During a class exercise, our English class used some scrambled words to create a different poem. Once we presented our poems, Mrs. Earney read the actual poem from which the words came from. Using this concept, we took excerpts from Wuthering Heights to create our poems. We used Bronte's words with only a few changes. The poems are to reveal the parallelism in her writing.
It is not retorted, it is the best!
The others were the the satisfaction of our whims:
and for Edgar's sake too, to satisfy him.
I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody,
have a notion that there is or should be
an existence of yours beyond you.
My great miseries in this world
have been Heathcliff's miseries,
and I watched and felt each from the beginning:
my great thought in living is himself.
If all else perished and he remained
and he were annihilated, the universe would
turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.
My love for Linton is like the foilage in the woods:
time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees.
My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath:
a source of little visible delight, but necessary.
Nelly, I am Heathcliff!
He's always, always in my mind: as not a pleasure,
any more than I am always a pleasure to myself,
but as my own being.
So don't talk of our separation again:
it is impossible!
Ellen, I've been very happy with my little Cathy;
through winter nights and summer days
she was a living hope at my side.
But I've been as happy musing myself
by myself among those stones,
under that old church, lying through the
long June evenings on the green mound
of her mother's grave, and wishing
yearning for the time when I might lie beneath it.
What can I do for Cathy?
How must I quit her?
I'd nor care one moment for Linton being Heathcliffs son
nor his taking her from me,
if he could console her for my loss.
I'd not care that Heathcliff gained his ends
and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing.
But should Linton be unworthy--
only a feeble tool to his father--
I cannot abandon her to him.
And hard though it be to crush her bouyant spirit,
I must perservere in making her sad while I live
and leaving her solitary when I die.
Darling! I'd rather resign her to God,
and lay her in the earth before me!
This poem parallels the ironic juxtaposition of the two Cathys and their feelings toward two Heathcliffs. The first section is spoken by Cathering herself, while the second part is spoken bu Edgar Linton about Cathy's feelings for Linton.
A good heart will help you to a bonny face,
If you were a regular black; and a bad one
Will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly.
And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking-
Tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome?
You're fit for a prince in disguise.
Who knows, but your father was Emperor,
(51)And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors.
[Loosing] the benefit of early education:
Continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late,
Extinguished any once possessed curiosity,
in pursuit of knowledge and love for books.
Struggled long to keep up an equality in studies,
And yielded with poignant though silent regret:
But yielded completely, when he found he must
(61)Sink beneath his former level.
(60)Linton evinced disgust and antipathy to Heathcliff;
(35)I really thought [Heathcliff] not vindictive.
I could scarcely refrain from smiling
at this antipathy to the poor fellow;
who was a well-made, athletic youth,
but attired in garments befitting his daily occupation
of working on the farm, and lounging among the moors.
Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds,
Whose rankness far over-topped their neglected growth;
Notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil,
That might yield luxuriant crops,
under other and favourable circumstances.
Thanks to Heathcliff's fearless nature,
Which offered no temptation to that course of oppression:
It had none of the timid susceptibility
that would have given zest to ill-treatment.
Heathcliff appeared to have bent his malevolence
(180)on making Hareton a brute.
Never taught to read or write;
Never rebuked for any bad habit;
Never led a single step towards virtue,
(181)Or guarded by a single precept against vice.
The poem reflects the parallelism in Bronte's characterization between the second and third generations. The parallel is between Heathcliff and Hareton. They were being treated as boys of lower status when they were really not. Heathcliff was brought into the Earnshaw family with equality but after Mr. Earnshaw's death, Hindley took that privilege away. Hareton, the actual owner of Wuthering Heights, lost this status when Hindley died and Heathcliff took over Wuthering Heights. The speaker of the poem, Nelly compares the two by pointing out their wrongful treatments and their lack of education. Similarly to the Lintons showing "antipathy" to Heathcliff, Young Cathy showed "antipathy" to Hareton. Both Heathcliff and Hareton went through much of the same harsh treatment of being of lower status and uneducated. The irony in this parallel is that although Heathcliff went through this mental and physical abuse himself, he made Hareton go through the same abuse.
Whatever souls are made of,
Heathcliff’s and Catherine’s are the same;
He was lying from morning till evening
On a bank of heath in the middle of the moors,
With bees humming dreamily about the bloom,
And the larks singing high up overhead,
And the blues sky and bright sun
Shining steadily and cloudlessly.
He wanted all to line in an ecstasy of peace;
He said her heaven would be drunk,
And he could not breath in it.
From the first half of the poem, consisting of the first center stanza to before the second center stanza, juxtoposes the second half of the poem. In Wuthering Heights, Bronte chooses to parallel the characters and storylines, from the second generation to the third generation. But she creates differentiations to offset the two generations. The first half represents the second generation, while the last half represents the third generation, all of which are involved in conflicting relationships. Catherine's soulmate is Heathcliff but marries Edgar, her soul's antithesis; however, Cathy, Catherine's daughter, likes Linton, who is her complete opposite. Bronte chooses to parallel her characters and their situations, but to maintain interest, she creates differences such as these to fend of rendundancies.
