The Downsides of "Passion"

I have a confession to make: Way back in seventh grade, I was a fan of a certain vampire romance book series. Within this book series (which will remain unnamed), the lovesick, damsel in distress protagonist had a favorite book by the name of Wuthering Heights. Being an enthusiastic 13 year old who liked to take on challenging reads, I decided that I, too, would read Emily Bronte’s famous Victorian romance. I mostly just wanted the book to be over when I read it due to the lack of modern day English and the extraordinarily dry storytelling, but none of the content overwhelmingly alarmed me at the time of this initial read. However, when it came time to read Wuthering Heights in AP English I experienced a good amount of face palming and shaking of the head in response to the behavior of the characters. The “romance” of Heathcliff and Catherine is clearly nothing more than unhealthy mutual obsession and what comes very close to an abusive relationship upon a more mature reading of the text. While very few real life people are personalities as extreme as Heathcliff and Cathy, an overwhelmingly high amount of relationships in the United States are built on similarly abusive and out of control relationships such as Hatherine. 

While both Cathy and Heathcliff claim to love the other, many of their actions are taken solely to hurt the other in some way. Heathcliff marries Isabella, Edgar’s sister, simply so that he could mistreat her and get back at Catherine’s husband. He ruins any chance at happiness that Cathy and Edgar could have by constantly interfering in their lives, rather than taking satisfaction in knowing that the “love of his life” was living a fulfilling life. The couple also refuses to acknowledge themselves as a "couple" at all; instead, they declare themselves to essentially be the same person, so in love that they are indecipherable from the other. Of course, it is terribly unhealthy to be lacking in a certain amount of autonomy from your partner. Relationships that are consuming of all facets of someone’s life are anything but good news, and they can lead to something more: both mentally and physically abusive relationships.

According to a 2011 poll done by Glamour magazine, a whopping 29% of women surveyed in the United States said that they had been in an abusive relationship, while nearly 60% of women had experienced some kind of abuse. 94% of those women experienced emotional abuse, which I would say Cathy dealt with to a degree from Heathcliff. By staying in her life through unwanted and less than decent ways despite Cathy’s marriage to Edgar, he basically guarantees her a life of misery and unhappiness. Catherine is ultimately driven close to insane and dies after childbirth, never able to have a truly enjoyable life due to the man that she loved. And, sadly enough, love was given as the number one reason that women stayed with their abusive partners in the Glamour survey. 23% of the women who had experienced abuse were the victims of physical assault such as being slapped or punched. While it is only implied, the reader can conclude that Isabella Linton most likely suffered a more physical form of abuse from Heathcliff, her husband. Having married her solely to get back at Cathy and Edgar, he treats her awfully, keeping her confined and beaten down in dreary Wuthering Heights. She wants desperately to leave and make some sort of contact with Nelly and the outside world, but Heathcliff reminds her of her marriage vows and insists that she must stay. Considering that he has no problem hanging Isabella’s dog before they take off to elope, it is rather safe to assume that she was forced to deal with more brutality than just Heathcliff’s bad attitude. Far too many women now and then have been trapped in abusive relationships, and I wonder how much portrayals of “love” such as that in Wuthering Heights contribute to unhealthy relationships being perpetuated and accepted in society. Especially when the famous undead teen couple in the aforementioned vampire books idolize such a relationship, causing young people to wish to emulate these “passionate” relationships as well. We need more models of healthy, balanced relationships, although I suppose those aren’t nearly as compelling to write about as psychopaths in love.