Wuthering Heights: Catherine Earnshaw Linton's Hysteria

After the unexpected death of my first love a few years ago (we had broken up decades earlier), during some grief-filled reminisces it became clear to me how as inexperienced teenagers we are expected to make adult decisions that will effect the rest of our lives. Of course, at the time we don't worry about it since teenagers think they know everything. We don't heed or need any advice from adults since we think we know what's right for us and want to live our lives our own way.

Poor headstrong teenage Catherine got all starry-eyed over the idea of being the lady of Thrushcross Grange, capriciously ordering around a crowd of servants, wearing expensive clothes and jewelry, having great status in the village. Edgar was pretty cute too and bent over backwards to make her happy. How could she know that life is full of yearning for whatever we don't or can't have and you have to learn to prioritize and choose only the things your heart and soul really need because you just can't have everything. Catherine truly believed that she could have everything. Besides, Heathcliff had been gone for a couple of years without a trace. For all she knew he was gone forever making the decision to marry Edgar that much easier.

After Heathcliff's return she still believed that if they behaved as she wished, she could have them both. When she finally realized she couldn't have both Edgar, her husband, and Heathcliff, her soulmate she did what a lot of teenage girls do and locked herself in her room and refused to eat. Teenage girls are really good at self-destruction. I like the fact that she was five months pregnant at the time making it impossible to blame it on PMS. She was just a teenager who couldn't get her way.

When she finally let Nelly in after three days isolation, she was a physical and mental wreck. She realized what a mistake she had made marrying cute, but boring Edgar and longed to rewind the clock and be back at Wuthering Heights traversing the moors with her heart's desire Heathcliff. Now she was trapped in a passionless marriage with a baby on the way. Marriage was for life back then even if you lived apart like Isabella and Heathcliff, so Catherine's life was over as far as she was concerned and she looked forward to her physical death to escape the pain of never being able to live with Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights again. Without Heathcliff she was no better than a dead woman walking.

Gothic Birthdays: Emily Bronte

Emily Bronte, born July 30, 1818. She's is my favorite writer as author of Wuthering Heights,which is my favorite Gothic Romance. Her poetry is wonderful as well. Suffice it to say, she was a literary genius. A very petite literary genius.

According to the Norton Anthology, Literature by Women: The Traditions in English, Second Edition (1996) Gilbert and Gubar,  the carpenter who made her coffin had never made such a small one for an adult. It was five feet six inches in length and sixteen inches in width. I'm sure she was a little larger before becoming ill and wasting away with consumption, but she still would have been petite in my opinion. As far as I know consumption doesn't reduce height. She was a shy person, only comfortable at home and felt most liberated walking among the heather on the moors. I can relate to that! Gilbert and Gubar also state that she stubbornly got up and dressed the day she died and refused to see a doctor. I don't blame her as the doctor probably couldn't do anything but stick leeches on her anyway in those days.

Even though she died at the young age of 30, with the encouragement and posthumous promotion of her sister Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), she made such a huge contribution to the world with her passionate prose and poetry. I for one am eternally grateful.

An Anniversary for Dracula Fans

Awaiting the furnace tech to arrive to give my furnace its annual cleaning, I found a very nicely written article by David Barnett published yesterday on The Guardian.com about Whitby in Yorkshire, England, the town that inspired Bram Stoker to write the story of Dracula. This year is the 125th anniversary of Stoker's visit to the seaport town, so I'd say it's going to be a good year for all of the tourism spots in town that base themselves on Dracula! 

Whitby sounds like a cool town to visit with a Dracula walking tour, Dracula Experience, the Bram Stoker International Film Festival and a Goth Weekend occurring twice a year. I bet there will be extra special activities to celebrate the anniversary. In fact, if you check out VisitWhitby.com events calendar, you can see everything planned month-by-month, Dracula related and not. There's an interesting event called Get Gruesome With the Hands on History Crew that teaches about the plague and medieval burials "with an array of children's interactive activities." I'm curious to know what those activities could be! 

Whitby looks like a really scenic, fun and educational place to visit, especially if you're a fan of Dracula.                       

Beyond Re-Animator (2003)

Dr. Herbert West strikes again! Young Dr. Phillips (Jason Barry), a fan of West's after seeing his work first-hand as a kid, becomes the prison doctor where Dr. West is incarcerated and sets up a lab for him to continue his "experiments." Jeffery Combs is as great as ever with his stiff mad scientist's delivery of one-liners, "she isn't getting any fresher."

