Comparing Childhood Love in Sense and Sensibility and Wuthering Heights

Childhood Love

Love is an emotion that you are fortunate to experience sometime in your life. Love can make you very delighted but it can also make you do crazy things. It is almost like it takes control of your emotions and makes you irrational. This does not just go for adults, but children too. A child is just as capable of being in love. The novels Wuthering Heights and Sense and Sensibility proves the powerful influence love can have on the different personalities of the children.

Wuthering Heights is a novel written by Emily Bronte. Bronte writes about two usually stable families and an intruder that stirs up their lives. "In the "beginning", happiness reigned at Wuthering Heights . Hindley and Catherine Earnshaw and their parents were, seemingly, a felicitous unit." (Knapp, 113) One day Mr. Earnshaw brings home a tan young boy he found wandering the streets. Mr. Earnshaw names him Heathcliff and begins to raise him like his own son. This causes tension in the family. Mr. Earnshaw begins to favor the stranger over his own son. This causes Hindley to become jealous of Heathcliff. As Hindley's hate for Heathcliff grew stronger, Catherine's love for him grew even stronger. This causes life at Wuthering Heights to be unbearable. The family turns against Hindley and sends him away to school and Heathcliff takes the place as the son of the house. After Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaws death Hindley returns to Wuthering Heights for revenge on Heathcliff. Catherine and Heathcliff stayed in love throughout the difficult times until Catherine meets Edgar Linton. Eventually Catherine and Edgar end up together and leaves Heathcliff distraught and seeking revenge.

Sense and Sensibility is a novel written by Jane Austen about the lives of two sisters. Elinor is the older sister and Marianne is the younger of the two. When Mr. Dashwood dies and leaves no money to the family, Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters: Elinor, Marianne and Margaret are invited to stay with their distant relatives. Elinor is hesitant about the move because she was beginning to fall in love with Edward Ferrars. But she does not tell him how she feels before she leaves. After they move, Marianne falls in love with John Willoughby at first sight and the two become very attached. Everything is going well with Marianne and Willoughby until he suddenly announces he is leaving for London on business. Marianne is left lovesick and miserable. Meanwhile Elinor is heartbroken by the news of her beloved Edward getting secretly engaged. Elinor and Marianne take a trip to London. Marianne is anxious to engage Willoughby, but once she gets there he denies ever having feelings for her because he is with another girl. On their way home Marianne grows deathly ill. When Willoughby finds out, he comes to visit her. He try's to get her back but by this time Marianne has realized she could never be content with him after all. Marianne recovers and gets engaged to Colonel Brandon. Elinor reunites with Edward because it turned out he was not engaged. The two couples grow old together.

Both these novels revolve around childhood love. Catherine and Heathcliff, Elinor and Edward, and Marianne and Willoughby all have similar experiences. They are all very young when they fall in love with each other. Although they are young and immature their love for each other keeps them together. Their inexperience in life eventually has an effect on their relationships and they end up unsuccessful. The dilemmas each young couple face is a struggle between rationalism and romanticism. (Tyler, 90) As their relationships develop they learn lessons about life and love. As they grow up they realize it is too difficult to make their childhood relationships work but deep down they still are in love. In Wuthering Heights and the characters experience love dilemmas that are caused by their childish behavior and immaturity, but despite their young age their love is still true.

Sense and Sensibility and Wuthering Heights are both novels that show how difficult it is for young children to have an adult relationship. Although the children in the novels are capable of feeling emotions of love they do not have the experience to make their relationships work. Children are just as capable of falling in love as adults are. The strong emotions of love draws children to want to have an adult relationship. "To be sure there is something radical and perhaps even outrageous in endowing children with the capacity to sustain a relationship normally reserved for adults." (Vogler, 112) As the characters in these two novels fight to keep their childhood loves, they learn lesson which help them grow.

Wuthering Heights is a perfect example of relationships that fall apart. Even though Catherine and Heathcliff's relationship stayed strong while the family fell apart, eventually as they grow up their relationship deteriorates. Heathcliff and Catherine met when they were young. As they matured their personalities changed. This causes Heathcliff and Catherine to grow apart as they got older. Catherine moves on and marries Edgar but she still cares deeply about Heathcliff. Heathcliff does not mature as much as Catherine because he can't let go of his past childhood. Even after Catherine dies he still sees and hears her ghost. "Heathcliff becomes more and more aware of the presence of Catherine, his lost hove, and finally sees her ghost."(Spark, 240)

Sense and Sensibility has one problem after another. Elinor and Marianne's relationships were troubled because they were two young to make the right decisions. Marianne's relationship with Willoughby was troubled from the beginning. When Willoughby left for London, Marianne was too caught up i the past to see the right person for her was not Willoughby. So she followed Willoughby to London to find out then that they were over. Although Marianne and Willoughby truly loved each other when they were young, they both ended up with different people. Even though Elinor and Edward are the successful relationship because they ended up getting married, they experienced difficulty too. Elinor's belief of rumors caused trouble with Edward. But after dealing with the absence of each other their love grows stronger and matures.

In the Twentieth Century Interpretations of Wuthering Heights, Irving H. Buchen explains why it is outrageous for children to try to have an adult relationship. Buchen believes that Heathcliff and Catherine's love is childish and he almost makes it seem nonexistent. You can fall in love at any age, because you fall in with out expecting to. As a little kid it is almost impossible to have an adult relationship but you can still have the same feelings of an adult. When you grow