Instant Gratification

Instant gratification can be had for good and bad.  For the most part you don't have to wait to go to the bookstore when you can download.  Pizza can now be ordered online and it's process of construction, oven entering, and delivery can all be viewed while waiting.  It's great, it's progress, but we must remember to use our intellectual skills to realize when it can be misleading.

I love to look things up on Wiki at times.  If it's for fun I'll read it, maybe click on a link or two, and I'm done.  But if it's something that I really need a trusted answer for then I will see what Wiki states and then research it by way of trusted sources. 

They don't have the manpower (I believe the article mentioned 4 or 8 employees) to check all of the entries, and I think that's a shame.  I would love to be able to go to Wiki for instant gratification for research and be done with it.  Life would be simpler and we could move along much more quickly.  Unfortunately that is not the case and until they incorporate careful screening of the information it isn't a good source for solid information.  But it's still fun!!

Bravo, Eliza!

I bow to Eliza Doolittle!  She knew the hand she was dealt and played it well.  Running off to Henry's mother and rehashing her life with him and Pickering was superb intelligence.  Henry's mother would never tolerate Eliza to be dismissed unfairly and guarded her from any further games Henry and Pickering may have been interested in playing.  She came through proving that she was even more intelligent and cunning than the two men in securing her future from a different angle.

While the play wrapped up in a pretty little package in the end, as I turned the pages I kept waiting for Mr. Doolittle to offer up a type of dowry or trust fund for his daughter and her new husband.  Did he know Pickering still felt obligated to fund Eliza's future?  And will Henry and Pickering remain indebted to Eliza, though Henry may fool himself into believing Eliza is indebted to him?  There are some stories that should never end....

Where is Kermie???

Okay, where are the pigs in this play?  :)

I have really been enjoying this play.  I do tend to form an opinion about a person by their dialect and have been able to place their region of development, but not as succinctly as in Pygmalion.  I can tell if one is from South Jersey, North Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, or the South, basics as such, but if I were to be studied enough to recognize a form of speech within a few blocks of where they lived, I would have to play psychic and freak them out just for entertainment.

What really stood out to me was the way he treated the people he met.  Those with a more sophistacated dialect he treated with respect, and the street urchin he seemed to be rude to.  I honestly hope this is something I don't do and will try to be more aware of it in the future to get an idea.

A man's goal

Honestly, I had to shake my head and laugh when I read, "I would love you ten years before the Flood; And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews."  An obvious indication that he'll wait for his mistress forever is used as a frame of seduction to warm her soul and soften her resistance to his charm and desires.  Through the ages men have been creative in their pursuit of attaining sexual favors from women, however, the pattern is always the same.  Make her feel special, there is no one else you want but her, and then go in for the kill with tactics of pressure.  Time is running out; we don't have forever; we're getting old; just give it to me and I will cherish you eternally.  The sentiment remains the same, only the faces change.

Female influence an illusion

Lyn Pykett brings our attention to the limits of a woman's influence in the Victorian Era. (472).  While Heathcliff and Linton both had a strong desire and need for Catherine, she still was the one who had to bow down to their wishes.  Pykett points out that it doesn't matter how powerful a woman of that times influence was, she was still legally controlled by the male gender of the family.  This included everyone from the father, to the brother, and the husband.  And while they competed for Catherine's affection it wasn't truly her that they wanted, but their version of who she should be according to their rule.  It must have been so confusing in those days for a woman having to please everyone by being someone you are not.  It's no wonder that so many of these women were plagued with unhappiness, and in Catherine's case even unto death.  She claimed that Heathcliff and Linton had broken her heart when they wouldn't succumb to her subtleties and forge a friendship that would please her.  What has surprised me is that no one has alluded to the possibility of polyandry being a motive, or solution.  Isn't that what really broke her heart, that she couldn't have both the men as she pleased?  Hmmm, it makes you wonder.

Catherine a Gemini?

"I am Heathcliff!" (p. 88).  Terry Eagleton points out that Catherine has to contend with two avenues of thinking.  On one hand she desires to adhere to social convention by entering into a marriage with Linton while her heart firmly belongs to Heathcliff.  By utilizing the previous statement Catherine is able to feel Heathcliff within her and can move away from him to join Linton who is seemingly a more suitable husband.  This foolish attempt at duality instigates a myraid of problems among those who are involved and will ultimately cause her death.  Having created an unbreakable bond between them they were more of an offshoot of the Earnshaw family exclusively exploring life and experiencing the Moors without interruption.  As Eagleton points out, "...Heathcliff is a purely atomized individual, free of generational ties in a novel where genealogical relations are of crucial thematic and structural importance..." (p. 398).  How would this have turned out if Heathcliff had been fairskinned?  Would there have been a possiblity of the two entering into marriage?

Grave Revenge

I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.  pg. 288

I absolutely love the illusion this last paragraph creates.  A whole new existence under the coffins where the three spirits of Catherine, Linton, and Heathcliff, are still at war with one another.  Their passion so ultimate and unceasing to continue into eternity.  Will this love triangle never end?  Does Catherine's spirit still hold on to the words she spoke to Nelly Dean when she was alive; I am Heathcliff?  Is Heathcliff finally satisfied with his revenge?  Bronte ends the story leaving me with the feeling that it is not over, and perhaps, never will be. Death is unable to put these three to rest.  

Forever their spirits will roam the earth searching for the peace needed to move on.  Heathcliff would not allow himself to die straight after Catherine because he first needed to exact his revenge.  That revenge kept him alive for 18 years, therefore, did he not want revenge against life, also?  How far did this revenge go?  I would have thought that once his revenge was fulfilled and he could join Catherine in the earth, then certainly all would be well.  However, Bronte specifically states, unquiet slumbers for the sleepers.  How ironic when I would imagine a final happiness, their spirits dancing, and singing, would have been the end of a tortured existence.