Here's a summary I found, which I should've read before the book:
Brief Summary
Many people, generally those who have never read the book, consider Wuthering Heights to be a straightforward, if intense, love story — Romeo and Juliet on the Yorkshire Moors. But this is a mistake. Really the story is one of revenge. It follows the life of Heathcliff, a mysterious gypsy-like person, from childhood (about seven years old) to his death in his late thirties. Heathcliff rises in his adopted family and then is reduced to the status of a servant, running away when the young woman he loves decides to marry another. He returns later, rich and educated and sets about gaining his revenge on the two families that he believed ruined his life.
So, I, apparently like many others - thought this was a love story. It most definitely was not. I'm not your typical, I only want happy-endings type of book girl. I like all ranges of books, endings and characters.
First of all, took me a chapter or so to get used to reading the dialect, "proper" English of the 18th century or so. It's been a long time since I read a book like this. Once I got used to it, I enjoyed the story. Basically a history of all the families and goings-on at Wuthering Heights.
The thing that is most surprising about this story, is that as far as I am concerned - there are very few, if any redeeming characters. The nursemaid and a few others showed some compassion and love, but the main character, Heathcliff, was atrocious. I kept waiting for him to somehow be redeemed, and he was not. He was selfish, blamed the world for his troubles and then pledged to avenge himself by wreaking havoc on even the innocent descendants of his enemies.
Reading the summary above now, I understand it was more of a revenge novel - which would've made me better prepared for the story. But even in a good revenge story - the reader should normally feel that the character is justified in his revenge. The Count of Monte Cristo is about revenge, and I loved that book. I do not think Heathcliff was justified - except perhaps in his revenge against Hindley - and moreover, wasn't really sure what he was so pissed about besides how he was born into the world and that he couldn't marry Catherine. Even as a child, he was described as rough, not too grateful, etc. So what made him this way? Why was he such a compassionless, almost evil, human being? If all his revenge was based on his love for Catherine, why did he treat her daughter, her brother, even Catherine sometimes, with such disgust??
In the end, it was a good story, nice and historical - but was just surprised that the characters were so unsympathetic.
