Chapters 1-5
Chapter 1
Summary
It is 1801, and the narrator, Mr. Lockwood,
relates how he has just returned from a visit to his new landlord, Mr.
Heathcliff. Lockwood, a self-described misanthropist, is renting Thrushcross
Grange in an effort to get away from society following a failure at love. He
had fallen in love with a "real goddess" (6), but when she returned
his affection he acted so coldly she "persuaded her mamma to decamp."
He finds that relative to Heathcliff, however, he is extremely sociable.
Heathcliff, "a dark skinned gypsy, in aspect, in dress and manners a
gentleman" (5) treats his visitor with a minimum of friendliness, and
Wuthering Heights, the farm where Heathcliff lives, is just as foreign and
unfriendly. 'Wuthering' means stormy and windy in the local dialect. As Lockwood
enters, he sees a name carved near the door: Hareton Earnshaw.
Dangerous-looking dogs inhabit the bare and old-fashioned rooms, and threaten
to attack Lockwood: when he calls for help Heathcliff implies that Lockwood had
tried to steal something. The only other inhabitants of Wuthering Heights are
an old servant named Joseph and a cook––neither of whom are much friendlier
than Heathcliff. Despite his rudeness, Lockwood finds himself drawn to
Heathcliff: he describes him as intelligent, proud and morose––an unlikely
farmer. Heathcliff gives Lockwood some wine and invites him to come again.
Although Lockwood suspects this invitation is insincere, he decides he will
return because he is so intrigued by the landlord.
Analysis
This chapter introduces the reader to the
frame of the story: Lockwood will gradually discover the events which led to
Heathcliff ––now about forty years old––living with only his servants at
Wuthering Heights, almost completely separated from society. Here, Heathcliff
is characterized by casual violence and lack of concern for manners or
consideration for other people. This is only a hint of the atmosphere of the
whole novel, in which violence is contrasted with more genteel and civilized
ways of living.
Chapter 2
Summary
Annoyed by the housework being done in the
Grange, Lockwood pays a second visit to Wuthering Heights, arriving there just
as snow begins to fall. The weather is cold, the ground is frozen, and his
reception matches the bleak unfriendliness of the moors. After yelling at the
old servant Joseph to open the door, he is finally let in by a peasant-like
young man. The bare kitchen is warm, and Lockwood assumes that the young and
beautiful girl there is Mrs. Heathcliff. He tries to make conversation but she
is consistently scornful and inhospitable, and he only embarrasses himself.
There is "a kind of desperation" (11) in her eyes. She refuses to
make him tea unless Heathcliff said he could have some. The young man and
Heathcliff come in for tea. The young man behaves boorishly and seems to
suspect Lockwood of making advances to the girl. Heathcliff demands tea
"savagely" (12), and Lockwood decides he doesn't really like him.
Trying to make conversation again, Lockwood gets into trouble first assuming that
the girl is Heathcliff's wife, and then that she is married to the young man,
who he supposes to be Heathcliff's son. He is rudely corrected, and it
transpires that the girl is Heathcliff's daughter-in-law but her husband is
dead, as is Heathcliff's wife. The young man is Hareton Earnshaw. It is snowing
hard and Lockwood requests a guide so he can return home safely, but he is
refused: Heathcliff considers it more important that Hareton take care of the
horses. Joseph, who is evidently a religious fanatic, argues with the girl, who
frightens him by pretending to be a witch. The old servant doesn't like her
reading. Lockwood, left stranded and ignored by all, tries to take a lantern,
but Joseph offensively accuses him of stealing it, and sets dogs on him.
Lockwood is humiliated and Heathcliff and Hareton laugh. The cook, Zillah,
takes him in and says he can spend the night.
Analysis
Brontë begins to develop the natural setting
of the novel by describing snowstorms and the moors, and it becomes clear that
the bleak and harsh nature of the Yorkshire hills is not merely a geographical
accident. It mirrors the roughness of those who live there: Wuthering Heights
is firmly planted in its location and could not exist anywhere else. Knowing
Emily Brontë's passionate fondness for her homeland, we can expect the same
bleakness which Lockwood finds so disagreeable to take on a wild beauty. Its
danger cannot be forgotten, though: a stranger to those parts could easily lose
his way and die of exposure. Heathcliff and the wind are similar in that they
have no pity for weakness. The somewhat menacing presence of the natural world
can also be seen in the large number of dogs who inhabit Wuthering Heights:
they are not kept for pets.
The power dynamics that Lockwood observes in
the household of Wuthering Heights are extremely important. The girl is
evidently frightened of Heathcliff and scornful of Hareton; Hareton behaves
aggressively because he is sensitive about his status; Heathcliff does not
hesitate to use his superior physical strength and impressive personality to
bully other members of his household. The different ways in which different
characters try to assert themselves reveal a lot about their situation. Most
notably, it is evident that in this house, sheer force usually wins out over
intellectual and humane pretensions. The girl is subversive and intellectual,
an unwilling occupant of the house, but she can achieve little in the way of
freedom or respect.
