I mean, I liked Pride and Prejudice well enough, but it had to grow on me. I was forced to watch it about four times by others, and on the last time, I realized it was actually a pretty hot love story. I even own the Keira Knightly version, which I know you will argue is not half as good as the one with Colin Firth.
After watching Wuthering Heights on PBS, I became aware of how similar Stephanie Meyers' Twilight is to Emily Bronte's twisted love story. Here are the parallels:
How Heathcliff and Edward are similar
*dark, creepy personalities
*pasty skin
*terrifying eyes
*poorly styled hair
*obsessive about the women they love to the point of death
| Do you really want either of these men loving you? |
*Heathcliff actually has some clever dialogue, whereas Edward just tries to smolder everyone with his golden eyes. The Heathcliff line that cracks me up is when he returns from being gone for three years. After finding an unfavorable old man still alive, Heathcliff says "You're still here?" The old fart replies "Yes, God has seen to keep me alive on this earth." Then Heathcliff zings him with "Maybe the Lord has kept you on earth because he'd find your company so irksome in heaven." Well played, Heath, well played.
Regardless of writing, character development, and dialogue, both Wuthering Heights and Twilight romanticize obsessive relationships and influence readers/movie viewers to desire such relationships. People, please understand, these are not sweet "I'll die without him" love stories. They are creepy. Restraining orders and medications were created for just these exact stories.
Stay with me here, because I'm about to shift gears and go into my "beliefs" mode. Sorry if you skip out on those posts, because you miss the very core of my heart and soul when you do. You may not read my "God posts" because they don't make you laugh, but believe me, God has a sense of humor. He did, after all, create the Saiga antelope and the Macaroni penguin.
Back on track. That whole obsessive-love thing. In high school or even college, I may have thought that was what true love was like--thinking about someone so much that you feel the urge to creep by their window at night to watch them sleep. But not now. You may think I am a liar, but this is what I want: a man obsessed not with me, but with God.
This is what I envision
Am I obsessed now? No, not by a fanatic's standards. Do I want to be? Yes. If there is anything worth obsessing over, it's God. Heathcliff and Edward really need to straighten out their priorities. Cathy and Bella need to get a clue and realize men will always disappoint, no matter how much they love you.
God is crazy in love with you and He thinks about you all the time. Jesus loves you so much he died for you. He wrote you a fatty stack of love letters and tries to impress you every morning by making the sun rise. He is so obsessed with you that he wants you to spend forever with Him.
Are you getting this? At this very moment, someone wants to love you forever. Regardless of what you do, no matter who you cheat on him with, God will and does love you forever and always. It's his deepest desire that you love him back.
And well, if you still crave that creep factor in you love relationship, don't even worry about it, because God already watches you when you're sleeping.
--Joelle
Good post, God's love is indeed infinite and I am glad that He cares about me so much. Though, I have to disagree with the similarities between Twilight and Wuthering Heights (no one has been able to successfully adapt WH into tv/film due to the structure.)
ReplyDeleteTo mention Stephenie Meyer's name in the same sentence as Emily Bronte is very insulting to Bronte. Sorry, Bronte! WH acknowledged the stuffed up relationship between HC and Cathy. Heck, 100 years later people are still musing on whether or not Cathy dragged him to hell out of spite, or if HC was part/full demon or if they both were. Truth be told, theirs were just a tragic and very destuctive love. Plus, it has so so many layers. Abuse of patriarchal families, prejudice, critiques (subtle) of women of society at the time and many many more. I was 16 when I read WH, and I get why it would put many to sleep. Though, personally, I liked it, just a bit stuffy. But it was written in the 19th century, so it's not going to have layman English and modern vernacular. Twilight doesn't even use alot of words correctly! I'm not saying I could do better, but you'd think Meyer could with her BA and everything.
The main difference is Twilight is a simple gushy novel (yes I enjoyed it too) whereas WH is an actual novel which makes you think and has so many layers to it. To call it the "Twilight of it's day" is demeaning to Literature. But, I digress, they are just stories and not something to get worked up about.
(Bear in mind I'm only 20, so I'm not trying to be a Lit snob, just my opinion.)
Dear Literature Critic,
ReplyDeleteTo mention the author of Twilight in the same sentence as ANY writer of actual literature is an insult, which is why I will now refer to S.M. as "the author of Twilight". Or maybe I should go with "the encourager of psychotic, unhealthy relationships, who wrote a book that should not be spoken of."
Lol, well said.
ReplyDeleteI believe through out the book she herself makes comparisons of herself with Wuthering Heights. I thought it was insulting. What was even worse in my opinion was all these kids thinking that after reading twilight they were capable of reading Wuthering Heights never mind the fact that for some twilight was one of the few books they had ever read and there is a huge difference in the language used in both books
ReplyDelete