Pride, Prejudice and Popcorn

by Carrie Sessarego

  Charlotte Riley (who is rumored on and off to be romantically involved with Tom Hardy) is a wonderful Cathy. She exhibits terrible behavior but also shows intense frustration at her life. She would be a great pirate queen and instead she has to do needlework. She’s smart and fiery and cranky and she can stand up to Tom Hardy even though he seems to be about eight feet tall. Their scenes together are mesmerizing.

  The casting involved some unintentional hilarity as Bane from The Dark Knight Rises faces off against Rick from The Walking Dead. The characters Bane and Heathcliff don’t seem to have much in common other than having both been played by Tom Hardy, but both characters are betrayed by a headstrong, mentally unstable woman, and poor Andrew Lincoln, who plays Edgar here and went on to play Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead, is stuck once again in a marriage to neurotic person with no common sense. He brings a lot of humanity to the part of Edgar. The poor man is so beleaguered that he looks as though The Walking Dead zombie apocalypse would come as a relief.

  This is an adaptation with a lot of sex. The novel draws a Victorian veil over the question of whether or not Heathcliff and Cathy ever sexually consummated their relationship. In this version, we see sex scenes between Heathcliff and Cathy, Cathy and Edgar (so awkward!), and Heathcliff and Isabella. One of the more bizarre changes to the story is that in this version, Heathcliff comes back from his mysterious hiding place on Cathy’s wedding day, and she meets him in secret, runs off to Edgar to consummate her marriage, meets Heathcliff again, and he’s all “you totally had sex!” (I’m paraphrasing, of course). And she’s all, “Duh, I’m totally married!” And he’s all, “Do you think I care about your stupid marriage to that guy from The Walking Dead? I hate that show!” And then they have a fight.

  In general, this production is kind of a mess. The director shuffled a lot of things around in an attempt to make the narrative more compelling (for instance, the first scene is of Linton being deposited against his will at Wuthering Heights), but it isn’t. And in a production that includes some amazing actors (Hardy, Lincoln and Riley), Hareton and Cathy 2.0 are utterly forgettable. Watch this version for Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley, and fast-forward through any moment that doesn’t include one or both of them.

  Final Scorecard

  Best Overall Version: I’m not thrilled with any of these versions, but if you could combine the first half of the 2009 version with the second half of the 1998 version, you’d have a damn fine adaptation.

  Best Heathcliff: Tom Hardy, with honorable mentions for Timothy Dalton, as a completely demonic Heathcliff, and for Robert Cavanaugh for bringing many levels of emotion to the character.

  Best Cathy: Orla Brady, with Charlotte Riley coming in a close second.

  Best Cathy 2.0 and Hareton: This one’s easy! Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Smart, from the 1998 version.

  Most Epically Insane Nervous Breakdown: In classic terms, Angela Scoular gesturing madly out the window and rolling her eyes around while she babbles about the churchyard. In modern terms, Katherine Heigl, rocking the mascara of madness and shrieking, “He wrote that for me! For me!” This scene may represent the high point of Heigl’s non-Grey’s Anatomy career.

  Worst Change: The efforts of films (specifically, the 1939, 1970, 2003 and 2011 versions) to make Wuthering Heights a tragic love story that plays out in one generation.

  Best Change: Casting a black actor as Heathcliff made the racial aspect of the book more vivid for American viewers. Although James Howson got most of the credit for the role, the majority of screen time goes to Solomon Glave as Young Heathcliff, and Solomon gives the part a great deal of quiet endurance, sensitivity and confusion.

  Most Unexpectedly Heartbreaking Moment: Isabella begs Heathcliff to love her in the 1939 version. I had no idea that after watching that many adaptations, I could still be touched.

  Most Unintentionally Hilarious Moment: In the 1970 version, Nelly has to drag an ailing Cathy away from the window with the help of Edgar and the Doctor. She tells Edgar that this has to do with Heathcliff, and Cathy wails, “No, no, no, don’t speak his name ever!” at which Nelly leans over to Edgar and whispers, in a loud stage whisper, “Heathcliff.” Maybe you had to be there, but I was on the floor with laughter despite the fact that this is clearly intended as a dramatic moment. Oh, Nelly, you incredibly unhelpful person—never change!

