Wuthering Heights

Literature and film: Wuthering Heights. The literary text versus the film adaptation – a comparison.

‘A passion. An obsession. A love that destroyed everyone it touched.’

‘The timeless novel of Emily Brontл about love and revenge.’1

That is the way in which the film producers promote their work, ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1992) with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche starring in it. And they are right – the novel of the most famous of Brontл sisters is the timeless one. The film, however, seems to represent one of the many romances that had already been shown and told earlier – he and she as an inseparable couple, being almost the one body; unfortunately, that oneness is destroyed for her fear of the consequences of the violation of the social conventions; he takes a revenges for her betrayal...

The book, on the other hand, is a fascinating, disquieting piece of work, motivating to ask oneself a lot of questions about love and hate, goodness and evil, and their boundaries, and about the boundaries between humanity and insaneness. And it is difficult to agree that the book is just a romance

The first scenes in the film suggests that the whole story is narrated by Emily Brontл herself, wandering lonely in the regions in which the events she wants to talk about had taken place. It also refers to the facts of the writer’s life. Her high-spirited nature felt the best in the open areas of heathlands. She probably was thinking about her imagination’s worlds, as it was said in the film. And now she is going to present one of these world for us. ‘Don’t laugh at this...’2, she is asking. It sounds like an excuse, so it suggests that the writer is not very proud of what she had done. The appearance of Emily Brontл (Sinйad O’Connor in the film), equally at the beginning and at the final scene, braces the events. She initiates the story, and she closes it with a short summary.

The problem of narration, nevertheless, is more complicated in the book. In the world of events, brings us inquisitive, although not very observant Mr Lockwood, as a tenant of Thrushcross Grange. That is his appearance which becomes the pretext to animate an old story. And from that moment the narration of Nelly Dean begins to play a major role. Nelly experienced a lot of changes and a lot of sadness, evenly in Thrushcross Grange and in Wuthering Heights. In the film adaptation, this character loses her position of a direct participant of the events, and trustee of equally Catherine and Heathcliff. That are the Nelly’s actions, not always righteous, which cause the important events in the story. In the film, Nelly is only a nanny and a servant.

It is worthy to notice that the time of narration is shaped differently in the novel. Chronological order is torn into stages by such events as reading the Catherine’s dairy by Mr Lockwood, or reading Isabella’s letter by the nanny at the moment while Isabella is running with Heathcliff. Since Nelly Dean starts her story, it is narrated chronologically, with short breaks, until the moment which is already known to Mr Lockwood. He does not find out nothing about the ending of the story because he left Thrushcross Grange after an unpleasant illness. A year later he accidentally arrives there again, and hears from Nelly, what had happened finally at Wuthering Heights. With his eyes we can see a young couple, Hareton and Catherine’s daughter (also named Catherine) which are the best friends. With Mr Lockwood we visit the grave of Heathcliff, and we are finally left with Mr Lockwood’s thoughts.

As onlookers of the film, we are devoid all of these. There is a simplified and brief narration in the film. The characters and events which have very important functions in the book, diversify the plot, and join in creation of subsequent surfaces of suspense, in the film are pushed in the background. As a result, we have the movie which is easy and pleasant in perception. But only if you have not read the book before. Because if you have read a book, you feel lack of something while watching the movie. Lack of the tension and disquiet which is increasing with every page of the novel.

The choice of such construction of plot, which focuses mainly on the love affairs, resulted in some consequences. The scenes added by the scriptwriter, Anne Devlin, for example the party in Wuthering Heights, or the dialogs which exposed love motifs, remove the dense and dark atmosphere. The atmosphere surrounding Heathcliff expands and covers the new elements of the presented world. Enthusiastic affirmation of Mr Lockwood in the first chapter, that the neighbourhood is really beautiful,3 will no more appear. He will have to walk on the mud and frozen ground to Wuthering Heights, shivering from the cold. And when he finally arrives, the door is opened in such a reluctant manner.

These are the first pages of Emily Brontл’s novel, and since these pages we are aware of coming of the dark and distressing events.

The book ‘Wuthering Heights’, without doubt, refers to the convention of gothic novel. But in the film we can experience only a substitute of this. Reading the novel we can imagine the landscape full of gales, the threatening house, ominous householder and ominous servant. Inside the house we have got the dark stairs and passages, dangerous dogs, and also the mysterious room, covered, under books and dust, the history of the ghost of Catherine which appears there. The solid house becomes the jail and the damnation, the place of suffering – extreme mental distress and unbearable physical pain.

According to some interpretations, we can determine the castles and monasteries from gothic novels as symbols. They are suggested to be metaphor of a soul.4 In the case of Emily Brontл’s work, indeed, the mansion Wuthering Heights seems to be a projection of Heathcliff’s feelings, and, somewhat, of people who were in touch with him.

The windows of the houses in the novel are not very transparent. And inside the souls of the characters we can find not much of light. Wuthering Heights is not only the jail in the meaning of the physical slavery. It is the jail of soul. Heathcliff accomplishes his cruel plans and becomes the owner of Earnshaws’ mansion.