yet serves as a type of love complementary to Catherine's feelings.
Can we now treat this scene differently? It is now easier to understand the meaning behind Catherine's statement: "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire" (Bronte 71). We see Catherine realizing the difference in love's "two faces" and that one will always be burning inside of her--in the comparison of Linton's and Heathcliff's representations the moonbeam is a more comfortable, soft, pleasant portrayal than the dangerous lightning. Phillips's help in pulling this interpretation from that line has in turn helped me view her feelings in a different light. Catherine's love for Heathcliff intimidates and frightens her, and she wishes not to live in such a thrilling lifestyle but rather in the calm with Linton.
The fact that Phillips brings to the table is that "Emily Brontë breaks love down into two parts." It is in these two parts that Catherine resides, for throughout the entire novel we see both sides of her love shine. In her confession to Nelly we can now distinguish Catherine's argument--that she is marrying Linton not because she does not love Heathcliff or loves him less, or that she would hate to be with someone who defines herself better than she, but because this face of love is one that suits what she wants to get out of love, and that the other face of love is to be set up, idolized and starved of her indulgence.
No comments:
Post a Comment