A Metaphorical Killing

In The Ballad of Reading Gaol, the lines “Some love too little, some too long, /Some sell, and others buy; / Some do the deed with many tears, / And some without a sigh: / For each man kills the thing he loves, /  Yet each man does not die.” Reminds me quite a bit of Wuthering Heights. I feel as though it connects to how Cathy dies first, and Heathcliff and Edgar outlive her for some time. Meanwhile having a child, ultimately an act of love between Cathy and Edgar killed her. On the other hand, it also connects a bit more metaphorically in the sense that her relationship with Heathcliff livened, but also killed her spirit, in the grand scheme of things. Overall, I thought these two connected in the expression of the man metaphorically killing his loved one.

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