The Toronto Star asks bookish questions to writer Haley Mlotek.
When you were 10 years old, what was your favourite book?
I was obsessed with "Jane Eyre." Completely, totally, absolutely obsessed. This was probably an early warning sign of some sorts, but at least it eventually led me to "Wide Sargasso Sea" and Jean Rhys.
Nerd Daily has an article on 'the timeless allure of Gothic romance' written by The Spirit Collection of Thorne Hall author J. Ann Thomas.
Sometimes she is a governess, hired by a mysterious, rich man, to educate his ward as in the case of Jane Eyre, or to look after his strange children like the nameless protagonist of “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James. In the case of the former, the attraction between governess and employer is complicated not only by the power dynamic between them, but the secrets Rochester is concealing. [...]
One crucial thing many Gothic heroines share is her tragically terrible taste in men.
Heathcliff. Edward Rochester. Maxime de Winter.
Mad, bad, and dangerous to know, they are the Byronic hero: Dark, tortured, and haunted by their past yet possessed by a magnetic charisma that draws the heroine in, igniting her repressed sexual desire and yearning to escape the narrow confines of her family and society’s expectations. They are often older, worldly, and wealthy, an irresistible combination for young, impressionable women and she is as equally irresistible to him: her melancholic beauty is a balm for his troubled soul and her love is his redemption, whether he is deserving of it or no. Their romance is doomed from the start, but it is woven into the very fabric of the flowing nightgowns the heroine wears as she flees from almost certain death, and even though she would be better off leaving his windswept figure far behind, we cannot help but fall under their spell, and hope that they escape the clutches of the past and horrors of the present.
4. Wuthering Heights, 1992
The action takes place somewhere on the West Yorkshire moors in the 19th century. Mr. Earnshaw, the father of two teenagers, Hindley and Catherine, brings home a hungry tramp, Heathcliff. He decides to take the boy into his care and asks the children to think of him as a brother.
Catherine and Heathcliff grow up and fall in love. However, the difference in social status and her brother's envy prevent them from being together. In the end, the woman becomes the wife of a wealthy neighbor. But Heathcliff is willing to do anything to be with her.
In the film adaptation of Emily Bronte's famous novel, Fiennes played Heathcliff – a rude and bitter man obsessed with his passions. It was his first leading role. (Tobias Rivera)
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