Ghost Stories and Brontë's Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights can be described as many things: a gothic novel, a classic, and even a romance.  Along with these things, however, it is also a ghost story.

I have long held the belief that myths, fairy tales, and ghost stories hold great importance for society.  They are the telling-tales: stories spoken around firelight, generation after generation, that gather listeners together in communal wonder.  They help to bind groups of people together, and each has a particular important purpose.  If fairy tales serve to “tell us that dragons can be beaten,” as G. K. Chesteron acknowledged, then ghost stories exist to remind us to look back.  For, amid the thrills and chills of a ghostly tale, there is always a different sort of narrative: a story about someone’s life.  There is nearly always a description of how someone lived, or a guess about who someone was, that seems to offer some reason for the haunting in the tale.

After all, although Catherine’s ghost only appears once in Wuthering Heights, and appears to have possibly been a figment of the protagonist Lockwood’s imagination, it is that apparition which drives his investigation into the past of the manor house forward.  If the ghost had not appeared, Lockwood’s other discoveries– a diary, and three names written on a wall– would have been curiosities to consider, but nothing more.  It was the ghostly turn of events that really pushed him to scrutinize beyond idle pondering the lives of the house’s departed dwellers.

That, of course, is the importance of ghost stories.  While histories make us curious about great personages and events, ghost stories make us curious about regular people and daily life.  Without them, very often the past would stay buried along with the dead.

Some Thoughts on Literary History and Gender Segregation

“Mr. Davis says it is as useful to educate a woman as to educate a female cat.”

                                Amy March in “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott

Male and female literature has nearly always been divided.  You aren’t likely to see many girls reading the latest Halo novel, nor are there likely to be numerous guys reading Twilight.  The distinction between gender-appropriate books, however, was once far more ridged than it is now.  If I were to go out today, purchase a copy of the Brooks Brothers manual How to be a Gentleman, and read it in a public place, I might get some funny looks.  Someone might even make a pointed remark.  Serious retribution, however, would not be likely to occur.

At one time that wasn’t the case.  At one time a woman could get into serious trouble– sometimes even prison– just for reading a book that was deemed to be too masculine.

Than isn’t news to most people, and in fact most could probably name at least one nation where such literary rules are still firmly enforced today, but we tend to think of such notions as being problems found only in far away places.  In Medieval Japan, for example, where privileged court women, living lives of excruciating boredom, were only allowed to read things that were deemed to be safely trivial.  Or in ancient Greece, where woman weren’t allowed to read for themselves at all, and had to content themselves not only with mundane reading material, but also with the literary services of educated slaves.  But that sort of thing couldn’t be part of Western history, right?

Wrong.  The history of   Don’t forget that Mary Wollstonecraft rocked Britain when she argued, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, that women should be educated.  Don’t forget that Jane Austen had to be educated by proxy through her brothers and father.  Later she had to publish her works anonymously because women were not permitted to publish books– especially books in which well-read female characters often outwitted male characters.  In Victorian America, dime novels aimed at middle-class women were viewed as inappropriate and even dangerous.  Believe it or not, some of our female ancestors wouldn't have been allowed to walk into a bookshop and purchase any tome they wanted.

That thought makes you feel very privileged, doesn’t it?  It kind of makes you want to go read something just because you can.

The Importance of Reading

“I don’t think I could live without reading.” ~Alberto Manguel

                Anthropologists place a great deal of importance on the advent of written language– so much to that there is a branch of the study called Linguistic Anthropology.  It is, they believe, one of the things that divides our nomadic, hunter-gatherer ancestors from our modern society.  Human culture developed when we settled down, tamed the world around us, and began to write.

                Since then, reading has evolved into a skill vital to our society.  All children are expected to learn it, toiling over trite phrases like: “See spot run.”  It is a major mode of communication, constantly surrounding us in the form of ads, signs, magazines, menus and packaging labels.  In fact, the written word is so important that it has developed and maintained a connection with social status; to this day, a room filled with books is taken as a sign of education, refinement, and prestige.

                From the earliest Sumerian cuneiform and Chinese shell writings, to the first English translations of the Bible, to modern advent of eBooks, reading has shaped our world.  The words penned by various authors over the centuries have changed the way we think, challenged our beliefs, and taught us new understandings.  Without the works of Livy, Claudius and Plato, the democratic government of the United States would have never existed.  Without the wicked Malleus Maleficarum the European witch hunts would have been little more than a few isolated incidents.  Without Michael Faraday’s Experimental Research in Electricity, we might still be burning oil lamps and coal stoves.  Written words have been stepping stones to move society forward.

                More than all of this, however, reading is a joy that millions of people share.  It is an invigorating workout for the mind as well as a fascinating escape from the mundane.  It is an open door in the psyche that us leads to new worlds, and a road that takes us on life-changing journeys without us ever leaving out chairs.  It connects us, through ideas, to kindred spirits and to generations who have gone before.  The resounding and irreplaceable love of books is, perhaps, the greatest gift that written language has ever given the human race.

Sources: Alberto Manguel.  A History of Reading.  New York, NY: Penguin Books.  1997.  Pgs 3-123.

An Introduction to the Author

Who am I?  That is always such a difficult question to answer.  How can a person be summed up in a few pretty words?  This task is especially difficult for me, believe it or not.  I may seem vivacious and outgoing, but that is only one facet.  I don't generally like opening myself to people-- especially strangers.  I don't like feeling vulnerable.  At this point, I have already rewritten this blog entry three times, my nerves jangling as I try to shape an image of myself out of words.  As introverted as I am, however, I am also stubborn.  I won't take the easy way out.  I won't bore you with a string of bland facts, such as where I was born or what I do for a living.  Those things are largely unimportant.  Instead, let me attempt to actually show you a little part of who I am.

I can be described as many things-- creative, temperamental, clumsy, intelligent-- but normal is not one of them.  I was uncool long before it was cool to be uncool.  I am capricious and a little unpredictable; if a parking space doesn't feel right, I move the car.  If I happen to feel like wearing a ladies' hat and gloves, I do so.  My musical tastes range from symphonic metal to jazz to Celtic, and my clothing varies between Gothic glamor, artistic class, and bohemian comfort.  I am far more concerned with personal style than with fashion.  I choose to be pale in a world that tans.  I don't like political parties because I prefer to research options and think for myself.  I love art, folklore, coffee, cats, books and antiques.  I hate crowds, traffic, coolots, dance clubs and shallow personalities.  I will give anyone a first chance, but only a few a second.  I strive to be myself, and rarely see any point in attempting to curb my uniqueness.

 I have three ambitions in my life: become a successful writer and editor, live comfortably and happily in an historic town somewhere, and become a crazy cat lady.  I want to enjoy my work and live well.  I want to eventually become that colorful old lady who sits on her porch wearing a flamboyant bathrobe, drinking a martini, smoking a cigarillo, and reading James Joyce to her many cats.  I want to be the eccentric but lovable old bat who throws glitzy parties, teaches neighborhood children swear words, and never stops living until the day I die.  If I can do all that, I can die without regrets.

That, I fear, is the best introduction I can give myself.  It's a half-finished portrait at best, but I believe I have tormented readers enough.  I know I have endured social discomfort as long as I can.  So I will wrap up this little, imperfect image of a part of my spirit and leave it for any who wanders here to find.  I will tell myself that there is no more room for editing and rewriting.  I won't let myself erase another word.  It's perhaps one of the braver things I've done in a while.