While it may seem a little strange to compare the 1847 Emily Brontė novel and the 1939 film, Wuthering Height, directed by William Wyler to the 1986 Whitesnake song, "Is This Love That I'm Feeling?"--the novel and film still have a similar meaning for me. Throughout the novel, the two main characters, Heathcliff (Rex Downing/Laurence Olivier) and Catherine (Sarita Wooten/Merle Oberon), struggle with feelings of love between one another.

     The character of Heathcliff starts out as a young boy who is picked up by Mr. Earnshaw (Cecil Kellaway) in Liverpool to live with the well-off family in their home in Yorkshire because he had found the boy hungry and dirty in the streets.

     From the beginning of the character of Heathcliff being brought into the story till the end of his existence there is a strong feeling of love from Catherine Earnshaw.

     This brings out my point of the song:

     Is this love that I'm feeling?     Is this the love that I've been searching for?
     Is this love?
     Or am I just dreaming.
     This must be love
     'Cause it's really got a hold on me;
     It's really got a hold on me.

     So was it love that they felt for one another, or just a sense of familiarity? I do believe that they did have love for each other. Heathcliff was a caring person but was hurt by her harshness, yet he still protested his love for her till his dying breath.

     This love really did have a hold on Heathcliff in the story. I also feel that it had a hold on Catherine as well as Heathcliff. It was the absence of his love that caused her death. All that Catherine wanted on her deathbed was to be held by Heathcliff and be told that he would never leave her again.

     Love is a funny thing, one cannot control it, and one cannot make it happen. It just hits one all at once, and there is no stopping its power. These two characters were no exception to this rule; they were very much in love and deserved to be with each other.

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