Lockwood continues to lose face: his
conversational grace appears ridiculous in this new setting. Talking to
Heathcliff, for example, he refers to the girl as a "beneficent
fairy," which is evidently neither true nor welcome flattery. This chapter
might be seen, then, as a continuation of the strict division between social
ideals (grace, pleasant social interactions, Lockwood) and natural realities
(storms, frost, dogs, bluntness, cruelty, Hareton, Heathcliff). If the chapter
was taken by itself, out of context, the reader would see that while social
ideals are ridiculed, it is clear that the cruel natural world is ugly and
hardly bearable. However, these depictions will change and develop as the novel
continues.
Chapter 3
Summary
Zillah quietly shows Lockwood to a chamber
which, she says, Heathcliff does not like to be occupied. She doesn't know why,
having only lived there for a few years. Left alone, Lockwood notices the names
"Catherine Earnshaw," "Catherine Linton," and
"Catherine Heathcliff" scrawled over the window ledge. He leafs
through some old books stacked there, and finds that the margins are covered in
handwriting––evidently the child Catherine's diary. He reads some entries which
evoke a time in which Catherine and Heathcliff were playmates living together
as brother and sister, and bullied by Joseph (who made them listen to sermons)
and her older brother Hindley. Apparently Heathcliff was a 'vagabond' taken in
by Catherine's father, raised as one of the family, but when the father died
Hindley made him a servant and threatened to throw him out, to Catherine's
sorrow.
Lockwood then falls asleep over a religious
book, and has a nightmare about a fanatical preacher leading a violent mob.
Lockwood wakes up, hears that a sound in his dream had really been a branch
rubbing against the window, and falls asleep again. This time he dreams that he
wanted to open the window to get rid of the branch, but when he did, a
"little, ice-cold hand" (25) grabbed his arm, and a voice sobbed
"let me in." He asked who it was, and was answered: "Catherine
Linton. I'm come home, I'd lost my way on the moor." He saw a child's face
and, afraid, drew the child's wrist back and forth on the broken glass of the
window so that blood soaked the sheets. Finally he gets free, and insists that
he won't let the creature in, even if it has been lost for twenty years, as it
claims. He wakes up screaming.
Heathcliff comes in, evidently disturbed and
confused, unaware that Lockwood is there. Lockwood tells him what happened,
mentioning the dream and Catherine Linton's name, which distresses and angers
Heathcliff. Lockwood goes to the kitchen, but on his way he hears Heathcliff at
the window, despairingly begging 'Cathy' to come in "at last" (29).
Lockwood is embarrassed by his host's obvious agony.
Morning comes: Lockwood witnesses an argument
between Heathcliff and the girl, who has been reading. Heathcliff bullies her,
and she resists spiritedly. Heathcliff walks Lockwood most of the way home in
the snow.
Analysis
It is very important that the ghost of
Catherine Linton (who is more than just a figment of Lockwood's imagination)
appears as a child. Of course Lockwood thinks of her as a child, since he has
just read parts of her childhood diary, but Heathcliff also seems to find it
natural that she appeared in the form she had when they were children together.
Rather than progressing from childhood on to a maturer age with its different
values, Heathcliff and Catherine never really grew up. That is to say, the most
emotionally important parts of their lives either took place in childhood or
follows directly from commitments made then. They never outgrew their
solidarity against the oppressive forces of adult authority and religion that
is described in Catherine's diary. Thus the ghost of Catherine Linton (that is
her married name) tries to return to her childhood sanctuary, which Heathcliff
has kept in its original state. This challenges the dominion of linear time.
Chapter 4
Summary
Lockwood is bored and a little weak after his
adventures, so he asks his housekeeper, Ellen Dean, to tell him about
Heathcliff and the old families of the area. She says Heathcliff is very rich
and a miser, though he has no family, since his son is dead. The girl living at
Wuthering Heights was the daughter of Ellen's former employers, the Lintons,
and her name was Catherine. She is the daughter of the late Mrs. Catherine
Linton, was born an Earnshaw, thus Hareton's aunt. Heathcliff's wife was Mr.
Linton's sister. Ellen is fond of the younger Catherine, and worries about her
unhappy situation.