  Best Clothes: Once again, Hollywood completely fails to grasp the concept of the book it’s supposed to be adapting, but we don’t care because the clothes are so insane and so delightful. The best clothes award goes to the 1939 version. The tribble outfit! The nighties! That weird capelet thing! I love it all!

  Part IV: They All Lived Happily Ever After (Unless They Were in Wuthering Heights, in Which Case They All Died): Final Comparisons and Conclusions

  When I’ve told people about this project, they’ve had interesting and polarized reactions. Some people love Jane, some love Wuthering Heights, and some love Pride and Prejudice, but no one has told me that they love all three. Some people class all three authors together as “Those romantic English books.” A lot of people lump the Brontë books together as “those gothic novels.” Here are some things that set the novels apart from one another, and some things that draw them together.

  Tone: From Romantic Excess to Regency Sarcasm

  The obvious thing that links Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre together, particularly in contrast to Pride and Prejudice, is that of tone. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are marvelous examples of gothic literature. There are windy moors, and cloudy nights, and apparitions, and people frothing at the mouth. There are ruins and mysteries and everyone experiences and openly expresses deep emotions and passions, right down to gnashing their teeth and/or swooning. In contrast, the only person in Pride and Prejudice who openly expresses deep emotion in the melodramatic, hand-wringing style is Mrs. Bennet, and those around her do not admire this. There is just as much emotion in Pride and Prejudice as in Jane and Wuthering, but it is all happening under the surface. Think of it this way—the bats in the belfry at Thornhill and Wuthering Heights are both literal and metaphorical, while those in Pride and Prejudice are strictly metaphorical. It’s okay, Mrs. Bennet, you can lie down now.

  Everybody Needs Somebody Sometime: The Role of Family and Community

  Although the gothic tone of Jane and Wuthering is similar, the content could not be more different. Jane is a story about responsibility, ethics and self-respect. Jane is, in many ways, the queen of healthy boundaries (although it takes her a lot of practice). She does not destroy herself by wallowing in helpless rage against her constraints or her oppressors, and she does not lose her dreams or her sense of who she is in passive capitulation. She is willing to work hard and to serve others, whether as a governess to a rich-but-unloved child or as a teacher to impoverished children. But she is not willing to sacrifice herself utterly on the altar of other people’s desires and demands. Jane is empathetic and understanding of the moral failings of others, but she is rock solid in what she considers to be the moral choice for herself.

  Jane longs to have a place in society where she can be loved and respected by others, and she longs for some adventure and travel. After the adventure that is her romance with Rochester, she and Rochester settle into a quiet life. But it is hinted that they travel (we know for a fact that they go to London, which for Jane is doubtless a major expedition in and of itself), and we know that she develops a family, friends, and financial security and independence in addition to a romantic relationship with an equal.

  Jane has a deprived and cruel childhood, but she has a couple of things going for her that Heathcliff and Cathy do not. Jane is an orphan, but many characters step in to act as a mother to her. They are flawed, but the mere fact that they do, in fact, try gives Jane some stability and guidance. Her nurse, Bessie, is the only person at Aunt Reed’s to show her affection, and tries to steer Jane out of trouble. Miss Temple protects and vindicates Jane at Lowood, providing her with moral guidance
and bolstering Jane’s sense of self-respect. Helen is a friend, but as an older friend she also takes something of a mothering role, helping Jane learn to moderate her rage lest Jane become consumed by bitterness. Mrs. Fairfield cautions Jane about the ways of rich men. Even Jane’s birth mother makes an appearance, counseling Jane from the face of the moon during Jane’s most desperate hour. One thinks of Jane as alone in the world, but she encounters many people who extend friendship, care and guidance over the course of her largely solitary life.

  Heathcliff and Cathy have none of this. The closest Cathy comes to having a mentor is when she stays at the Linton’s and is influenced by their family to become more genteel. Cathy and Heathcliff’s father is unfair to the three siblings, encourages sibling rivalry, and fails utterly to discipline the children, although he beats them up a lot. Cathy’s mother dies when she is very young. Nelly is such an ineffectual guardian that some critics think Nelly may be the secret villain of the book. Cathy and Heathcliff are raised with virtually no guidance or support, at least, none that they are willing to listen to. They are as feral as a couple of street cats.

