Much has been done, by way of interviews and Instagram reels, to market Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights as a tale of ferocious passion and untameable desire. The question of precisely whose passion we see play out onscreen is a crucial one.
Fennel says the film reflects her personal reading of Emily Brontë’s arresting tale of generational trauma, possession and violence. I had a different experience when I first read Wuthering Heights. I became immersed in a decidedly unsexy story of abuse, and had “bad dreams in the night” over Heathcliff’s brutal nature.
Nowhere is Heathcliff’s brutality more explicit than in his treatment of Isabella Linton, who becomes his wife. Isabella is the sister (or, in Fennell’s interpretation, ward) of Edgar Linton, Heathcliff’s rival for Catherine (Cathy) Earnshaw’s affections.
