Monday, February 8, 2010

A Nod to Violent Passion

Ok, I watched two movies this weekend which contained "violent passion" between the lovers-Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Wuthering Heights. WOW. I was kind of taken off guard by how passionately these lovers worshipped their mates. (especially Wuthering Heights) I mean, they literally worshipped eachother. And although I was horrified when (**spoiler) Heathcliff dug Cathy's corpse up 20 years later to (presumably) hold her and look at her face, I was also touched by his loyalty and devotion to her. And when (**spoiler) Tess kills Alec to show Angel that she has only ever truly loved him and belonged to him. Here are some great quotes from the books:


"My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 19

"I can't bear to let anybody have him but me! Yet it is wrong Tess him, and may kill him when he knows!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 28

"O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel ! I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and I can never, never forgive you! You know that I did not intend to wrong you - why have you so wronged me? You are cruel, cruel indeed! I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at your hands!" - Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urberville, Chapter 51


"It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Ch. 9

"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."- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Ch. 9

"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."- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Ch. 9

"Kiss me again, but don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer--but yours! How can I?"- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Ch. 15

"'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! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I CANNOT live without my life! I CANNOT live without my soul!'"- Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Ch. 16

So, I guess what I'm saying (and I guess I'm mostly talking about W.H. since Angel's love for Tess wasn't always "unwavering"), I like is their unwavering love for eachother. Their zeal for eachother. Their fire. Their loyalty. So, can I please find a little violent passion, minus the crazy obssessivness and actual physical violence??