  Life Is What You Make of It: The Importance of Choice

  Other than tone, the biggest similarity between Jane and Wuthering is that both books deal with how much choice you have in the face of horrible circumstances. Jane is constantly faced with making choices. Because of her social and economic status, she tends to act reactively, not proactively. She is almost always under the power of someone else, but she is also always aware that she can choose how to respond to her circumstances. Should she rage, as she does when a child? Should she sacrifice herself and die, as Helen does? She chooses to be a decent, kind, honest person even when those around her are cruel, and she chooses to respect herself when those around her do not. This comes to a head when Rochester declares that it’s not his fault that he has lived a life of dissipation. It’s life’s fault, because he was saddled with an insane wife. And if Jane leaves him (following the discovery of Bertha, the mad wife), it will be her fault when he returns to his destructive and self-destructive ways, because he believes that the only way to respond to despair is to act in a hedonistic and self-destructive manner.

  Jane is terribly torn by this, but she is also blessed with enough common sense to know bullshit when she smells it. Here is her reply to Rochester, “Do as I do: trust in God, and yourself. Believe in Heaven. Hope to meet again there…I advise you to live sinless: and I wish you to die tranquil…I no more assign this fate to you [a life of vice] than I seize at it for myself” (238). Jane is just as heartbroken as Rochester when she leaves him, but she finds work and makes friends and is able to create a fairly happy life, even though her love for Rochester never ebbs and she longs for him constantly. She chooses to be as useful and as happy as possible given her circumstances.

  It’s easy to cast Heathcliff and Cathy as people who are twisted by life in ways they can’t possibly help. They long for their childhood (at least Cathy does) because it represents a time of freedom when they could be together, but their childhood was also a time of isolation and abuse, and they can’t escape into happy adult lives because of the constraints imposed upon them due to ethnicity, class and gender. But by showing us how other people respond to abuse, poverty and patriarchy, Emily Brontë demonstrates that even though those conditions are terrible and will leave their mark, one can still behave with empathy and self-respect. Heathcliff and Cathy aren’t selfish and obsessive because of their upbringing (at least, not only because of that), they are selfish and obsessive because they choose to be (or, perhaps, because they are mentally ill—it’s impossible to read the book without trying to diagnose them). When adaptations leave out Cathy 2.0 and Hareton’s story, they lose this crucial point, because it is Hareton and Cathy 2.0 who demonstrate the power of choice.

  Hareton is abused, if anything, even more viciously than Heathcliff. Cathy 2.0 is a prisoner, at first locked up by a barred window and a locked door, and then imprisoned by the total loss of all her financial resources and even her personal possessions. And the pair is marked by this abuse. Hareton goes along with Heathcliff’s cruelties. Cathy 2.0 becomes bitter and sullen and horribly depressed. But at some point, these two people choose to salvage whatever happiness they can from their shattered lives, and they do that through learning to be kind and empathetic and respectful to each other. Cathy 2.0 has a head start because even though she has no mother (like Jane Eyre and Catherine Earnshaw), she does have a loving father and a more mature Nelly looking out for her. But Hareton is learning empathy from scratch. You can’t even say that he has good genetics on his side, given how horrid his father, Hindley, was. Yet he still manages to be a decent human being.

  Jane, Cathy and Lizzy Walk Into a Pub: Comparing the Gothic Books to Pride and Prejudice

  So, how does Pride and Prejudice fit into all this? First of all, I’m including Pride and Prejudice because I feel like it, not because there is anything intrinsically linking Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Austen and the Brontë sisters weren’t contemporaries. They weren’t directly influenced by each other. Their books are not related in any inherent way except that they are all classics of British literature and they all happen to be written by women. I could just as easily compare the critical themes between Edgar Allen Poe and Jonathan Franzen (which, now that I’ve typed that sentence, I kind of want to do) as compare Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice.

