Pride and Prejudice
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Which book did you enjoy more P&P or Wuthering Heights?
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BookHeroin
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Jan 09, 2015 06:01PM
Wuthering Heights for sure! one of my all time favourite. Pride and Prejudice is an amazing novel as well. I think they are different, and each is a treasure on its own.
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Pride and Prejudice, definitely. I love Elizabeth Bennet--and Mr. Darcy does grow on one. Kathy and Heathcliff? They're both jerks and they deserved one another.
I loved Wuthering heights - it's so alive, has a lot of feelings, passion, jealousy, love, hate... Pride and prejudice didn't have it for me.
Lori wrote: "Pride and Prejudice, definitely. I love Elizabeth Bennet--and Mr. Darcy does grow on one. Kathy and Heathcliff? They're both jerks and they deserved one another."Couldn't agree more!
My goodness, I prefer Wuthering Heights. But I do think it's most purely a question of taste.
They are different, but both great books in their own way. I would recommend both as great classics and must read romances.
P & P every time. I found Wuthering Heights too frightening to read all the way through, although I have seen the film.
Can they really be compared? Both the novels belonged to almost two different generations so even the tastes of the readers must have been different.Anyways for me it's always P&P.It always makes me fell good and happy.
On the other hand even though WH is a great novel but like it is always described that it is a story set in hell and only the character's names are human!
And talking about the strong protagonists, who would really deny that Elizabeth Bennet is a much more stronger character than Cathy. She was ready to choose love over society, status and money thus if she was their in Cathy's place, she might have been saved from all the horrible pain and trouble Cathy had to face.
Kayla wrote: "Neither. In fact, I couldn't stand either book for some reason, which has made other readers look at me with surprise and never listen to me again when I talk about books, thinking I don't know wha..."Reading tastes are what they are -- I've always Loved Pride and Prejudice, but understand it isn't for everyone (*too mannered, too chick-lit, many unlikable characters), but never really warmed to Wuthering Heights (brutal anti-heros were never really my thing - Heathcliff is much more romantic **before** you read the book)
Cemre wrote: "I don't think that Elizabeth would marry with Heathcliff, not caring about his poverty. Call it sense or lack of emotion, but Austen's characters are way more pragmatic than that. Even the lowest "..."There is no lack of emotion in Austen, but reading 'Sense and Sensibility' makes clear that there was a cultural pressure to contain emotion. As Diya says, Austen and Bronte are from different eras; the romantic period in English literature influenced Bronte more, and her upbringing was probably very different as well. I would like to read the Brontes' bios; my impression is that they were eccentric.
I love it that this discussion is still going on... Both are great novels but as one person commented, different types. Pride and Prejudice is the best of a genre. Wuthering Heights is raw, powerful - unique. I appreciate Pride and Prejudice. I am in awe of Wuthering Heights.
Cemre wrote: "I don't think that Elizabeth would marry with Heathcliff, not caring about his poverty. Call it sense or lack of emotion, but Austen's characters are way more pragmatic than that. Even the lowest "..."I agree. Pragmatic Lizzy would not have defied conventions and married someone like Heathcliff. She was always going to marry who she was "supposed to" marry. An "ideal" guy like Mr. Darcy. She likely would have shunned Heathcliff like all of the other people from her society also would have.
If I remember correctly, didn't Cathy want to marry Linton (mainly for his money and social status) and possibly keep Heathcliff "on the side"? I don't know if I would say that Lizzie Bennet is a "stronger" character than Cathy. Lizzie Bennet is more "respectable and proper", I guess....but stronger? I don't know. I also think Cathy is far more interesting.
Mochaspresso wrote: "Cemre wrote: "I don't think that Elizabeth would marry with Heathcliff, not caring about his poverty. Call it sense or lack of emotion, but Austen's characters are way more pragmatic than that. Eve..."This has always seemed to me a pointless comparison because the two novels are very different eras and genres and I don't get why we can't like both equally without judging one against the other, or WH characters against P&P characters. To me, that's very anachronistic and culture-bound. Both are great novels.
Kallie wrote: "This has always seemed to me a pointless comparison because the two novels are very different eras and genres and I don't get why we can't like both equally without judging one against the other, or WH characters against P&P characters. To me, that's very anachronistic and culture-bound. Both are great novels. "
The title of the thread is "Which book did you enjoy more"? How does one answer that question honestly without comparing the two novels? Of course the question is anachronistic, given that the two books are from different eras and of course the responses will be reflective of the various cultural mores of the thread's participants. That doesn't stop people from having a preference and sharing them. Not everyone likes them equally and that's fine. (Or at least, it should be.) It's also fine that some people do like them equally.
