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I posit that this book is far too clever for its own good. It's constantly read as a great romance, but that is not what it is. To me it reads much more as a satire, and a scathing criticism against the gothic romance novels of that era.

Wuthering Heights is NOT a book about love, it is a book about the LACK of love. Catherine does not love Heathcliff, she honstely believes she owns him, and if anyone presses me, I will argue that she is a genuine psychopath. Heathcliff does not love Catherine, he has a thoroughly unhealthy obsession with her, because she is the only one in his life that has admitted to having any connection or bond to him, and he is STARVED. He is also an idiot, as he continues to starve himself of all other affection that is offered to him. Possibly because he doesn't know how to accept love and kindness, but also maybe because he knows (at least subconsciously) that Catherine would never allow him to get attached to anyone other than her. And he is also convinced that without Catherine, he has no meaning, no purpose, and no soul, and this quite naturally fills him with a whole lot of desperation. He needs her so much that it kind of makes him hate her.

When Catherine says her famous line "I am Heathcliff!" it is not a great confession of love, it is an announcement of complete domination. Heathcliff is nothing without her: he doesn't even have a personality of his own, as far as she is concerned. She doesn't have to take his feelings or opinions into consideration, because in her mind he is not his own person, just an extension of herself.

If Catherine and Heathcliff were a serial killer couple, he'd be the one who performed the tasks, but she would be the one who chose the who, the when and the how.

The true tragedy of this story is that Heathcliff DOES stand up for himself: When he hears Catherine say that she couldn't possibly marry him because it would degrade her, he leaves, he takes his life into his own hands, and he makes something of himself. Then the idiot comes back.

TBC...