  Pride and Prejudice, in fact, seems like a completely different species of novel from Wuthering and Jane. There are some similarities, however. Jane and Lizzy are both levelheaded people with fiery natures and big ideas. They share a sense of self-respect tempered with a sense of responsibility, although Jane longs for family and, at times, Lizzy could do with a little less. Neither Lizzy nor Jane would have any patience with Cathy’s tantrums and drama. I gain endless satisfaction from picturing the three women hanging out at the pub. There they are, with Jane and Lizzy each on one side of Cathy, whacking her upside the head as she wails, “Heeaaathcliff!” “Seriously, girl,” they say, “Pull yourself together!” Then Lizzy would offer to loan Jane a couple of sisters and a histrionic mom, and Jane would be tempted but doubtless decline. Why is this not a viral YouTube thing? I could watch Jane and Lizzy talk sense into Cathy all day long, people. Make this happen.

  One thing that Lizzy, Cathy and Jane all share is that their choices are constrained by gender and finances. If Heathcliff wants to leave Wuthering Heights, he can join the army, or go to sea, or go to America. We know this, because Edgar rattles them off as possible ways Heathcliff might have earned his wealth. Jane and Lizzy and Cathy can’t do these things because of their gender. Jane is pretty much resigned to a life in domestic service, but she’s not happy about it. Lizzy’s entire family’s future depends on her and her sisters marrying money. Cathy has three choices: marry a rich man whom she likes but doesn’t feel passionate about, marry the man she does feel passionate about and live in abject, homeless poverty, or stay single and live with her drunken brother forever.

  Another thing they have in common is that they all struggle to be respected. Jane is “poor, obscure, plain and little” and is subject to a whole host of humiliations from people grander than herself. Cathy loves the freedom of Wuthering Heights but hates its isolation and squalor. She is embarrassed by Heathcliff even as she craves him. She longs for a place in society—to be “[t]he grandest woman in the neighborhood” (48). And Lizzy is never allowed to forget that her family is only respectable by the merest margin—not only are they rather poorly behaved, but she has relatives in trade, if you can believe it!

  Will the True Hero Please Stand Up?

  Lizzy is blessed by being the only woman of the three to have a true romantic partner who supports her and respects her. Rochester betrays Jane’s trust and is redeemed, oddly enough, by becoming dependent on her (although this is temporary since he does eventually regain his sight, by which time he
and Jane are presumed to have a more balanced relationship). The timing of the story is such that we don’t get to see much of their relationship as equals. And even the manipulative, secretive Rochester is far more generous in his support of Jane than Heathcliff is of Cathy. Rochester will support Jane when she wants to do something like visit her aunt, but he can’t be trusted to spare her feelings, and Heathcliff can’t be trusted with anything, ever.

  In contrast, Darcy has Lizzy’s back when she really needs it. When he does act against her interests (by turning Bingley against Jane), he does so because he truly believes that this is the most loyal thing he can do for his best friend. He doesn’t think he is hurting Jane at that time, and when he realizes the depth of Jane’s feelings for Bingley, he makes amends for his hurtful mistake. When the Bennets are on the brink of disaster, he sacrifices quite a bit of money and time, and, most significantly, quite a bit of his beloved pride, to save the Bennets from ruin at the hands of Wickham. And although he causes hurt feelings through his snobbery, he never hurts anyone on purpose, unlike Rochester, who deliberately exposes Jane to jealousy and embarrassment, or Heathcliff, whose actions are motivated by revenge. Even when he has no reason to support Lizzy, he defends her against the snide comments of others, and in Lizzy’s most desperate hour he drops everything to help her, without condescension and without seeking credit or reward for his actions.

  Rochester and Heathcliff are object lessons on how not to behave. Rochester earns romantic love only through changing (a lot—much more than Darcy who doesn’t start the story with a secret wife). Heathcliff never earns romantic love and therefore does not get it, unless you believe that his ghost and Cathy’s are blissful after death. Darcy, like Lizzy, has a lot of growing up to do, but Darcy owns his mistakes, fixes them when he can, never acts out of malice and rises to the occasion when needed. That’s the reason that Darcy is such a beloved archetype—where Rochester and Heathcliff teach us how not to treat your true love, Darcy teaches us how to do it right.