Speaking for me, I also like both books, but as time has passed, I've developed a preference for the Bronte's writing over Austen. I think their characters are more interesting, dynamic and layered. I also think that their writing contains more passion and emotion. They even utilize setting to evoke certain moods in their writing. Austen reminds me of modern chick-lit. (That is not a slight. I love and have a healthy regard for the chick-lit genre). I realize that some people probably won't like me putting Jane Austen and Chick lit in the same sentence, but I think it fits. It's light and it's witty and it's satirical. That's cool but for me, while I like authors like Sophie Kinsella immensely, there is also something about Gillian Flynn's writing and characters (and their darkness) that I find a little more interesting.
Mochaspresso wrote: "I realize that some people probably won't like me putting Jane Austen and Chick lit in the same sentence, but I think it fits. It's light and it's witty and it's satirical. ..."I don't care what you call it though I couldn't agree less. My point is that some readers who are all for WH are not content with their preference but must judge the Austen characters as 'conventional' and 'light' and people all for P&P judge WH's characters as 'awful people.' It really reminds me at times of a people who judge a book as 'bourgeois' and therefore unworthy of serious status, or 'too dark,' and therefore mean-spirited. Preferring one book over another is natural, but those in favor of one don't have to trivialize the other as though they are authorities of some sort. The skill in writing and characterization are what matter, and both novels are masterpieces in that regard. Calling P&P chick lit is not much different than calling WH gothic melodrama. Neither genre applies and I seriously doubt that you can name one example of chick lit that will survive and still be relevant to many for the next 200 plus years.
I've read Pride and Prejudice countless times and Wuthering Heights only once. WH was just too dark. I hated Heathcliff and Cathy. Maybe having to read it for school clouded my enjoyment but I don't think so. I had no issue with Shakespeare, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Goldberg, Hemingway, Steinbeck or anybody else I read back then Although Jane Eyre was written by Charlotte Bronte I've read it countless times as well. At the end of it all I suppose I'm just a sucker for a happy ending.
Kallie wrote: "Mochaspresso wrote: "I realize that some people probably won't like me putting Jane Austen and Chick lit in the same sentence, but I think it fits. It's light and it's witty and it's satirical. ....."Those labels only matter if you think that it is some kind of slight and decide to take offense. WH actually is gothic melodrama, imo. I also thought Heathcliff and Cathy were awful people. It's true, imo. I don't view that as something that I should be inclined to take offense to. I'm sorry if you think that label trivializes the story. I don't happen to think that is the case.
Asking me to name modern chick lit that will last for 200 years is asking me to predict the future. I don't know what aspects of our current society that people 200 years from now will be curious about. Perhaps it could be books that pertain to family dynamics like "The Joy Luck Club". Perhaps it could be books about women and their perceptions of sexuality in popular culture like "Sex and the City". Perhaps it could be books about minority experiences like "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" or "The Secret Life of Bees". "The Joy Luck Club also falls under this category. Maybe "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" series for perspectives on teen girls or "My Sister's Keeper" for perspectives on designer babies and how illness affects a family. I don't really know...just like I suspect that Miss Austen's and Miss Bronte's critics didn't know that people would still be reading those books 200 years later.
Literature has changed. We live in a different technological age and writing serves different purposes than it did 200 years ago. "The Future of Us" might become a classic 200 years from now simply because it was one of the first contemporary ya books to meaningfully incorporate Facebook into it's plot.
If literature really served different purposes than it did 200 years ago, people would not still be enjoying 200 year old literature would they? I didn't ask you to name chick lit that would last 200 years. I asked if you seriously believe that any of the titles you name here would be read for as long as P&P or WH or Jane Eyre, etc. Those are great books. None of the titles you mention are great books though some are good. If you really think they might be as lasting, we see things very differently and that's about all one can say.
cemre wrote:"I don't think that Elizabeth would marry with Heathcliff, not caring about his poverty. Call it sense or lack of emotion, but Austen's characters are way more pragmatic than that. Even the lowest "pretty girl" who run away with men isn't low enough to even think about Heathcliff. Heathcliff is the definition of lowness (in every sense of the word.)"Mochaspresso wrote: "I agree. Pragmatic Lizzy would not have defied conventions and married someone like Heathcliff. She was always going to marry who she was "supposed to" marry. An "ideal" guy like Mr. Darcy. She likely would have shunned Heathcliff like all of the other people from her society also would have."
It seems to me that Lizzy wouldn't have married Heathcliff because he was a relatively cruel, ruthless, disturbed, and profoundly warped human being, first and most of all. His 'lowness' was of consciousness, again first and most of all in my opinion. He eventually made himself relatively wealthy, but never in mind or heart. He offered nothing wholesome, and attracted nothing wholesome to himself in return. To me Heathcliff stands as a sad monument to lost and wasted human potential. Any woman to marry Heathcliff would have been destined for very painful life lessons at a minimum.
