In September 2024, it was announced that Emerald Fennell was going to adapt Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. In addition, she had cast Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff and Margot Robbie as Catherine. Both announcements received negative attention from literary and film circles for a variety of reasons. Since that movie is going to be released in February 2026, I figured it would be a good time to read the 1847 book and watch several available adaptations. It’s a good novel if you know what you’re getting into.
Wuthering Heights is about trauma and its lasting legacy. Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire Moors has to seek shelter at Wuthering Heights – the place where his landlord lives at. The longtime maid Nelly tells him of the history of the violent events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw; and how Catherine was forced to choose between her love for the passionate, tortured Heathcliff and her to need to fulfill societal expectations by marrying the gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton. As Heathcliff’s bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.
Now, before I go into my feelings about the classic, I want to get some things off my chest. First off, like many people who come across the novel, I initially thought it was about a romance between two doomed lovers who were driven apart. When I was younger, I saw bits of pieces of the 1939 movie version, which certainly played up the love story aspect. However, when I worked at my first librarian job, I had a conversation with a fellow coworker about the books we hated the most. I had said The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke, and she said Wuthering Heights. For her, it was because she thought it was going to be a romance, but in reality, it was about a toxic relationship. She even claimed that the famous line from the book “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same” was trying to justify being together with a destructible person. It’s been a few years since that talk, and I wanted to read Wuthering Heights with fresh eyes. This meant reading nothing about it beforehand. In addition, this wasn’t my first experience with a book written by a Brontë sister. I voluntarily read Jane Eyre by Emily’s sister Charlotte in college, and I loved that one.
There are two things that readers have to understand before they go into it. The first involves our leading man Heathcliff. His backstory prior to coming to live with the Earnshaws is ambiguous. The characters nor the readers never know where he came from or what race or nationality he is. However, Emily Brontë makes it clear that he is NOT WHITE. She includes several physical descriptions of him with black hair, dark skin, and possibly being a Romani. This explains why people like Hindley are cruel to him. Even at one point early in the book, Heathcliff states that he wishes that he had fairer eyes and skin. He doesn’t deserve this treatment, and how he deals with it is fascinating even if it’s not what people should do. I bring this up because several adaptations cast a white guy in the role. Only ONE version included a non-white actor in the part. Why? YouTuber Princess Weekes has an entire video on that subject that I recommend watching. The point is that people have to keep in mind that he receives poor treatment from others because of the way he looks.
The other aspect readers have to know before reading Wuthering Heights is it isn’t a romance. Sure, there are romantic elements like the core relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, but that only plays one part of the story. The entire novel is literally the servant telling the new tenant why Heathcliff is a horrible human being. In fact, there are a lot of horror elements like him killing Isabella’s dog and locking his niece up in his home to force her to marry his son. Additionally, people often say that everybody is terrible in Wuthering Heights. While that’s true to some extent (Hindley especially), it’s more accurate to say that all of the characters are flawed. Edgar is the most morally upright, yet he doesn’t understand how Catherine feels, and he can be a snob. Isabella is stupid. Catherine is a stubborn spoiled brat. Hindley treats everyone around him cruelly, including Heathcliff and his own son Hareton. Even the children in the second half of the novel aren’t exactly angels either. This makes them all the more compelling, and it was fun to read about what they were going to do. Even though Nelly narrates the book, I wondered how objective she truly was, especially when she spends plenty of time describing Heathcliff’s appearance.
Emily Brontë knew exactly what she was doing when she wrote Wuthering Heights nearly 200 years ago. Every character is unsympathetic to various degrees and goes to great lengths to try and achieve what they want. I’ve never read anything like it before. Its unvarnished nature is why it has endured as a classic. People may try to tame it, yet it can never be done. I would recommend it to readers who are looking to read more unconventional classic novels.
As mentioned earlier, I plan on watching every available Wuthering Heights adaptation one month at a time. This consists of 6 film versions, 1 television movie, 2 teleplays, and 2 series. Next month, I will look at the 1939 Oscar-winning movie version starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Stay tuned for my film review of that and of the other adaptations (that I got my husband Carl to watch)!
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Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything 