In his essay, “Agnosticism and Christianity,” T.H Huxley reiterates the distinction between the good spirits and bad spirits: “The chief of the good spirits, infinitely superior to all the others, and their creator, as well as the creator of the corporeal world and of the bad spirits, is God. His residence is heaven, where he is surrounded by the ordered hosts of good spirits; his angels, or messengers, and the executors of his will throughout the universe.” On the matter of the bad spirits and their chief, Satan, Huxley asserts that the devil “and his company of demons are free to roam through all parts of the universe, except the heaven” (Paragraph 18-19). Huxley’s distinction between the good spirits and bad spirits in this essay reminded me of the multiple incidents throughout Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights where both Catherine E. and Heathcliff fetishise an afterlife of careless wandering together and an omission of God altogether.

In Chapter 12, we see Catherine deliriously looking out her window at what she assumes is Wuthering Heights, and speaks as though she addresses Heathcliff: “We’ve braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But, Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I’ll keep you. I’ll not lie there by myself: they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over, but I won’t rest till you are with me. I never will!” (Paragraph 40). In another instance, directly after Catherine’s death in Chapter 16, Heathcliff cries, “May she wake in torment! . . .And I pray one prayer – I repeat it till my tongue stiffens – Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you – haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!” (Paragraph 16). 

I am particularly drawn to Emily Brontë’s decision to have both Catherine and Heathcliff, on multiple occasions, talk of life after death as a means in which they will be reunited, and until then, their souls will languish and ache for the other’s company. And I find myself consistently struck by Brontë’s decision to include the little boy with the sheep who claims to see the spirits of Heathcliff and a woman (arguably Catherine), in the final chapter of her novel. This additional narrative adds depth to the novel not only because it offers the reader a glimpse of life after death, but because it is so controversial to Brontë’s own upbringing and religious community.

 In addition to this notion of bad spirits roaming the earth, I am fascinated by Brontë’s narrative ability to challenge the ideas surrounding Heaven. While Huxley is explicit in his understanding that bad souls are free to roam anywhere, except “Heaven”- Bronte challenges this rule because “Heaven” for Catherine E. and Heathcliff is not a reunion with God, but with each other. In Chapter 9, when Catherine confesses to Nelly that she would be miserable in heaven, she elaborates: “I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.” There is so much to unpack after reading these two works in consecutive order, but it seems as though Emily Bronte and T.H Huxley had more in common than I anticipated. They both shared the same ability to stray from collective belief systems, challenged established systems that lacked evidence, and considered multiple interpretations concerning religion.

In Darwin’s, On the Origin of Species, I came across a very interesting passage about chance vs. cultivation. Darwin writes about how when looking at different plants and bushes on a bank, we are tempted to attribute their positions to chance. Darwin further claims that this view is false and that when we look at the bank we should rather think of the plant’s struggles and cultivation to get such diversity. He says, “What a struggle must have gone on during long centuries between the several kinds of trees, each annually scattering its seeds by the thousand; what war between insect and insect–between insects, snails, and other animals with birds and beasts of prey–all striving to increase, all feeding on each other…” (6). To say the diversity (and maybe even the beauty) of the plants was just mere chance would be taking away from how these plants cultivated their own destiny and end result. The was much time, a struggle, and effort involved in this process.

This got me to think of the struggles between many of the characters in Wuthering Heights and the question of why Nelly, the narrator, delved so deeply into the actions of the characters when she was telling Lockwood about Heathcliff. To any passerby witnessing the “success” of Heathcliff (i.e. obtaining both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange), it may look like mere chance. People passed away, maybe left Heathcliff the homesteads, yadda yadda. Maybe to Nelly, the story of Catherine and Heathcliff was carefully cultivated by the character’s actions. They were the insects at war in Darwin’s description. It wasn’t just chance that lead to the deaths of Catherine and Heathcliff, it was a struggle. Perhaps Nelly unfolds this narrative so that people (like Lockwood) don’t take a false view on the circumstances and events at Wuthering Heights.

Of course, the most obvious and clear connection between all of the works is the progress of science, and how it conflicts with previously revered religious thought. Father and Son describe the resistance to this form of thought, even among the educated. In many ways, science and religion conflict directly, and one must be the “universal truth”. Perhaps the greatest and most groundbreaking example of this conflict comes in the form of Darwin’s On the Origin Of Species, where core tenets of religion were burned in favor of the new doctrine of scientific progress. The influences of science and religion often do cross, as described in Father and Son. The geography of the Earth conflicts with biblical writings in a concrete and quantifiable sense.

Yet, the existence of science and religion within the same realm is very possible. This is through the rise of another school of thought from this era, agnosticism. While agnosticism denies the concept of faith, it relies upon a strong principle that God cannot be proven or disproven. Areas of science reign supreme when they overlap with areas of faith, yet these discrepancies do not totally write off religion as a whole. The existence of science and religion within the Victorian Era opened up a culture of ambiguity.

Another connection that could be made here is back to many of the supernatural themes within Victorian Literature. Wuthering Heights leaves the supernatural nature of Catherine and Heathcliff to be ambiguous, up to the reader to decide if they truly are supernatural in nature. The reader is given no definitive proof if Catherine’s spirit truly does return, or if it is simply in the mind of the narrator.

In “On The Origin of Species by Natural Selection,” one part stuck out to me particularly : “THE TERM, STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE, USED IN A LARGE SENSE.I should premise that I use this term in a large and metaphorical sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny.”  I immediately thought of Wuthering Heights and how we see this dependency as of one being dependent on another in many different ways. For example, I see this as an emotional way of dependence in Catherines sense. As we see various relationships form in the novel, I couldn’t help but relate this to how they are in a way in general dependent, or co-dependent on one another.  With Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship, Catherine has this dependence on Heathcliff in an emotional way as she loves him, and Heathcliff controls many aspects of Catherines life throughout the novel, which also relates to emotional dependency with a controlling aspect. Overall, Catherine and Heathcliff’s dependency on one another leads to harm both of their emotional aspects of sanity in a way. Another aspect of dependency is how Catherine is dependent on the societal aspects of Edgar in their marriage, although it is not truly the one she wants to marry, she is dependent upon Edgar solely for the status he holds.

After researching health in Victorian England last week, I thought it was very interesting to now read about Charles Darwin and Natural Selection. He starts this text off by saying “We will now discuss in a little more detail the struggle for existence.” He was right; it was very hard to live a healthy lifestyle during this time period. Natural Selection is all about adapting to your environment to survive and reproduce, but that was so difficult under these harsh conditions. As we learned, the urban areas tended to be worse due to the people being lower class. They couldn’t afford proper drainage systems so the towns would flood and lead to mold and fungi growth. In addition, the sewer water would often get mixed with the drinking water which caused a number of diseases such as Cholera. As a result, the poorer neighborhoods were more susceptible to disease and they died off faster than people with more money. We saw this in Wuthering Heights when most of the characters died during the plot of the story and the oldest person was only 39. As time went on, we gained more knowledge and technology that has helped us fight off these diseases, but during the Victorian era this is how Natural Selection worked.