I can understand that there are people who, for their own reasons, prefer Emily Bronte's world or writing to Jane Austen's. But Heathcliff represented self-loathing turned outward and made into psychopathy.
cemre wrote: "This discussion reminds me of that excellent line from Mock the Week: "What's your opinion on queers and Jews Mr. Darcy?" LOL ....Heathcliff wouldn't even be a question, they wouldn't even know enough of him to know that he's a psycopath."On the contrary, had Lizzie (whom I assume that you meant by "they") lived near enough to have ever met or even heard about the man, she would have known more than enough to recognize how depraved he was. After all, he was hardly subtle in or about it.
Whatever contempt for Lizzie that you may hold at least as implied by your posts, why use Heathcliff of all people to give it shape?
cemre wrote: "Ok, so she wouldn't marry any poor guy. (I use Heathcliff because this is the discussion of these two books ?)Well I wouldn't dispute you on that-- I don't think that Lizzie would have married a poor guy either. I don't judge her for that one way or another (though for that matter, I wouldn't have judged her one way or another if she had married a poor guy). But I'm a little confused now, because my impression from memory is that Heathcliff became relatively wealthy before returning to the Wuthering Heights environs. Am I just not remembering that correctly?
Well those are different issues (ie, nouveau riche & ancestry), and it seems debatable to me whether Lizzie would have married a guy in such circumstances assuming that she loved him. Actually, there was a bit of debate on just these topics in another thread (ie, "How Can Anyone Like This Piece Of Crap?"). Personally, I sense that there is more depth to Lizzie, and more room within her for expansive self-reflection and even enlightenment, than perhaps some who may see her more as an incurable snob. But certainly it's debatable, as the text of Pride And Prejudice never makes such matters explicitly clear, at least in my reading of it.Concerning Heathcliff, my admittedly vague and perhaps mistaken recollection is that he became wealthy through successful gambling. But I just don't know.
Cemre wrote: "I think my argument is less about Lizzie and more about Austen. I don't question her talent but ı do question her values. I consider her to be a hypocrite. When aristocracy shuns bourgeois, that's ..."Austen was a semi-invalid who suffered from, as I recall, Addison's disease. Her environment consisted mostly of home and family and her family were not especially prosperous though middle class. Where does condemnation of farmers and illegitimate children come into this? She wrote about the world she lived in and her values were not in the least hypocritical, in fact her novels often exposed hypocrisy. You mentioned in one comment that you had not read 'Persuasion.' 'Mansfield Park' is also a novel that contradicts everything you are saying about Austen. Your comments and diatribes are themselves more consistent with prejudice and don't reflect much familiarity with Austen, certainly not enough to question her values and call her a hypocrite.
Cemre wrote: "Why does Austen mock Miss Bates ? What's the purpose of this ? What she criticizes with this ? Her irony is rarely directed at authority figures."Lady Catherine De Bourgh is an authority figure and certainly comes in for her share of irony, probably more than any other character in that book. The Bingley sisters are snobby and entitled and also satirized, as are the silly Bennett sisters. Emma is also satirized as meddlesome and entitled until the man she most admires criticizes her behavior. In Mansfield Park, the character with sense and values is clearly Fanny Price, the poor cousin (her wealthy cousins are the ones satirized). In fact, no characters in any Austen novel are presented as ideal. The most likable characters learn lessons in attitude and behavior. Those who will learn nothing, as Austen makes clear, are quite often those in authority.
There has been several posts since my last visit; so I'll try to address some specific points brought up by Cemre, but also will just make a more general comment.Jane Austen wrote stories in which people often looked up to people who were members of higher classes, and down upon people who were members of lower classes. In those same stories, various members of all different classes were depicted as wise and foolish, brave and cowardly, kind and cruel, enchanting and repulsive, as saints and scoundrels, heroes and villains, as rising and falling to challenges, as profound and ridiculous. She depicted various members of both sexes in the same terms. She depicted life as she saw it.
She created Emma Woodhouses who as members of the gentry looked down upon a farmer, and Mr. Knightlys who as members of the gentry expressed respect and admiration for that same farmer. She made fun of a hyper-garrulous Miss Bates while also lauding her heart of gold-- she was prone to mocking various personality traits, but never qualities of the heart. She laughed at a lot of human behavior and endeavor, but rarely or ever with real mean-spiritedness. Indeed, for me anyway, the overall impression that her writing gives is that of an abiding affection for life and people and beingness despite the myriad imperfections. She didn't dwell upon 'guilt and misery' (her own words) any longer than she needed to: she meted out 'punishments' to her fools and foils with a relatively gentle hand. Her world was one of psychological liveliness within very oppressive customs and structures, in which she emphasized the personal quest for self-honesty and self-improvement regardless of social standing or situations or injustices or whatever else the case may be.
It seems to me that there are some readers who will not excuse Jane Austen for creating mirrors of her own society and culture, rather than future ones that would reject basic aspects of how hers was organized. And that some readers will not excuse Jane Austen for not penning her stories with a clenched fist. After all, how can criticism be contained within something that isn't shouted? Or a point exist within something that isn't vehemently propounded?
