Wuthering Heights is not a Love Story

Wuthering Heights is not a love story, and it's the people who romanticize it. What it shows is not romance but a fair representation of obsession, specifically obsession with revenge. The relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw is not something I admire (but I desire the intensity though😭). It is something to confront. They are not goals. They are a warning.
At the same time, the novel creates a strange conflict in me. While reading, I found myself drawn to Heathcliff, halfway through the book I was like "I'm in love with Heathcliff" or "I'm Heathcliff too", and I was aware that he is not a good person, that his love is destructive and consuming, but part of me did not care. I'm not sure whether discomfort feels intentional.
And I think that is what makes Emily Brontë so powerful. She does not give you simple characters to admire or reject. She creates complexity. She forces me into this space where attraction and repulsion co-exist. Heathcliff is cruel, obsessive, and violent, yet he is also compelling because he represents a kind of emotional intensity that most people never experience.
And this book works precisely because it refuses to moralize in a simple way, a trait in a work of art I personally love. It does not ask me to approve of these characters but to feel their world and then sit with the consequences of it. And probably that is why reducing it to either a romantic story or just a toxic relationship misses the point.