Blogging Wuthering Heights: Part 21

Coffinmaker's almost done with Wuthering Heights! —Sparkitors

Chapters XVI-XVIII

Heathcliff is getting more evil by the moment. Not only has he imprisoned young Cathy until she agrees to marry Linton, he has also grown fangs and his breath smells like five-day-old baby food. His gaze withers potted plants and his nostrils erase Febreeze.

Heathcliff is getting desperate, as well as fetid; Edgar Linton—little Cathy's father—not to be confused with Linton Heathcliff, Heathcliff's son (Yes, it's confusing. Get over it.), is sick and not getting better. Linton Heathcliff is also sick, and Heathcliff is afraid he'll die before he gets a chance to marry Cathy.

So Heathcliff uses little Linton to lure Nelly and Cathy, on one of their walks, into Wuthering Heights. Linton pleads with Cathy just to walk with him to Wuthering Heights, and he's so weak and helpless that she concedes.

Once they get to the house, Heathcliff locks the door. He tells them that he is going to imprison them until Cathy agrees to marry Linton, as he takes a deep snort of Pure Evil. Lil' Linton is his normal disgusting, mustard-on-pancakes self: He tries to act like Cathy doesn't love him (though she does), and needs to be forced into marrying him.

Nelly protests and is locked up in one of the rooms. She doesn't see anyone except for Hareton, who brings her food, for five days. When she finally does get out, she hears from Zilla, the housekeeper, who I vaguely remember from Chapter One, that Edgar Linton is almost dead.

Yes, he was sick. Don't you people remember these things? I mean, it's not like I took a break for Thanksgiving. And what if I did anyway? Tryptophan is a hard thing to fight, my friends. So are taters and gravy, and if you do want to fight them, you need a large, industrial-grade ladle. But I guarantee they'll get the best of you.

Instead of rescuing Cathy from her imprisonment, which Nelly knows she can't do since she doesn't know the location of the key to the room Cathy is locked up in, she tells Linton (the boy, not the guy whose almost dead. Yeesh, people. Remember a little, will you?) that Cathy is the only good thing that'll ever happen to him, and he'd better help her escape. Then she hurries to the Grange to go get some help from Edgar Linton's servants.

She determines that she will "storm the Heights" if that's what must be done to rescue Nelly. Did I mention that I like Nelly? I mean, not "like" like. We're just friends, and I'm not really looking for a relationship right now, and besides she's roughly 45 and mostly fictional. But I still like her.

When she gets to Thrushcross Grange, she finds Edgar Linton dying. She's about to go armed to the Heights and demand entrance when Cathy comes in and tells her that Lil' Linton finally sucked it up and slipped her the key to her room, at his own expense.

Hey, that's cool that you did that and all, Linton, but you're still too much of a jerkoff to be in the Characters That Coffinmaker Likes Club. I'm sorry. But to be right up there next to Annabeth Chase and The Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George, that was just too little, too late.

So old Edgar Linton dies. I'd cry, except I keep getting all these characters mixed up. Anyway, Cathy and Nelly are heartbroken.

Smeyer's thoughts after reading these chapters: In a desperate bid to get Bella into the Characters That Coffinmaker Likes Club, she writes pseudo-fanfic under an alias. In this fanfic, Bella is stalked by a 100-year-old man in a yellow hat. When she becomes overly curious of his huge, manly yellow hat, he captures her under it and takes her away to life in the big city where she makes all sorts of mischief. Then he puts her in the zoo.

My thoughts after reading these chapters: Too little, too late, Bella Yellow Hat.

Are? You? Still? With? Us? What do you think is the point of this book?

Related Posts: Blogging Wuthering Heights, the complete collection!