I accept Jane Austen on her own terms, as a woman who lived approximately from the time of the American Revolution to the final defeat of Bonaparte, an uneducated Parson's daughter from a rural English town who, between ongoing domestic duties and commitments, composed stories that have accumulated extraordinary critical and popular acclaim over the past two-hundred years and counting.
kellyjane wrote: "It seems to me that Lizzy wouldn't have married Heathcliff because he was a relatively cruel, ruthless, disturbed, and profoundly warped human being, first and most of all. His 'lowness' was of consciousness, again first and most of all in my opinion. He eventually made himself relatively wealthy, but never in mind or heart. He offered nothing wholesome, and attracted nothing wholesome to himself in return. To me Heathcliff stands as a sad monument to lost and wasted human potential. Any woman to marry Heathcliff would have been destined for very painful life lessons at a minimum.I can understand that there are people who, for their own reasons, prefer Emily Bronte's world or writing to Jane Austen's. But Heathcliff represented self-loathing turned outward and made into psychopathy.
She would never even have gotten the chance to get to know those things about him. Heathcliff would not have been accepted in her society circles and the gossip about him and his background would have reached her far before he ever did. Heathcliff could have been a veritable saint and as angelic a soul as they come and he still would have never in a million years been a viable contender for Lizzie.
I'm not sure that I buy that mochaespresso. English society at that time may have been organized along class lines and etc, but people and news about people were not hermetically sealed one from another.And as you and I have discussed in another thread, I don't necessarily share your conjecture of the extent of Lizzie's 'narrow-mindedness' either. Of course we could debate again in greater detail whether a hypothetical 'saintly Heathcliff' could have captured Lizzie's heart if such and such circumstances were this or that-- but in general, your apparently disparaging view of Lizzie's character has never really rung true for me.
In my last comment I compared Lizzie and Cathy's characters. But after reading some of Cemre's posts I can say on a positive side cathy's character is more raw and human, like a selfish sort of human and not really like those self sacrificing and totally selfless ones.Flaw of lizzie's character is that she tends to think too great of herself. she would readily criticize every creature on this planet in a negative way and think that she is always correct. And her father and sister calling her witty all the time acts as a catalyst to this flaw of hers!
kellyjane wrote: "I'm not sure that I buy that mochaespresso. English society at that time may have been organized along class lines and etc, but people and news about people were not hermetically sealed one from a..."I like Lizzie. I don't think she is perfect, though. I realized that she has some flaws. I don't mean for this to come across as disparaging. Lizzie had a penchant for gossip. That was established in the novel. She also had an established penchant for listening to erroneous gossip and believing it. Someone with Heathcliff's "pedigree" would not have been accepted in that society regardless of his moral character and regardless of how wealthy he now was. Lizzie would never have given herself the chance to get to know what kind of man Heathcliff had become. The gossip about Heathcliff would have reached her and she would have believed it. She almost didn't give herself the chance to know what kind of man Darcy was. ("Pride and Prejudice"?) Lizzie was not a rebel type that was willing to defy all conventions for love. She was always going to marry someone "suitable" and even if Heathcliff had been of decent moral character, he still would not have been perceived as "suitable" for her in that society.
All this speculation about how Elizabeth Bennett would see and react to Heathcliff is groundless without some real knowledge of the culture, times and upbringing of both, which differed greatly for both of their creators. Bronte came at least 100 years after Austen and lived in an era during which women had for some time written and read about their situation in society. Think how different our lives are from women born 100 years ago, let alone the 200 plus that Austen lived. In Mansfield Park, Fanny Price's mother did in fact marry a poor man, was estranged from her family, and lived as most poor women lived: bearing many children and caring for a home with little help (except from the older children) and very little money. Women did not have the options they do today: (birth control, careers, etc.) and for us to judge how they should behave by the culture we live in now seems to me pretty pointless.
mochaespresso wrote:"I like Lizzie. I don't think she is perfect, though. I realized that she has some flaws. I don't mean for this to come across as disparaging. Lizzie had a penchant for gossip. That was established in the novel. She also had an established penchant ..."I understand that you liked Lizzie in various ways, though you do think that she was a golddigger and do disrespect her for that. So it's not clear to me what you would even mean by 'pedigree'. Pedigree as in-- not wealthy enough in your opinion?-- perhaps not 'high born' enough in your opinion?-- or too neouveau riche and not 'old money'' enough in your opinion? It's just unclear what Heathcliff would have been lacking in your opinion so much so that Lizzie would never have consented even to meet or get to know him.
After all, he was wealthy enough to own property and comfortably maintain a household of four without being a laborer of any kind. That surely would have qualified him to be able to meet with people who would have had access to Lizzie's social circle (assuming that Lizzie herself would have refused any such possible encounter). Officers in the militia, the Aunt in Meryton, the friendly Sir Lucas-- it does not seem a stretch to consider it not only possible, but likely that Lizzie would have been able to get information about Heathcliff at least indirectly if not directly.
