Killed before Kill

    There are deaths in deaths.

     People can die before they died. What is the weapon? Negative emotions? Medicine? What kind of weapon kill people and allow them to stay alive in the same time?

      In Emily Brontë’s Gothic work, Catherine’s and Heathcliff’s life ended in a mystical way. However, both Catherine and Heathcliff died prior to their deaths. This new type of “death” certainly highlights a new scope of the meaning of death to humans, in which death could not be restrain to a cold body with no pulse.

       Prior to Heathcliff’s return from his departure, Heathcliff killed Catherine. Catherine states, “[Heathcliff has] killed me-and thriven on it.” (117) How? The cause is Heathcliff’s departure after Catherine has decided to marry Edgar. To Catherine, the absence of Heathcliff has a significant impact on her emotional health. The connotation of death associates with sorrow and loneliness, and its combination of negative feelings represents Catherine’s feelings toward the departure of Heathcliff. Not only did Heathcliff left Catherine, he returned with a mature countenance. To Catherine, Heathcliff’s new outlook appears to Catherine that his life is flourishing, in contrast to the sorrow Catherine felt. This kind of death demonstrates how love could serve as a weapon to kill a human being, yet she can remain alive in another sense. Furthermore, Heathcliff defends the cause of Catherine’s death was not him, but herself. According to Heathcliff, Catherine have killed herself by betraying her heart when she chose to marry Edgar. Ultimately, it is Catherine who chose Edgar, leading to Heathcliff’s departure and her heartbreak. In a sense, both Catherine and Heathcliff contribute to her own “death”, and it is the power of true love that grant love its strength to become a deadly weapon.

         On the other hand, Heathcliff is killed before his death. Toward the end of the work, Heathcliff states, “It was a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by a fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years!” (280).Heathcliff’s vision of Catherine offers him a hope to a connection with his love. A connection that could only be felt, but could not see. Furthermore, Heathcliff emphasizes the length of his beguilement, in which his hopes has accumulated throughout these years and it becomes an act of killing. It is the unfulfilled wish that killed Heathcliff. Even though the cause of Catherine’s and Heathcliff’s “death” is different, both “deaths”reflect the power of true love, in which it could affect one’s mental state in a negative way.

        The different types of “death” contrast the traditional view of death. Death cannot be associated only to grave or deadly weapons. Instead, unfulfilled desires and the absence of a love one can cause one’s “death”. Altogether, both types of death evoke despair and loneliness. The love between Catherine and Heathcliff proves true love would not cease. Death cannot end true love, but love can serves as a weapon and leads to death. Certainly, love and death are spears pointed at both ends.