The Becoming (ePub)

Following Heathcliff's path in The Becoming, I try to bring life to the voice of the lost loveless "outsider." His journey begins with the self-realization of his classless status. Catherine, his life's love, casts him away in favor of a country gentleman, Edgar Linton. The adventure takes him from eighteenth-century England, as a powerless impressed seaman, to Africa. On the Dark Continent, he becomes involved in the East India's lucrative enterprise-the slave trade. However, after being storm-tossed, he arrives on the island of Barbados with a fellow survivor, a slave he names Zachariah.

At this juncture in the story, the life experiences of several disparate women he encounters enters the narrative. They articulate the social mores that guide female behavior in the Victorian Age. Three prototypes include Delia, who rescues and employs him; Vera, who desires his love; and Amelia, a widow. They are instrumental in his quest for fortune, which he feels he needs to regain his life's love.

Returning to England as a rich man does not bring him the happiness and class inclusion he aspires to attain. Hoping to regain his heart's passion, he spends years courting Catherine. She tantalizes him to distraction. Deciding to spite her and regain charge of his life, he devises a wicked scheme to enter a loveless marriage with Isabella, Edgar's younger sister. Woe and sorrow follow in the wake of this plan.

Catherine's death following childbirth brings him to the brink of despair. After he suffers hollow, unfulfilling years of depression, she reaches out from her grave. She offers exultation in death. Catherine entices him with the specter of regaining her love in an eternal afterlife. He finds his becoming by lovingly joining her in death.