And we know that Heathcliff's maid (or former maid, I forget)-- we know that she told a complete stranger all about Heathcliff's life, activities, and depravities. That was Emily Bronte's plot device for telling the whole story.
Anyway, all of this is conjecture between us. And for me, if you'll allow me to say, here is the simple essence. You speak in superlatives, definitives, declaratives, seemingly as matters of fact. For example you wrote:
"She would never even have gotten the chance to get to know those things about him. Heathcliff would not have been accepted in her society circles and the gossip about him and his background would have reached her far before he ever did. Heathcliff could have been a veritable saint and as angelic a soul as they come and he still would have never in a million years been a viable contender for Lizzie."
But in truth, you don't know any of that, because you can't know any of that. So obviously the extremeness of the language says more about you than it can about Lizzie. Which is fine; we all have our perceptions, experience, thoughts, and reasons for it all. And I don't know just what drives yours, which is also fine. But I do know that when I read Pride And Prejudice, I don't perceive or experience the kind of disrespect for Lizzie that you have stated that you do. So when all of the conjectures are said and done, the difference between us seems to remain as is.
Cemre wrote: "So, you get the money and it ends ? Really ? Aren't there any other things that determine whether somebody is qualified as "enough"?"You seem to be assuming that Austen's society was static. Maybe it was no more static than ours; it's very difficult to view the culture we are grounded in objectively. If you read half of Mansfield Park, you know that Fanny Price's mother somehow met and fell in love with a poor man, despite her 'place' in society. The same was true of Jane Eyre's parents; their marriage was considered a misalliance and Jane the lowly offspring of that relationship.
That's what I just said. But Austen is not the arbiter and source of that attitude; she writes what the results of a woman marrying a poor man were likely to be in her society. Criticizing her for that is shooting the messenger and rather like saying Raymond Chandler shouldn't have written about people behaving violently in his Philip Marlowe detective stories.
Cemre wrote: "So, you get the money and it ends ? Really ? Aren't there any other things that determine whether somebody is qualified as "enough"?"Jane Austen lived at a time when English society was undergoing a major transformation almost amounting to an upheaval. For centuries upon centuries before her lifetime, there was a relative handful of the population who possessed not only most of the wealth (via ownership of lands and properties), but also most of the the political and social power, and most of the information and education. The vast majority of the population labored long and hard on a daily basis for mere subsistence, allowing that handful of the population to collect 'rents' from them-- the latter therefore relatively free to cultivate their minds and manners and advantageous connections, etc. In a word, it was exploitation. And the noble and aristocratic classes (and to an extent the clergy) really did seem 'superior' to many within the masses: they had every possible advantage, and little if any of the oppression suffered by the beleaguered, uneducated, disempowered many.
So the idea of 'superiority' became ingrained within English society and culture through several centuries. Beginning around the Bubonic Plague in the mid-14th century, the seeds of what would eventually become an English middle class were sowed. But the actual germination of those seeds really didn't occur on a wide scale until the Industrial Revolution, which began approximately 1750, a mere 25 years before Jane Austen was born. And at around the same time, actually a year after Jane Austen's birth, the Americans declared independence from England. Suddenly English society was coping with powerful economic and political engines of globally sweeping change, both of these catalysts still in their relative infancies, but both combining to force a major transformation of life as the English population had always known it. In essence, a widespread middle class was emerging in England-- increasingly more merchants were amassing greater fortunes and eventually greater political and social power along with them; and they were providing new labor opportunities for a greater portion of the population (along with the educational opportunities and etc that their wages could help them buy).
But how was this emerging new class going to fit into the calcified class system of traditional England?
Anyway, it was at the relatively early stages of this whole transformation process that Jane Austen was born. It was a somewhat more fluid time for 'social rising' than previous decades and centuries had known; but English society, and especially English cultural customs and ideas, were still dominated by an ingrained outlook of 'superiority/inferiority' as belonging to the various classes. The gentry class (landholders that were not aristocrats, clergy, military officers, and lawyers, which eventually were absorbed into the middle class), had long adopted the idea of superiority relative merchants and farmers and servants, just as the nobility and aristocrats had always done relative to them-- it was a way of demarcating itself within the whole. They didn't have to labor long and hard for their wealth in the manner that the lower classes did for their mere subsistence, which was a distinguishing mark of their 'superiority'. But ... things were in flux, things were changing.
So in this context, if a hypothetical Heathcliff became a property owner who was independently wealthy and didn't have to labor for it, then yes, I believe that he could have gained social access to at least certain members of the gentry class. Again, things generally were in flux socially at the time-- things were not as clearly or precisely defined as they had previously been.
