"Wuthering Heights" and "The Piano"
             "It is the characters lives that are the most similar." How true is this statement in relation to TWO texts you have studied this year?
             The texts "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte and "The Piano" by Jane Campion tell a poignant story of intense passion, obsession and ruthless revenge. The stories follow the trials and tribulations of the tainted lives of Catherine, Edgar and Heathcliff in "Wuthering Heights" and Ada, Stewart and Baines in "The Piano". The protagonist's lives are remarkably comparable, with both leading women and men possessing similar traits and undertaking a similar despairing path.
             Not only are the settings similar, with the rough New Zealand countryside and the desolate Yorkshire moors, the lives of the leading characters in "The Piano" and "Wuthering Heights" deserve some acknowledgment. The most obvious similarity is that of the lives and personality of Catherine Earnshaw and Ada McGrath. Both women are "haughty, headstrong creature[s], passionate and wilful." Their characters go beyond the bounds of normality, with devastating ramifications, eventually resulting in Catherine's death and Ada's rebirth. Catherine and Ada both find themselves living in an isolated atmosphere; being the harsh Yorkshire Moors and the New Zealand wilderness. It appears that from both the texts this theme of isolation is key factor in the web of betrayal and passion that plays out. Both women are married to incompatible men, Catherine for her own selfish reasons and Ada's arranged by her Grandfather, but ultimately their hearts lie elsewhere. As seen in the texts, Catherine and Ada marry the dull Edgar and Stewart - a perfect case of mismatched lovers. The tedious relationships they endure result in them straying into the arms of social outcasts Heathcliff and Baines...