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[dinglewood]

Though I continually check in on you all to get the skinny, it's been almost a year since I posted.  Not much has changed.  I'm still in school; I'm still living with Cord; I'm still stressing about finding a job on the other side.  And yet [pause for existential moment] I do believe just about everything has changed.  That's not sad, that just is

Comments

[jumperkid]

What are you writing your thesis on?

[dinglewood]

I'm reading Heathcliff as a Caliban figure who ultimately succeeds in his revenge and comparing the differing critical receptions these characters received in the 19th century. As performances turn back to the original text of the Tempest around mid-century they also start showing increasing sympathy for Caliban, while Heathcliff is reviled as a truly subversive creature.
I've made my own bed by choosing characters that already have rooms full of criticism dedicated to them.

[jumperkid]

Ooooh, that's really interesting! I'm not surprised that there's already lots of crit on them individually, but is there already much comparing them? Or that deals with both characters?

[dinglewood]

No, there's not, and that is why I am super! There are a few different critics who have looked at Shakespeare's influence on Bronte in general, and there's a critic in Florida who insists on Heathcliff being like Othello, picking up on his blackness. but I counter that that's just the accepted method of marginalizing a character and not reason enough to suggest that they parallel one another. Also (squee!) Emily Bronte signed one of her letters as Caliban.

[jumperkid]

Yeah, I don't buy the Heathcliff-Othello parallel at all. I guess there's the outsider connection, but that's about it. And that particular parallel applies to Caliban as well.