Wuthering Heights: Heathcliff the Gypsy

Ellen Dean describes how Heathcliff came to live at Wuthering Heights. Mr. Earnshaw, on a trip to Liverpool, sixty miles from the Heights, found Heathcliff alone in the streets, speaking a foreign language. Rather than stay in the city to try to find his people, Mr. Earnshaw brought him home as though the little boy was a stray cat. His wife scolded him for bringing home another mouth to feed and wanted to be rid of him.

Bronte, by making Heathcliff a gypsy and not, for example, a white hired farm hand, allowed for more reasons for the Earnshaws and their neighbors to dislike him. It also accentuated Heathcliff's position as an outsider, forced into a household that didn't want him, by the master of the house whose decisions were final. Not only was he unrelated to them by blood and treated as a favorite son by Earnshaw, but he was dark skinned and, until he learned English, no one could understand his language. Soon, however, Catherine's heart opened to Heathcliff even more than her father's.

According to the website Gypsy Roma Traveller Leeds gypsies were historically hated in England and even put to death in the 16th century just for being gypsies. There were laws banning them from England. Apparently, gypsies were given the same low status as vermin in those days. It seems like they received the same treatment! Extermination or expulsion.

Mr. Earnshaw never adopted Heathcliff as a son, only as sort of a pet and even though Catherine described him as a soul mate, she chose to marry the wealth and status of Edgar Linton with the plan of keeping Heathcliff with her to improve his position as well as her own. She must have been thinking of Heathcliff in terms of a pet herself, since rules of marriage don't allow for wives to keep lovers in the house.

Would Earnshaw have adopted Heathcliff and given him a last name and a legal place in the family if he weren't a gypsy?

Willow: Still A Good Movie

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What a bargain! I found a copy of Willow (1988) on VHS at the local Goodwill store for 50 cents! I hadn't seen Willow since the 80s, but I loved it just as much as I did the first time. I barely remembered any of it except a dwarf (Willow) having to save a baby and Val Kilmer (Madmartigan) helped. So, it was almost like seeing it for the first time. 

The story was created by George Lucas (Star Wars) and the movie was directed by Ron Howard (The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons) so how could it not be good? Willow himself was very Frodo-ish from Lord of the Rings but the story was much less complicated and it all wrapped up neatly in a nice happy ending for all who deserved it and those who died in battle died for a good cause, saving the world from the evil queen. 

I just love dwarfs, fairies, witches and sorcerers and the like, and it had lots of that as well. Simple people in simple times, just wanting to live in peace and harmony makes a good story as they overcome the evil forces that want to rob them of their basic needs and plunge them into misery. It's always great when the hero is a modest character with the odds against him or her, but somehow manages to conquer evil, save the world and realize their strengths. 

Wouldn't it be great if we all could be heroes?

The Terminator and Michael Myers

I recently found a copy of the original Terminator movie on VHS at the local Goodwill Store for 99 cents so I grabbed it. Netflix has Terminator 2 but not the original movie. Not having seen it since it first came out on video, I didn't remember much of it so I needed to see it before Terminator: Genisys comes out. I remember at the time (1984) the special effects and computer graphics were amazing and something we hadn't seen before on the big screen. It seems pretty lame now, of course. But it was great to see it again as though it was the first time. 

Linda Hamilton was so young and had some serious Joan Jett hair going on! At the time I thought she was kind of old and plain. I didn't remember Bess Motta as her roommate either, not that she had a very big part. I religiously followed Bess Motta on the 20 Minute Workouts back in the mid 80s on a Boston TV channel. She instructed us to keep going during the commercial break which usually consisted of at least one ad for the Boston Bruins. She was also on the remake of The Monkees in the later 80s and then disappeared from my TV except for my 20 Minute Workout VHS. 

When the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) was driving the stolen police car in pursuit of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) did he resemble Michael Myers to anyone else? His eyebrows were shaved off and he had really pasty-looking makeup on his face and all I could think of was Michael Myers from the original Halloween movie. The two killers were also just as obsessed with killing and just as relentless in their pursuits. 

Where the Terminator was a cyborg created to kill, Michael Myers was the embodiment of evil, where in our culture, killing seems to be the most unforgiving and serious of sins and/or crimes.The first car the Terminator steals in his search for Sarah Connor is a station wagon very similar to the one Michael Myers steals from the sanitarium.  Michael Myers might just as well have been a cyborg the way he kept rising from apparent total destruction to create another sequel. 

The similarities were erased when the Terminator started wearing sunglasses to hide his naked laser eye after crashing the police car. He also traded in the cloth blazer that made him look like Herman Munster from the back to the leather jacket, better for riding a motorcycle. He could definitely give Michael Myers a lesson in fashion.

Crawling With Spiders

After my neighbor kindly demolished an old rotting wooden playhouse in my back yard, I set to disassembling it in order to pile the pieces on the curb for the town's annual clean-up day. Only about a week had passed after my neighbor tore the structure down before I set to pulling it apart to neatly stack on the curb. My only tools were a claw hammer, a screwdriver, a pair of pliers and a utility knife. So it took quite a while.

