ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
British Literature Videos 176 videos
Meet Charles Darnay, the nobleman who spends more time on trial and in prison than attending balls and drinking expensive wine. Don't feel too bad...
Written in Anglo-Saxon, or Old English, sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries, Beowulf is an epic poem that reflects the early medieval warri...
Brave New World is supposed be an exciting book about a negative utopia and the corrupt powers of authority. So where’s the big car chase? What's...
Wuthering Heights Summary 58843 Views
Share It!
Description:
Heathcliff may not be as much of a romantic hero as Mr. Darcy, but you'll fall in love with him all the same. If you tend to love self-serving and revengeful brooders, that is.
Transcript
- 00:05
Wuthering Heights, a la Shmoop I don't like you.
- 00:10
Don't take it personally; I don't really like anyone.
- 00:13
I’m a pretty angry guy. I think it's because of the ups and downs of my unhappy childhood.
- 00:19
I was an orphan. Down.
- 00:21
I was adopted by the rich Mr. Earnshaw, and taken to live at my dream house, Wuthering
Full Transcript
- 00:27
Heights. Up!
- 00:29
Mr. Earnshaw's son, Hindley, seriously had it in for me. Down.
- 00:32
My adopted sister Catherine, though, was adorable and loved me. Very up!
- 00:39
A wealthy heiress and a street kid fall in love. What could possibly go wrong, right?
- 00:44
Here’s what. Catherine fell in love with our wimpy neighbor, Edgar Linton, and married
- 00:49
him, even though he was not dark or brooding or as awesomely-named as me.
- 00:54
I think the socially approved thing would have been for me to wait patiently for Catherine
- 00:59
to come to her senses, using the time to become a better man.
- 01:02
But that's not really my style. I'm more of a "hatch an evil plan" sort of guy.
- 01:07
So I set some reasonable goals: ruin Hindley's life, take over all the local real estate,
- 01:14
including Wuthering Heights, and make Catherine regret picking that 98 pound weakling over
- 01:19
me.
- 01:19
I even married Edgar's sister, Isabel, just to get Edgar's goat.
- 01:24
I didn't count on Catherine dying, though.
- 01:26
I went through the 5 stages of grief, including the one where you dig up your dead ex to say
- 01:31
goodbye…
- 01:31
…but I never really got over it, and living in Wuthering Heights wasn't all I'd hoped
- 01:36
it would be.
- 01:38
Sure, my evil bro Hindley was dead, but now I was stuck with his irritating son, Hareton<<hair-tin>>,
- 01:44
and my anemic heir, Linton, who moved in with me after his mom died.
- 01:49
Come to think of it, maybe we all would have been better-adjusted if we still had mothers.
- 01:57
At least then I wouldn't be surrounded by nincompoops.
- 02:01
Even worse, I was running out of lives to destroy. Fortunately, Catherine had a daughter
- 02:06
before she died, and Cathy 2 was Edgar's pride and joy.
- 02:10
Edgar and his interfering servant, Nelly, tried to keep their innocent pumpkin away
- 02:14
from me, but my irresistibly pasty son, Linton, lured her like a worm on a hook…
- 02:20
Ha, suckers! Cathy totally fell for the "surprise attack wedding" maneuver…
- 02:24
…and I was sitting pretty to inherit Edgar's estate! Things got even better when that
- 02:29
good for nothing Linton croaked, and I got to keep Cathy on as free labor. Score!
- 02:35
I rented out Linton's old house to make some cash money…as if I didn’t have enough!...
- 02:41
and my tenant, Lockwood, was a seriously nosy parker.
- 02:45
I bet he had that stool pigeon Nelly telling him all about my checkered past and nefarious
- 02:50
misdeeds. I decided I definitely didn't like this Lockwood wiseacre.
- 02:54
But apparently somebody else took a shine to him. When that meddler slept in Catherine's
- 02:58
old bedroom, she practically climbed through the window to haunt him!
- 03:01
How do you like that? Her ghost played “hard to get” with me for years, and suddenly
- 03:06
it’s like we’re in an episode of Ghost Hunters.
- 03:08
That’s women for you. No loyalty. At least it gave me something else to brood about.
- 03:13
Still, missing Catherine really took the fun out of life. Even picking on Cathy and Hareton
- 03:18
lost its appeal.
- 03:19
Here I was, eating my liver out over my lost love, and those two were as happy as two little
- 03:24
bunnies in a meadow.
- 03:25
I couldn't take it anymore, so I died. And they were still happy. Planning a wedding
- 03:35
in their awesome house that I bought for them. Sure, they would have inherited it anyway,
- 03:40
but still.
- 03:40
Aw, come on, now they're kissing over my grave. Get a room!
Related Videos
They say that honesty is the best policy, but Jack lies about his identity and still gets the girl. Does that mean we should all lie to get what we...
This video defines utopias and dystopias, and investigates how a utopia might become a dystopia. Can a seemingly perfect world actually be a dystop...
Ever wish you could remember everything that you ever studied? How about everything that everyone has ever studied? Yeah, pretty sure our brains ju...
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is an American classic. Hope you're not expecting any exciting shower scenes though. It's not that kind of book.
Do not go gentle into that good night. In fact, if it's past your curfew, don't go at all into that good night. You just stay in your good bed and...