lathriel | Tragic love story, anyone?

Who doesn't love a good tragic love story? More to the point, why do we love them, and is it unhealthy to love them so? I don't know the answers to those questions. All I know is that I have had inspirations for such stories a lot in the past few weeks, and I feel like I need to tell one. For instance, I watched the movie version of one of my favorite novels, Wuthering Heights, the other day (the version with a youngish Ralph Fiennes omghot and an amazing actor to boot) and scene after scene I was struck repeatedly with how overwhelmingly in love Heathcliff and Cathy were, to the point of self destruct. Unhealthy? Yes. But heartbreakingly lovely.

(discussing her engagement to Linton and love for Heathcliff, with Nellie)

Cathy: If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees — my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath — a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff — he's always, always in my mind — not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself — but as my own being.

(As Cathy lay dying in bed)

Heathcliff: Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? You loved me. And what right had you to leave me? ... Nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us. You, of your own will, did it. I've not broken your heart- you have broken it. And in breaking it, you've broken mine.

Cathy: You left me, too, but I forgive you. Forgive me.

Heathcliff: It's so hard.. to forgive, alone. Yes, I forgive what you've done to me. I love my murderer. But yours... how can I?

And also:

(When Nellie comes to tell Heathcliff that Cathy has died)

Heathcliff: I pray one prayer, and 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! Be with me always, take any form, drive me mad, only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! [sobbing] I cannot live without my life. I cannot live without my soul...

I realize that this tragic kind of love goes entirely against my own desire to promote self reliance ( "My world will not end if I am alone, because I will always have myself/higher self"), but it's so gloriously powerful. The reason Emily Bronte was able to pull it off was that Cathy and Heathcliff are awful people, in reality. They're not the heroes (the next generation of children is). They're not anti-heroes, either. They are selfish, and cruel, but in a very human way that makes us love them. That's a difficult thing to pull off, in writing.

I also am aware of the fact that a certain author of sparkly vampires thinks her main characters reflect this same tragic romance... WRONG. Wrong wrong wrong! OMG wrong! I am offended by that comparison. Even if I did like the "saga," Wuthering Heights is a masterpiece and you would have to be on crack to think Clutzy McGee and Sparkle Marbles have anything in common with Catherine and Heathcliff. Ugh.

Ok.

Anyway.

I have a tragic love story building in my brain. I reconcile my spirituality this is logic: it's okay to write tragedies because we create our own desires by learning through contrast. This way, we can experience the badness of tragedy without it actually happening to us, but strongly enough to launch those wonderful desires that we live to manifest. Yay :D

Look out for lyric posts in the near future... there are a few Belle & Sebastian songs that have been haunting me in this arena lately.