The Week discusses 'the rumoured demise of English literature'.
While [Matthew Oliver, head of English at Bede’s in East Sussex] believes the “canon is still relevant as an idea”, he thinks some exam boards have been “quite narrow at GCSE” and wants to teach the best of literature in English – whether that’s a Nigerian novel, an American play or a text in translation.
“We must give the sense that literature is still being written about the world we live in now,” he says. So, if his pupils are studying the urban poverty of “Jane Eyre” or “David Copperfield”, Oliver might also get them to read “Shuggie Bain” by Douglas Stuart or “Only Here, Only Now” by Tom Newlands.
“What I insist upon is the freedom to combine what we believe to be the best of our canonical classical texts with something that is contemporary and brilliant. I think that combination is incredibly powerful.” (Amanda Constance)
Re-reading the novel recently, though, after years of dating discourse, red-flag literacy, and too many TikToks dissecting toxic men, was a shock. What once seemed romantic now felt like emotional manipulation and abuse. Heathcliff’s obsession, guilt-tripping, and rage seem to be the foundation for modern “problematic faves”. [...]
But in today’s world, the novel makes clear quite a few things. Heathcliff isn’t a misunderstood dream lover. He is cruel, bitter, and abusive. His love for Catherine may be “deep and unshakable”, but it is also possessive and punitive. When Catherine marries the neighbouring landowner Edgar Linton, Heathcliff doesn’t simply grieve; he disappears, returns wealthy, and spends decades effecting a vengeful campaign that devastates two families and spills into the next generation (a reckoning most screen adaptations conveniently minimise).
His most famous outbursts sound romantic until you really listen. “Haunt me then!… drive me mad!” is less a plea for love than a demand for emotional ownership. “You teach me now how cruel you’ve been” reads like an early template for manipulative guilt. Heathcliff’s fury at Catherine’s autonomy is the crux of the novel, and his sense of entitlement to her love is repeatedly framed as justification for cruelty.
And yet, for generations, Heathcliff has been sold as passion incarnate. The question is why. Why have we been taught to read violence as depth, volatility as intensity, and obsession as destiny? Heathcliff exposes how patriarchy dresses cruelty up as romance, teaching women that love should hurt — and that pain is proof of meaning.
That legacy is everywhere. From Gothic literature to dark-romance paperbacks, from brooding immortals in Twilight to today’s morally grey BookTok obsessions, Heathcliff’s DNA persists. He is the original red-flag romantic hero, the man whose damage is framed as allure, whose trauma excuses his harm. (Teja Lele)
Fennell is under no obligation to produce a faithful adaptation, yet she offers little new critical insight. It feels frustratingly one-dimensional, failing to engage meaningfully with the novel’s concerns of class mobility, generational trauma, and patriarchal constraint. Heathcliff’s rise to wealth remains underdeveloped, displaced by an emphasis on his humiliating, BDSM-tinged relationship with Isabella, played with comic flair by Alison Oliver. While entertaining, moments such as her crawling on all fours undermine a character who, in Brontë’s 1847 text, embodies resilience. Isabella’s escape – culminating in her declaration, ‘I’ll smash it!’, as she casts away her wedding ring – constitutes one of the novel’s most radical assertions of female autonomy within nineteenth-century patriarchy. Comic exaggeration reduces such defiance to spectacle, eliminating the novel’s interrogation of gendered power.
Despite these inconsistencies, the adaptation has reignited interest in the novel, surging book sales and thus prompting a renewed readership. If Fennell’s film achieves anything, I would hope it is in renewed attention to the novel itself. Readers returning to Brontë will encounter a work of far greater moral extremity and narrative daring than its stylised reinterpretation suggests.
Ultimately, Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” is best approached with caution. However visually striking, the adaptation fails to capture Brontë’s structural and psychological daring. In watching the film, we learn that appearance alone cannot sustain a story of such emotional and thematic depth, and what remains is a version that gestures towards Brontë’s vision without ever fully grasping its power. (Sophia Elston)
Rova has a video review of the film. A contributor to
Indian Express goes round and round the same old topic: 'Why Wuthering Heights’ lovers are angry with Emerald Fennell’s ragebait'. A contributor to
Medium's Papel en blanco (in Spanish) discusses love vs passion in Wuthering Heights 2026.
Hollywood Outbreak shares an audio clip of Jacob Elordi on the 'costumes that helped him become Heathcliff'.
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