I know that I offered quite a bit of information in response to a simple question on your part. And undoubtedly there are people who could give a far better picture than I can. But such as it is, I'm not seeing a reason on the face of it to assert that Heathcliff would have had no possibility at all of meeting up with Elizabeth Bennett (or at least someone with whom Elizabeth confided).
kellyjane wrote: "Cemre wrote: "Jane Austen lived at a time when English societ..."Thanks for taking the time to share what you have researched about that era, Kellyjane. Cultural/historical research is a very important part of studying period literature, and coming to informed opinions rather than commenting as a consumer.
Kallie wrote: "Cultural/historical research is a very important part of studying period literature, and coming to informed opinions rather than commenting as a consumer."Thanks Kallie. And by the way, I love that phrase-- it speaks volumes quite efficiently. Kudos.
It's not about agreeing so much as offering an argument (sharing knowledge) that engages the person you do disagree with rather than flatly contradicting what they've written as though what they've written does not matter. The latter is very much the reaction of a consumer who says: "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like."
kellyjane wrote: " mochaespresso wrote:I like Lizzie. I don't think she is perfect, though. I realized that she has some flaws. I don't mean for this to come across as disparaging. Lizzie had a penchant for gossip...."I will assume that we've all probably taken at least some English history in school at some point. Merely having money is not enough within that society. Family name and reputation (neither of which Heathcliff had) also carry a great deal of weight in that society. I also suspect racism and classism may also come in to play. Heathcliff was not "white", he was not highborn, he had no family name and he was nouveau riche of questionable means (...exactly how and where he earned his fortune was never discerned.) Heathcliff was treated as an outsider in the Moors and he would have been an outsider in Austen's English countryside.
Quite frankly, Austen's society seems rather snobby to me. I know people don't like it when I use modern terms and that it come across as speaking ill of this book, but the behavior was there on the page in the novel in black and white.
What do you expect Austen to have written about other than the society in which she lived? She satirizes all sorts of snobbery and mean-spirited, materialistic behavior in every one of her books. And what does Heathcliff have to do with Austen anyway?
If anything, Austen was protesting the strict and "snobby" conventions of her society in a subtle, clever and humorous way.
Kallie wrote: "What do you expect Austen to have written about other than the society in which she lived? She satirizes all sorts of snobbery and mean-spirited, materialistic behavior in every one of her books. ..."I understand that Austen is writing about and satirizing what she knows. I know it often sounds like I'm knocking her, but I honestly do like Pride and Prejudice. I just like Wuthering Heights more. (Which is the original question asked in the thread title.)
As for Heathcliff's relevance to Austen, the thread's title is "Which did you enjoy more P&P or Wuthering Heights?". Heathcliff's name was raised because he's the main character of Wuthering Heights. Someone commented that Lizzie would not have married someone like Heathcliff and I agreed. Another person commented that she wouldn't have married him because he was an awful character and I commented that his character wouldn't have mattered either way. Given his background, he wouldn't have been a serious contender for her affections.
Mochaspresso wrote: "Kallie wrote: "What do you expect Austen to have written about other than the society in which she lived? She satirizes all sorts of snobbery and mean-spirited, materialistic behavior in every one ..."So what? This speculation is meaningless. And having "some English history in school at some point" doesn't actually mean knowing Austen's era and its mores as well as Kellyjane clearly does. It bothers me that she went to some trouble to share what she knows and that what she said was ignored and dismissed. Few in this discussion have offered so much in terms of knowledge, at least not lately.
mochaspresso wrote: "I will assume that we've all probably taken at least some English history in school at some point. Merely having money is not enough within that society. Family name and reputation (neither of which Heathcliff had) also carry a great deal of weight in that society. I also suspect racism and classism may also come in to play. Heathcliff was not "white", he was not highborn, he had no family name and he was nouveau riche of questionable means (...exactly how and where he earned his fortune was never discerned.) Heathcliff was treated as an outsider in the Moors and he would have been an outsider in Austen's English countryside."He may have been considered and treated as an outsider especially at first, but it doesn't mean that people wouldn't have been interested in knowing more about him. Nor in all likelihood would all members of the gentry have been identically and uniformly unwilling to encounter or even hear anything spoken about him. He was in fact an independently wealthy property owner, which almost certainly would have aroused the attention and interest of some of the people in the area. A servant of his had no qualms about detailing his activities and depravities to a complete stranger. The countryside was crawling with military regulars and officers as well as a community full of denizens for whom gossip was practically a religion. It just seems to me fairly unrealistic to declare that there was no possible way that Lizzie Bennett would ever have gotten to know anything about Heathcliff's personality or even his existence in the hypothetical that we've been discussing.
I could create more specific scenarios of how such an awareness of him could have realistically come to pass for Lizzie-- but what modest interest value this topic may originally have had for me has run it's course by now. When I came into the discussion, it was to point out the obvious that Lizzie wouldn't have married Heathcliff because he was cruel, vile, and deranged. The responses immediately were that she would never have known that about him, because he would have been too beneath her notice for her ever to have become aware of anything about him. And in my opinion, that's unlikely all things considered. So I'll have to agree to disagree I guess.
