It’s A Love Story, Baby, Just Say “Yes!”

Yeah that's right, I'm back with the Taylor Swift connections! As I'm sure you already know, Taylor Swift writes a lot of love songs that advocate the importance of true love. Like Taylor, Emily Brontë emphasizes the importance of achieving true love once it is found in her gothic novel, Wuthering Heights. I strongly believe that this brilliant piece of gothic literature conveys a message that everyone should come to understand: once true love is established, it must be achieved.

Let's think like a Swiftie here, shall we?

Love Story: Thinking back to the novel, Catherine and Heathcliff were introduced to each other at a young age (“We were both young when I first saw you...” Anyone?). This relationship was obviously not one of love at first sight, but as time progressed they grew closer and closer. Later on in the song Taylor sings “This love is difficult, but it's real.” I feel as though no other Taylor Swift song lyric could best describe the love between Catherine and Heathcliff in this novel. They are pressured both socially and economically, but their love is so true that it exists even after death.

You Belong With Me: Social class plays a major role in the novel, which tends to prevail over love itself. Often, characters tend to choose high social status and wealth over the pursuit of true love. For instance, Catherine chose to be with Edgar, who was wealthy and of high social status, over her one true love Heathcliff. I'd assume that once Catherine made her choice, Heathcliff was dancing around his room and singing to himself, “If you can see I'm the one who understands you / Been here all along so why can't you see / You belong with me!” Along with the lyrics of the song, the distance between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange compared to Taylor’s house and the house of her love interest are quite similarly placed.  

This is a picture of the two houses used in Taylor

Swift's music video for "You Belong With Me".

Dear John: We all know that Heathcliff is a pretty evil dude, but how he treated his wife Isabella was absolutely terrible. Which reminds me of Taylor Swift’s relationship with John Mayer. If you're unfamiliar with the situation, here's a few lyrics from the song she wrote about him: “Dear John, I see it all now that you're gone / Don't you think I was too young to be messed with? / The girl in the dress, cried the whole way home, I should've known.” Yes, Isabella, you should've known. Looking at the lyrics from “Dear John” and the novel Wuthering Heights, you will find similarities between Taylor’s crying all the way home in a dress to Isabella’s running in the snow from Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff to her real home at Thrushcross Grange. Both instances reveal the importance of ending abusive relationships (whether emotionally or physically) and searching for that one true love.

Bad Blood: From the very beginning, Heathcliff and Hindley didn't exactly get along. Hindley constantly found ways of picking on Heathcliff, causing Heathcliff to lash back at him every so often. Heathcliff became pretty fed up with all of Hindley’s antics and declared that he would somehow seek revenge on Hindley. I guess you could say there was a little bad blood between the two? Picture this: Heathcliff creates a music video with flames in the background and Kendrick Lamar rapping while Heathcliff sings: “Now we got problems / And I don't think we can solve them / You made a really deep cut / And, baby, now we got bad blood / Hey! / Did you think we'd be fine? / Still got scars on my back from your knife / So don't think it's in the past, / these kinda wounds they last and they last.” Sorry, there's no true friendship here.

Mary’s Song (Oh My My My): “I was seven and you were nine / I looked at you like the stars that shined / In the sky, the pretty lights.” Of course, I had to fit my personal favorite Taylor Swift song (trust me, it was really hard to pick one) in here somewhere. Luckily, it connects to the novel perfectly! This song depicts a young girl and a young boy who had essentially grown up together as friends and after much teasing from one another as children, they fell in love.  Like the two children in the song, Catherine and Heathcliff would constantly tease each other and play games. Their childhood (unlike that of the children in the Taylor Swift song) was essentially when their relationship started to fall apart. However, the end of the novel reveals that true love can conquer even death.

Begin Again: I thought that Cathy and Hareton's blooming relationship was quite a nice way to end the story. If you look closely at the text, you'll discover that their relationship is a reflection of Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship at the beginning of the novel. Thus, the end is the beginning all over again. Taylor Swift got it right with her song “Begin Again”, as the lyrics are: “I’ve been spending the last 8 months thinking all love ever does / Is break and burn and end / But on a Wednesday in a Café I watched it begin again.” In a way, we as readers are like Taylor in this song. While reading, we believed that true love did not exist in this novel, until the end when it all began again.