What makes a book a classic? It's a question that the literary community has struggled with for centuries. Is there a specific set of criteria that determines how fondly a book should be remembered? What is that magical spark found within classics that "average" books lack? I myself don't know the answers to these questions, but I'll willingly fight any literary critic who tries to argue that Wuthering Heights is worthy of the pedestal it's been placed upon for all these years.
Possibly my biggest issue with Wuthering Heights is the characters. None of them, save Nelly Dean, can be described as sympathetic. Catherine is a vain and self-absorbed brat, who thinks herself and Heathcliff above everybody else. She throws tantrums and physically assaults people if she doesn't get her way. She delights in making people suffer, such as when she attacks Isabella while revealing her crush on Heathcliff to him when he comes to visit Catherine. Her object of obsession, Heathcliff, is quite possibly worse. He is equally self-absorbed and uses his enormous bitterness to justify his cruel behavior towards those around him. For heaven's sake, the man saves a baby's life and hates himself for it. That is the least heroic thing I think I've ever read. Forget sympathy for poor tortured Heathcliff, where's my sympathy for having to read about his angsty butt? Even the sometimes narrator, Lockwood, is loathsome. Most greivously, he's stupid. He makes faces at an angry mother dog, and wonders why he got attacked. He attempts to walk home across an English moor in the middle of a blizzard, and complains about getting sick afterward. Are you kidding me, Bronte? These are the types of people you're expecting me to care about, let alone root for? Better luck next time.
Of course, I realize that this is all a matter of personal taste. To some, Heathcliff and Catherine's mutual obsession could be considered romantic. Their manipulative mindgames might be described as two tortured souls, engaged in a passionate but ultimately destructive dance of love. Perhaps it's just me, then, but I can't see how anyone in their right mind would choose that interpretation of Wuthering Heights. There is nothing romantic in the setting, a dreary and miserable moor. The main characters are cruel and selfish people who seem perfectly willing to be miserable and make others suffer with them; not especially romantic, is it? And therein lies my issue with labelling books such as this a "classic". While this may have passed as romantic and groundbreaking back in the 19th century, I don't feel you can make a case for it having relevance in 21st century society, especially not in the impressionable minds of teenagers. If anything, this book just contributes to society's poisonous idea that a manipulative, abusive, disrespectful man like Heathcliff is "romantic" and a "good catch".
