Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2013-06-01 03:36 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2013-06-01 03:36 pm
[ SECRET POST #2342 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2342 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 066 secrets from Secret Submission Post #335.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
A counterpoint to the bashing
(Anonymous) 2013-06-02 08:47 am (UTC)(link)There's a lot of stuff in this book that probably either makes *no sense* or perfect sense, depending on what you've lived through. That's what I took from reading the Hark, a Vagrant! comic. Heathcliff and Cathy are both abrasive, temperamental, selfish people who get admonished a lot to change, improve their character, and sand down their rough edges. But they don't ever have to feel like it's a question of giving up what they're like or never being loved, because they have each other. They have someone in the world who likes them and isn't put off by their wildness; someone who, in every way that matters, is just as bad as they are. D'you have ... any idea what that means, to a reader who grew up feeling like a bad kid? They can be everything they are, and love each other. The servants could tell Cathy that god hated disobedient children, and that no one would ever have her until she became more ladylike, but their threats rang hollow, because she had Heathcliff. And he loved her now. The way I read it, the tragedy of Wuthering Heights was that Cathy allowed herself to be separated from the person she really was, and turned into a (mostly) suitable wife for Linton. That wasn't her. Cathy marrying Linton was like an alligator filing its teeth and trying to get along with a deer. And everyone was telling her that was the sensible thing for her to do! Heathcliff was never a good person, but he was the love of her life. Through heaven and hell, through this world and beyond, they were always about each other. Cathy let custom hem her in when Heathcliff turned up again, and trying to be what she was "supposed" to be killed her. Heathcliff needed only one thing to break her out of her confinement - her permission to do it. You see, Heathcliff was actually a pretty subversive romantic lead. When push came to shove, he took his orders from Cathy. He never overrode her or did anything she didn't tell him he could do. That was his limit. He was selfish, he was unrestrained, but never at her expense. He honored her limits, even when it was the last thing he wanted to do. Even when it meant they'd die apart. Despite that, his love for her was unshakeable. Which is how the story rolls around to his most famous speech, in which he begs the now-dead Cathy to haunt him. I loved them both all thoughout the book, but I loved him all the more for being willing to ask the universe at large for that. To anyone else, that would have been a curse. To him as well, possibly. But he was willing to invite her ghost into his life whole-heartedly because he couldn't imagine and didn't want to go on without her. I can admit that's fucked up. And I certainly won't deny that he turned into a bitter old villain in her absence. That said ... I see love in everything they were and did with each other. In their words and looks and silences, in their one great misunderstanding, in their waywardness, in their willfullness, even in their madness, there is no doubt in my mind that Heathcliff and Cathy loved each other.
The way other people relate looks tepid in comparison. But I should clarify - it's not that Wuthering Heights broke my ability to appreciate normal romance. It's that my broken ability to parse less-violent emotions can still pick up the feelings in here. It's like being mostly numb, but capable of feeling the temperature change if you put your hand in really hot water. What would be unpleasant for someone with an intact sense is more like "oh wow, this is great, I'm absorbing warmth!" for me. I know I'm opening myself and other people up to (more?) concern trolling and the argument that even though we like this stuff, we shouldn't be allowed to expose ourselves to it. To which I will only say that blanket white knighting is a toxic hero fantasy. You don't know me. You don't love me. Caring that doesn't go beyond words is cheap. And the people arguing that those of us who have been through hell and came out a little eccentic and singed "ought to do this and avoid that" invariably look like meddlesome control freaks, from where I'm standing. When you've lived my life, then you can give me advice about it. Not before.
Re: A counterpoint to the bashing
(Anonymous) 2013-06-02 11:24 am (UTC)(link)I personally adore Wuthering Heights and consider it one of the greatest novels ever written, but I have never experienced any sort of abuse or violence in relationships. So it's really fascinating for me to hear how you relate to the novel and it's destructive, all-consuming passion. Again, thanks for sharing!
Re: A counterpoint to the bashing
(Anonymous) 2013-06-02 05:27 pm (UTC)(link)You're welcome, and thanks very much for responding, because this was sort of nerve-wracking to put out in public and also I didn't know if ... I knew the ways I understand this story have a lot to do with heavy past stuff. I didn't know that someone without that could/would get it. And I'm really glad to know that! Most of the people who flail hard and go "wtf is with this #(*%&@ book???" seem to be coming at it from a different expectations-of-relationships place, and they're really vocal about saying that their way is healthy. So I'd figured healthy people tend to not get it (and don't realize why they're not getting it).
Re: A counterpoint to the bashing
(Anonymous) 2013-06-02 01:09 pm (UTC)(link)Re: A counterpoint to the bashing
(Anonymous) 2013-06-02 05:52 pm (UTC)(link)*nodnod* I started thinking about this because it floored me that people could not get Wuthering Heights, and feel like it didn't speak to them. I respect that other people interpret fiction differently, but on an emotional level I was like ... "this is the five-hundred-foot-blazing-letters version of a declaration of love. What part of it is hard to read?" XD; But, you know, I listened and tried to figure out where I was seeing one thing and they were seeing another, and why. And that took me through a lot of internal "okay, why do I think this is loving?" which took me straight back into my own references and life. Then I compared notes with my friends who like Wuthering Heights, and read what other fans had to say with interest, and sort of went "oh. I think ... maybe I can see what's happening here." But as the person who posted above you showed, there's stuff I wasn't taking into account. The fact that in my circle, it's the people who have grown up with abuse who relate to the love story in Wuthering Heights doesn't mean they're the only ones who like it. And the fact that my liking it has to do with my history doesn't mean that only people with similar histories can. TL;DR, I shared what I had and I learned something.
Re: A counterpoint to the bashing
(Anonymous) 2013-06-02 04:22 pm (UTC)(link)Re: A counterpoint to the bashing
(Anonymous) 2013-06-02 08:19 pm (UTC)(link)Oh, wait.
Re: A counterpoint to the bashing
(Anonymous) 2013-06-04 03:06 am (UTC)(link)i guess it's a kind of love but it's a destructive fucked up awful love that hurts everyone.