Spiders thrive in woody damp dark areas such as under and among the rubble of the playhouse. It only took a week for spiders to take up full occupency. The wood was crawling with them. Every broken section I lifted produced at least one long-legged crawly spider. As a person who doesn't fear spiders and even allows them to live peacefully undisturbed in certain corners of my house, I didn't really pay any attention at first. As I was diligently prying slats from framing and pulling out long rusty nails, I felt a sharp pinch on my Deet drenched arm and looked to find one of my spider friends cruising along my bicep. It bit me!

Reflexively, I flicked it off my arm and where it landed, I don't know, so I lifted my hammer and killed the next one I saw. I sought vengeance for the unjust behavior of a spider by killing one of his likeness no matter how innocent. Finding that I can make a comparison between any life event and either Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights or The Walking Dead, I thought of Heathcliff forcing young innocent Cathy to marry his sickly son Linton in order to gain ownership of Thrushcross Grange because he hated her father Edgar for marrying his true love and soul mate and treating him like a lowly servant.

Thankfully, the spider bite was nothing but a little pinch that didn't cause any skin reaction or illness on my part, so I was able to finish the job only slightly delayed by more spiders harmlessly crawling down my shirt and up my pants.

Wuthering Heights: Horrible Boss: Catherine Earnshaw Linton

Growing up with the Earnshaw children, Hindley and Catherine, wasn't too bad for Ellen (Nelly) Dean while her mother worked as the Earnshaw's housekeeper, but after Hindley and Catherine's parents died and Ellen took her mother's position after her death things went downhill fast. Once Hindley's wife died and he took up drinking he became violent and unpredictable. Nelly would unload his gun to avoid being shot. He held a knife to her face ordering her to open her mouth so he could shove it down her throat. There's a boss to die for!

Just before this scene Ellen was pinched and slapped by Catherine for not leaving the room when ordered. Then when Hindley's son began to cry as a reaction to Ellen's tears, Catherine shook him until he "waxed livid" and he was rescued by her future fiance and husband Edgar Linton, who received a head strike for getting in her way. All in a days work at Wuthering Heights!

That next day Mr. Kenneth the village doctor diagnosed Catherine with an almost fatal fever and prescribed that no one cause her to be upset for fear of a relapse that could be fatal. This gave Catherine permission to abuse the two house servants, Ellen and Joseph, without restraint. During her period of convalescence at Thrushcross Grange, she killed Edgar's parents by sharing her illness with them which only made her more disagreeable to work for. 

After three more years of abuse on the job, Catherine married Edgar and wanted Ellen to remain her servant and accompany her to Thrushcross Grange. Although Ellen did whatever she could to avoid the move, she was finally ordered by Hindley to pack her things and go with Catherine. 

Catherine Earnshaw Linton must be one of the worst bosses ever if Ellen Dean begged to remain Hindley's servant rather than follow Catherine to her new marital home. After Hindley held a knife to her, threatened to kill her and everyone in the house and was such a violent drunk that she had to hide his son from him and try to avoid his company in general, she would still rather remain his servant than Catherine's.That says a lot about how horribly Catherine treated her employees.

It's no surprise, is it, when Ellen says, "She's fainted or dead, so much the better. Far better that she should be dead, than a lingering burden and a misery-maker to all about her." After Catherine dies and Ellen describes the peaceful look on the face of Catherine's corpse, she feels peaceful herself. Her work environment had improved tremendously!

Mad Max: Fury Road: Buckle Up

You better be ready for non-stop action, horrific warlords, crazy warriors bred for terror, and the coolest, most damaged heroes ever. I was still glued to my seat while the credits rolled in awe of the intensity of the movie and had to take a minute to collect myself before leaving the theater. The vehicles were bigger and faster and stronger and more ominous than any at the monster truck shows, the costumes and make up were designed with purpose to show status and to identify just whose "team" each player belonged. The skulls, the stitches, the black around the eyes. Metal skulls adorned everything, from clothing to steering wheels, to vehicles. Just about everything was worked in metal and destroyed with fire power.

I'm looking forward to seeing some people cosplaying the characters at the local comicons. I"m also looking forward to a sequel.

Wuthering Heights: A Comparison of Corpses

Ellen describes Catherine Earnshaw Linton's corpse as peaceful:

"Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared. "

Catherine had just suffered the torment of having a baby right after the mental torment of longing for Heathcliff and her life of freedom and love before her oppressive boring marriage to Edgar. Her suffering was over and her soul could find eternal happiness haunting the wild moors of her childhood.

When Ellen finds Heathcliff dead in his bed, soaked in rain from the open window she was startled by the eeriness of his corpse:

". . .Mr. Heathcliff was there--laid on his back. His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I started, and then he seemed to smile. . .I could not think him dead: but his face and throat were washed with rain: the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still.. .I tried to close his eyes: to extinguish, if possible, that frightful, life-like gaze of exultation, before anyone else beheld it."

Did Catherine's ghost come for him finally? If he died while smiling in exultation, he must have been experiencing something that made his soul leap from his body and his heart suddenly stop.

I find it interesting and strangely comforting how people dealt with death during the 19th century when could people die at any time of life because of lack of the vaccines and medical advancements we take for granted now. People still mourned the deaths of their loved ones, but death didn't come as a complete shock like it seems to now unless the departed was extremely advanced in age. It was so sad when Heathcliff sneaked into the house to put his hair in Catherine's locket, except for the fact that he tossed Edgar's lock of hair on the floor to make room for his own. That was pretty rude.