"Quite frankly, Austen's society seems rather snobby to me. I know people don't like it when I use modern terms and that it come across as speaking ill of this book, but the behavior was there on the page in the novel in black and white."
Many people in the gentry undoubtedly were snobby relative to members of classes that they deemed beneath their own class. There are some characters in various Jane Austen novels who as members of the gentry didn't seem to embrace the 'superiority' ethos of the era, but certainly many of them did to various degrees. Jane Austen wrote about life as she saw it, which included the snobbiness and also the individual variations regarding that and many other personal/cultural themes.
Anyway, I yield this part of the discussion to any who may be interested in carrying it further.
cemre wrote: "I don't understand why Austen fans get so angry when ı say that her and her characters are pragmatist. Like, is it a bad thing ? That's what Austen is about. If you don't like pragmatism ..."For my part, I have no problem at all with your description that many of Jane Austen's leading characters were pragmatists. My only two points in this segment of the overall conversation have been, first, that Lizzy wouldn't have married Heathcliff because of his depravities, and second, that she may well have gotten to know about those depravities had Heathcliff hypothetically lived in her environs.
The first point seems to have gone unchallenged-- no one has suggested that Lizzy might have fallen for Heathcliff due to his personal charms; so probably it warrants no further focus. You and mochaspresso have argued that Lizzy would never have known anything about Heathcliff in the first place, which I question.
Even in Jane Austen's writings there are examples of 'middle class social climbing'. For instance, in Emma, the Coles, a newly middle class merchant family, decide to host a dinner party to which local members of the gentry class are invited. Neither the Westons nor Mr. Knightly have the slightest qualms about accepting the invitation (nor would Mr. Elton have had any issue had he been available, as he was already accustomed to dining regularly with the Coles, much to Emma's private censure). It was only Emma that felt offended by the prospect-- in her mind, it was entirely up to members of her class to determine whether and upon what terms there was to be any social intercourse between the 'upstart' merchants and her own gentry class. Of course the whole scene conveyed much more than just the surface elements of snobbishness about sharing companionship. Emma's rigid ideas were contradicted by her natural feelings--she wanted to go to the gathering; she knew that it would be fun to attend it; and so she let herself be persuaded with little resistance, preferring the liveliness of communion with friends and neighbors to the 'solitary grandeur' that would have attended her rigid class ideas. In my view there's even more being conveyed by that scene, which I think is typical of Austen: beneath the formal surfaces of her scenes there is a great deal of psychological and social content to appreciate.
And I can't agree with you that there are no ideals or goals presented by Austen except practical concerns such as marriage or basic sustenance. Again, these are merely the surface elements of her plots. Jane Austen championed the quest and endeavor for self-improvement, regardless of social circumstances, first and most of all. She wrote to the individual about the individual, basically proposing that no matter how much or little one might be able to change the flaws of their society, they could recognize their own personal shortcomings and strive to make changes for the better-- which she believed would lead individuals to happier and better lives than they otherwise would get to experience. She criticized her own society (albeit with irony and humor), but aimed at the individual's power to improve him- or herself regardless of social circumstances by virtue of intention and effort. Which in my view is not only a goal and ideal, but a universal one which she happened to dramatize with an extraordinarily far-reaching voice.
Anyway, I know that there are other wavelengths to appreciate besides those that Jane Austen brought to life. You speak eloquently for kinds of experiences and 'slices of life' that Jane Austen never focused on. Your outlook on Wuthering Heights for example is worth reading in my opinion, as you find angles of understanding and appreciation that help enrich my own.
Wuthering Heights
Cemre, I feel that you oversimplify JA. To me, both WH and P&P are masterpieces (or mistresspieces). Why the insistence on arguing that one novel's sensibility is superior to the other's? In many locales, today's women have freedoms unimaginable to the women of Austen's and (100 years later) Bronte's eras. We can be practical, or we can be wild, or in our lifetimes we can be both. The assumption that one can fairly judge and dismiss one or another sensibility makes no more sense to me than oversimplifying, judging and dismissing people I meet who are unlike myself because I don't see life from their point of view. If WH were pronounced 'insanely' popular on the basis of its characters not being practical enough to earn respect, I would defend WH. In fact, what I defend against is the very idea that any novel has to express a particular sensibility. You might as well say that Dickens shouldn't write such twisty plots with so many characters, or that Emily Dickinson's poetry too frequently alludes to death. Individuals write about their worlds; how well they write matters far more than what they write.