But, the performance award for this movie has to go to Elsa Pataky as investigative journalist, Laura Olney. She's hilarious as she jolts back to life in jerky pulses after West convinces Dr. Phillips to inject her with "the serum." A little later after Dr. West injects her with the "nanoplasm" of the sadistic Warden Brando (Simon Andreu) she suffers helplessly as his life forces courses through her body turning her into an out-of-control Jeckyll and Hyde type character as her personality swings between her own whimpering helpless self and that of the evil Brando. 

In the end, Dr. West escapes with his medical bag of re-animating serum to create another bloody, funny sequel.

Dark Shadows: The Vampire's Curse, Part 2

This compilation of original Dark Shadows episodes that highlight the tragic love story of Barnabus (Jonathan Frid) and Josette (Kathryn Leigh Scott) and the history of Angelique's (Lara Parker) curse that transformed Barnabus into a vampire is so well done! It is so cool how just the episodes from Victoria Winters' (Alexandra Moltke) nightmarish trip back to 1795 that concentrate on Barnabus, Josette and Angelique were chosen to tell the story. Then the story jumps forward to 1967 with the shocked and terrified Willie Loomis (John Karlan) freeing Barnabus from his 172 year imprisonment.

The ill-fated love story of Barnabus and Josette is one of my favorites love stories. It's so haunting and heartbreaking. It's got to be one of the best love stories ever written and performed along with Heathcliff and Catherine of Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet. 

What makes Barnabus and Josettte's story different than the others is the fact that they were kept apart by the powerful black magic of Angelique. That major difference is also what makes it so cool! Lovers eventually separated by death, by a jealous witch who won't allow them to be together even in death as Barnabus is cursed with eternal life. Now that's a powerful witch!

Dark Shadows: The Vampire Curse, Part 1

Can we still be friends? This is what Barnabus asks Angelique THREE TIMES after she tries to reignite the steamy affair that they carried on in Martinique before his engagement to Josette. He asks her that the first time after explaining that he loves Josette and doesn't love her. He admits to uttering some words of love to Angelique when they were in the throes of passion and still has difficulty keeping his hands off of her when he visits her in her room to confirm that she understands that it's over between them. His lust for her is still so strong that he tells her that from now on they will make sure they never find themselves alone together anywhere. Then he again makes his offer of friendship. 

Once the engagement between Josette and Barnabus is off and Barnabus is single again, Angelique again tries to arrange a romantic rendezvous in her room, but Barnabus blows her off. When she asks him why later, he explains that he still loves Josette and once again, for the third time, asks Angelique if they can still be friends. 

No wonder she wants to make him suffer!

It's bad enough that he dumps her for her boss and then plays kissy-face with Josette while Angelique is in the room. He has total disregard for Angelique's feelings and tosses her away like an old toy. Then to add salt to Angelique's wound asks if they can still be friends. Barnabus is going to be sorry he messed with the help!

Dark Shadows: David is Dead!

Included in the Special Features of the DVD Dark Shadows: Dark Shadows: The Haunting of Collinwood is a bonus episode that continues the storyline of Quentin (David Selby) and Beth's (Terry Crawford) haunting of Collinwood in 1969. In this episode we learn the circumstances and cause of Quentin's death in 1897. We also learn why he is so attached to David Collins (David Henesy). I know I've seen these episodes several years ago, but I don't remember the story at all! Isn't that great? Now I can watch them all over again as though for the first time!

Middle-aged forgetfulness can be frustrating and even embarrassing while trying to accomplish daily chores at home and at work, but when it comes to movies and TV shows, it can be an asset as you watch the shows and movies you loved in the past as though for the first time and fall in love with them all over again. This can be a lot of fun!

Because of this particular storyline in Dark Shadows I have hope for myself when I get to the spirit world and, apparently, regain my sharp-as-a-tack mind from my youth since Quentin and Beth's memories are as clear as if all the tragedy in their lives occurred just yesterday instead of seventy-two years earlier. I can't remember where I parked my car when I leave work in the evening, never mind something I did decades ago.

At the end of the episode Dr. Hoffman (Grayson Hall)  tells Professor Stokes (Thayer David) that she must go to the past and right the wrongs to save David even though the ghost of Quentin has announced that it's too late to save David from his evil clutches. As she lifts David's limp arm from the couch and feels his pulse, Dr. Hoffman exclaims to Professor Stokes, "David is dead!" 

Now I have to see the remaining episodes!