Zombies and Lunatic Asylums

Let's begin with a selection of the 50 best books by The Sunday Times (Australia) arts editor Jan Hallam. Wuthering Heights is number one on the list:

1. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte, 1847

Wilful tempestuous Cathy, wild Byronesque Heathcliff and long-suffering dependable Edgar – this trio is permanently locked in this gloriously written, tragic love triangle that will break your heart time and time again.

We thought that Jacques Tourneur's 1943 I Walked With a Zombie masterpiece was the only crossover between zombies and Jane Eyre (and a very unlikely one it was) but apparently we were wrong. A review in The Guardian on the recently published A Thing of Unspeakable Horror by Sinclair McKay (a history of the Hammer studios) traces parallels between yet another zombie film: John Gilling's The Plague of the Zombies (1966) and Jane Eyre:

Our cloaked host is able pleasingly to compare The Plague of the Zombies to Jane Eyre, and also has a nice line in deadpan exegesis: "The brain, as tradition demands, is stolen from a morgue and placed in a glass jar which is smashed during the course of a struggle." Isn't it always? (Steven Poole)

From zombies to yellow press, not a bad link probably, the McCartney divorce has appeared on BrontëBlog before, but today the Daily Mail reminds us of the details and shows that not only in zombie films are brains stolen:

Make no mistake, the kids did absolutely despise Heather. For a long time they wouldn't even use her real name - they called her Mrs Rochester, after the destructive wife in Jane Eyre who ended up being sent to a lunatic asylum. (Richard Price)

Yes, just at the right hand on the top of the tower of Thornfield Hall.

On the blogosphere. The Journal of Life comments on Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights