I decided to read Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights mostly because I wanted to see how a female writer wrote women and compare it to how male's write them. I also wanted to see if a female writer could write a convincing male character. Tom Hardy's writing style had some forum members confessing that he couldn't write a decent female character. I couldn't see that. They seemed believable enough even though his Return of the Native was a terrible book.

Bronte's first male character, Mr. Lockwood, is effeminate. He's vexed, annoyed, and peeved at any impropriety. He's like a spoiled boy who's used to having his way and displays a temper at every little encumbrance or threat to his comfort. Combine this with his eye and imagination for romanticizing scenery and noticing little things a man would pay little attention too but one would assume might catch the eye of a woman - and there you have it. So my first inclination is that Bronte can not write a male character.

After the history of Wuthering Heights begins by Ellen, my opinion alters. The characters of Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and Linton are well written.

I wasn't alive during the 19th century and this would have been the surest way to tell whether she was truly writing believable male characters. I don't think human nature changes much but circumstances do dictate actions and the actions one commits should be appropriate to the circumstances, his/her character, culture, and position in society. Rank in society means little anymore but I imagine in the 1800's it still did. So a man must allow himself to feel and express feeling based on the limitations both internal and external.

I still feel she's allowed the male characters beyond Mr. Lockwood to be believable. It's only occasionally do they do things which are overly dramatic for their apparent temperament. Such as when Linton begins to quake before Heathcliff - that's something a male author might do better to express to his audience because it is no light matter. To a woman who merely describes the physical reaction of fear from a married man in his own home who is confronted by another man as a dumb shivering coward - just smacks of female mockery and fails to appreciate the duty of a man to protect his family and their belongings.

I can't deal with Bronte's character Joseph either. I can't understand a single word he says.

How the story is told to the reader is unique and Emily gets a special respect from me for it. The story itself is obviously written by a woman, though. It's not that it's concerned with romance that I say that. It's because of the quality of the female characters and the dialogue held between them. I don't think you can find two better written female characters than Catherine or Ellen. Everyone has met an Ellen. She is probably the best written character in the book. She is the self righteous nag. The obstinate average that never wavers from her mean and holds her thoughts above those with whom she's meant to serve. The indian who knows what is right for chief. Smart enough to do good and gain the confidence of others so her ego can lead them into some kind of disaster. I know women like this - the ones that are mildly intelligent and supremely closed minded. Inflexible people.

Inflexible people are abrasive but there is some nobility in their consistency.

That's my two cents on Emily Bronte. Her male characters are a little over dramatic and some are too effeminate. Her female characters I know to be expertly written because there is so much of them which I have been witness to in real life and yet do not understand. Catherine is a great example of this... everywhere at once and really truly only in one place. Maybe that's why Hardy had a hard time with it. He put his women, as men are, in a single place when really they're in 100000 places but really only in the one. I think the secret is in making the reader believe your female characters have lost their minds completely and then try to reconcile their insanity with some portion of a romantic reality.

You bring up a subject that has been busying readers and critics alike for centuries. What is male literature, what is female literature, can women create convincing male characters, can men create convincing female characters, is there a male or female over-/undertone in the work, etc. etc. etc. This becomes even more daunting when one realises that the Japanese Kabuki theater--even today--and Shakespeare's plays were written by males to be performed by all males. In the Shakespeare Fever thread we were discussing "The Taming of the Shrew" and how Katharine's last speech was to be performed and received. This takes on a new twist when one remembers males were performing the play.
The problem screaming out at us is that we would have to first define what exactly male and female are according to characteristics, attributes, etc and then go a step further and apply this to female and male literature and its believability.
Actually, this would make a great discussion.
Anyone interested?

I'd like to see it but I doubt I could contribute much to it. I'm no psychologist and I sure haven't figured women out.

President Camacho wrote:I decided to read Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights mostly because I wanted to see how a female writer wrote women and compare it to how male's write them.

I hate Wuthering Heights. If Bronte is sucessful at writing a female or a male characters for that matter in this book, it is only to capture people with Personality Disorders. The two main characters are more than I can stomach. I would try George Eliot. I love Middlemarch. A long standing praise of this book is how she draws her characters.

Well, based on my new theory that a book that repelled me the first time I tried--Wuthering Heights, e.g.--will strike me more positively the second time, Bronte's book is another of a long list that I should sometime try again.

DWill wrote:Well, based on my new theory that a book that repelled me the first time I tried--Wuthering Heights, e.g.--will strike me more positively the second time, Bronte's book is another of a long list that I should sometime try again.

I have tried several times to like this book. It is the two main characters and the portrayal of their love for each other that I find keeps me from appreciating this piece of literature. I find it hard to enjoy watching a selfish destructive love -- wait, can selfish and destructive even describe love? Oh well, that is just me. I am sure many people love this book.

It's not bad so far. I'm nearly at the end. I would totally agree that all the characters have personality disorders. That seems very true.

How the book is written, when it was written, and the actual story make it a thumbs up for me. It's like a Dorian Gray. It isn't powerfully moving and it's absurd but it's told well and makes the time pass nicely as any fiction should. It isn't monumental but it is nice to read.

I've been having this same argument with myself lately. Just how believable can a male character created by a female be and vice versa?

I plan to read Wuthering Heights in the fall, been wanting to for a while. I read a few chapters at the library, and I don't know about believability, but I'd say it was a bit of a nice change that Heathcliff wasn't a likable character. I know it sounds weird, but I heard that Emily Bronte was deliberately subverting the brooding romantic hero when she created him.

Who here would recommend the book?

If you read it knowing that it was written by a person suffering from tuberculosis and released a year prior to their death - it's pretty interesting. You can forgive the constant weakness and sickness in the characters as well as their sick personalities because the author was probably suffering a lot. Linton, a morose and sickly child, even coughs up blood - something Bronte probably did all the time all over herself and that's why she always wore red dresses and ate only spaghetti and meatball... one big meatball.

She wouldn't even need the sauce... just cough cough... and there would be more than enough for all.