Et in Arcadia Ego

There's something about the final scene of Wuthering Heights. The way Heathcliff and Catherine and Edgar are side by side in death, equal as they couldn't be in life. The scene serves as a memento mori, a reminder of mortality. As Lockwood looks at the graves of the trio, their earthly feuds and problems meaningless in the dust they inhabit.

Memento mori is a common motif in art and literature. It basically consists of a living thing being confronted with a symbol of death. Take the title of this blog for instance. The Latin phrase translates into "even in Arcadia, I am there", the "I" being Death. Arcadia was a group of city states in Ancient Greece and is often referred to as a utopia. Therefore, the phrase represents the presence of death even in a perfect society. The phrase titles a Guercino painting in which 2 shepherds find a skull, a reminder of death and mortality. The phrase also appears on the barrel of Judge Holden's gun in Blood Meridian.

An anamorphic skull also appears in Han's Holbein's The Ambassadors. The skull appears beside a shelf containing objects such as a lute with a broken string and the Lutheran bible, representing the living world and the discord that prevailed over it at the time. Above the skull is a shelf holding objects representing the study of the heavens, such as an astrolabe and a celestial globe, hinting at a higher plane of being in heaven transcending the living world in all its chaos, as well as the spectre of death.

This is reminiscent of Wuthering Heights, where the earthly struggles and quarrels of Heathcliff, Catherine and Edgar led to their ruin. Ultimately their struggles were meaningless in death, and thus the final scene not only reflects the equality each found in death, it has a theme of vanitas, of the fleeting nature of earthly delights and pursuits.