@ cemreIt might surprise you to know that Jane Austen, the person, probably was not the snob that is evidenced in many characters throughout her written works. Whenever she visited her wealthy older brother in Kent, for example, apparently she spent a good bit of time with one of the servants in congenial conversation about books and other topics-- she felt more comfortable with her company than that of her sister-in-law, who was quite 'snobbish' in normative, class-conscious ways for that time period (actually there are a number of related things that could be conjectured about Jane Austen's discomfort vis-a-vis her wealthy relatives living in Kent). And in Jane Austen's will, she bequeathed all of her meager wealth and possessions to her sister Cassandra, except for a small sum to the former servant of one of her other brothers, whom the family then had locate after Jane had died. Her letters to her sister Cassandra do evidence a bit of snarkiness and carping here and there, but probably not more than many of us indulge in our own lives with our own confidants, and not on the basis of social class. If anything, she may implicitly come across as a bit of an ''intellectual snob'-- that is, she was a very intelligent woman, and perhaps seemed a little quick in making fun of what struck her as ridiculous in others. Then again, this seemed her primary coping mechanism in life-- she dissected and laughed about things that perhaps would have elicited growls and howls in other kinds of personalities.
As far as understanding Jane Austen's popularity is concerned, it might be one of those things that only makes sense if you share the sentiment. You can read through the reviews of 'P&P' here at Goodreads-- and of the 36,000-plus people who have offered their comments, one can read pages and pages of ringing endorsements filled with enthusiastic, detailed commentary. You can google her name and read similarly enthusiastic and detailed essays and commentary from illustrious authors, critics, personages, and academicians spanning the last two-hundred years. You can go to Amazon and find book after book published about the topic. But at the end of the day, it's still a personal matter.
I have something of the same experience with Emily and Charlotte Bronte as you have with Jane Austen: very little from Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, or Villette spoke to or moved me in a memorable way. Actually the only 'Bronte novel' that did leave me wth an enthusiastic appreciation was The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall written by the forgotten sister Anne Bronte. I very much appreciate both Emily's and Charlotte's talent as writers; yet care only so much for the actual stories that they wrote. All the same, their legions of passionately admiring fans seem to speak for themselves. Such is life I suppose. Shrug.
cemre wrote: "Her letters that ı've read weren't about class issues. She made fun of a man's alcoholism and his problems with his wife, and in another letter she said that a woman couldn't give birth because she was looking at her husband during the birth, who was really ugly. These are nasty bits, they don't say anything about Austen as an author, but they're disturbing.The line from the letter about the alcoholic man and his problems with his wife-- it doesn't spring to mind for me. The other line that you referenced was about a neighbor who had suffered a miscarried or stillborn baby, and Jane Austen made a tasteless joke to her sister that perhaps it was caused by the woman catching an untimely glimpse of her ugly husband. Certainly no one can defend such an unfeeling comment. On the other hand, it was a single throwaway line in a confidential communication between sisters, not written for posterity, but just one piece of news in a letter reporting the latest local happenings and etc. Perhaps her motivation wasn't cruelty but just boredom and the desire to write a shocking thing within a mass of mundanities. In any case, I'm not sure that I've ever known a person who has never made a tasteless joke or unfeeling comment in a confidential communication. There are touching and lovely sentiments expressed in her letters as well-- and numerous firsthand accounts from family members, neighbors, friends and acquaintances expressing appreciation of Jane Austen for her personal decency and kindness.
@ cemreI completely agree with you that Emily Bronte was as acutely self-aware and brilliantly able to give it a voice in her way, as Jane Austen was on her way. And no, Emily Bronte wasn't writing as or about immature emotion-ridden girls either. I think that Emily Bronte was brilliant, but even more was special in her way as an artist who wrote from the heart. That she did it so well was her gift to life, her child and progeny, what came from her laboring of love. She wrote remarkably about possibilities in life that no one had been willing to show. And with compassion, which is what I think universalizes her work. I admire her integrity, her insistence that she present the picture that lived in her to form and cultivate and create. It was a turning point in literature in my opinion, but even more a fearless authenticity that helped shine a new light into her world and ours too. I credit her in so many ways, and appreciate the gift of her heartfelt picture.
I just wanted you to know that I see Emily Bronte as a great artist and a real voice in our shared conscousness.
When I wrote that thing in the other discussion, I was trying to understand how these two gifted women seemed to focus on life in different ways. So I wondered if one maybe gave primacy to reason and one gave primacy to feeling in orienting to their lives, even though both women had both. And maybe that whole way of looking at it really isn't on target, I don't know. I certainly can't vouch for it in any case.
The reason why I personally resonate more with Jane Austen than Emily Bronte is entirely about me, not about Emily Bronte, and definitely not because Emily lacked or needed to apologize for anything. I mean I could try to give a better picture of why I say this, but it's a personal preference basically.
And by the way, I appreciate all of those questions that you wrote about Heathcilff and the story, because they are new ways (for me) to look at those things. I can look for depths that get beyond my abhorrence of Heathcliff despite feeling compassion for him. Anyway, most of my participation in this discussion has felt more like 'defending' Jane Austen than commenting about Emily Bronte, just in the sense of representing what I appreciate about her work and its author.
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