They Deserve One Another: Catherine Earnshaw & Heathcliff

In WUTHERING HEIGHTS, Heathcliff is the consummate bad boy. Now, the bad boy thing has been done to death in YA novels --- sometimes done well, sometimes ... not so much. And it's caused plenty of controversy.

But there's a major reason why Heathcliff works as a bad boy in WH: His love interest, Catherine, is a mean girl.

Heathcliff outdoes Catherine in his penchant for abuse --- emotional, physical, and psychological, tormenting two families in his quest for revenge for years of being treated as a second-class citizen in the Earnshaw household.

(It's likely this all began because he arrives at WH with no last name, completely misunderstood because he was way ahead of his time and should've been a 1980s pop star. But that's for another blog post.)

Oh Edgar, you'll never compare.

But Catherine is also abusive --- selfish, cruel, shallow, and spiteful. In her own ways, she tortures Heathcliff, marrying Edgar Linton for money and status and then blithely ignoring Heathcliff's torment, even enjoying and poking fun at it.

That's why they're perfect for one another --- and make for such an agonizing, compelling love story. Both Catherine and Heathcliff are emotionally wounded people, but their fierce love could be their saving grace, giving them happiness and contentment.

You couldn't just stay this way, could you?

But their faults ruin that potential and unleash their nastiest, most destructive sides, cementing their doomed affair. Oops.

Holy crap, Emily Bronte, I bow down to your awesomeness.

Bronte gave us a seriously imperfect love between two messed-up people and got us (or at least me) to root for them, despite how frustrating and awful they could be.

A modern (and less intense) example of this? Carrie and Mr. Big. And Carrie nearly married her Edgar Linton (ahem, Aidan), too. Unlike Sex and the City (TV show, not book), WH didn't give them a happy ending.

Of course, Emily didn't fully torture her readers. She gave us a second-chance happy ending, between Catherine's daughter Cathy and Heathcliff's much-abused ward, Hareton.

Thanks, Emily, or else I would've thrown my book across the room. For real.


Ok, can you think of any other couple out there --- doomed or not, YA or adult, books/TV/movies --- that totally deserves one another? And what did you think of WH and the Catherine/Heathcliff dramarama? Anyone throw the book across the room anyway?