The narrative switches to Ellen's voice,
whose language is much plainer than Lockwood's. She is a discreet narrator,
rarely reminding the listener of her presence in the story, so that the events
she recounts feel immediate. She says she grew up at Wuthering Heights, where
her mother worked as a wet nurse. One day, Mr. Earnshaw offered to bring his
children Hindley (14 years old) and Catherine (about 6) a present each from his
upcoming trip to Liverpool. Hindley asked for a fiddle and Catherine for a
whip, because she was already an excellent horsewoman. When Earnshaw returned,
however, he brought with him a "dirty, ragged, black-haired child"
(36) found starving on the streets. The presents had been lost or broken. The
boy was named Heathcliff and taken into the family, though he was not entirely
welcomed by Mrs. Earnshaw, Ellen, and Hindley. Heathcliff and Catherine became
very close, and he became Earnshaw's favorite. Hindley felt that his place was
usurped, and took it out on Heathcliff, who was hardened and stoic. For
example, Earnshaw gave them each a colt, and Heathcliff chose the finest, which
went lame. Heathcliff then claimed Hindley's, and when Hindley threw a heavy
iron at him, Heathcliff threatened to tell Earnshaw about it if he didn't get
the colt.
Analysis
In this chapter, the narrative turns to the
past: from now on, Lockwood will gradually lose importance as the story of
Heathcliff and Catherine's childhood becomes more and more vibrant. However, we
cannot entirely neglect the role Ellen Dean plays as a narrator: her
personality means that the events she recounts are presented in a unique style.
She is practical and, like a good housekeeper, tends to incline to the side of
order. Even when she was young, she did not really participate in the private
lives of the children of Wuthering Heights, and has little access to the
relationship of Heathcliff and Catherine. Brontë demonstrates her versatility
by using different points of view, faithfully recording each character's
distinctive style of speech.
Considering character development, it is
interesting to know what Heathcliff and Catherine were like as children since,
as we have seen in the previous chapter, their essential natures remain very
much the same. Like her mother, Catherine Linton was willful and mischievous
and Heathcliff was uncomplaining but vindictive.
Chapter 5
Summary
Earnshaw grew old and sick, and with his
illness he became irritable and somewhat obsessed with the idea that people
disliked his favorite, Heathcliff. Heathcliff was spoiled to keep Earnshaw
happy, and Hindley, who became more and more bitter about the situation, was
sent away to college. Joseph, already "the wearisomest, self-righteous
pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself, and fling
the curses to his neighbors" (42) used his religious influence over
Earnshaw to distance him from his children. Earnshaw thought Hindley was
worthless, and didn't like Cathy's playfulness and high spirits, so in his last
days he was irritable and discontented. Cathy was "much too fond" of
Heathcliff, and liked to order people around. Heathcliff would do anything she
asked. Cathy's father was harsh to her and she became hardened to his reproofs.
Finally Earnshaw died one evening when Cathy
had been resting her head against his knee and Heathcliff was lying on the
floor with his head in her lap. When she went to kiss her father good night,
she discovered he was dead and the two children began to cry, but that night
Ellen saw that they had managed to comfort each other with "better
thoughts than [she] could have hit on" (44) imagining the old man in
heaven.
Analysis
The extremely close and entirely sexless relationship
between Heathcliff and Cathy already manifests itself in an opposition to the
outside world of parental authority and religion. Cathy is already charming and
manipulative, though her love for her father is real. Joseph's false,
oppressive religious convictions contrast with the pure, selfless thoughts of
heaven of the grieving children.
Earnshaw's decline and death highlights the
bond between the physical body and the spirit. The old man had formerly been
charitable, loving, and open, but his physical weakness makes him irritable and
peevish: the spirit is corrupted by the body's decline. One might remember that
Emily Brontë watched her brother Branwell die wretchedly of alcohol and drug
abuse, having had his youthful dreams of gallantry and glory disappointed.
Chapters 6-10
Chapter 6
Summary
Hindley returns home, unexpectedly bringing
his wife, a flighty woman with a strange fear of death and symptoms of
consumption (although Ellen did not at first recognize them as such). Hindley
also brought home new manners and rules, and informed the servants that they
would have to live in inferior quarters. Most importantly, he treated
Heathcliff as a servant, stopping his education and making him work in the
fields like any farm boy. Heathcliff did not mind too much at first because
Cathy taught him what she learned, and worked and played with him in the
fields. They stayed away from Hindley as much as possible and grew up
uncivilized and free. "It was one of their chief amusements," Ellen
recalls, "to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all
day, and after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at" (46).
One day they ran off after being punished,
and at night Heathcliff returned. He told Ellen what had happened. He and Cathy
ran to the Grange to see how people lived there, and they saw the Linton
children Edgar and Isabella in a beautiful room, crying after an argument over
who could hold the pet dog. Amused and scornful, Heathcliff and Cathy laughed;
the Lintons heard them and called for their parents. After making frightening
noises, Cathy and Heathcliff tried to escape, but a bulldog bit Cathy's leg and
refused to let go. She told Heathcliff to escape but he would not leave her,
and tried to pry the animal's jaws open. Mr. and Mrs. Linton mistook them for
thieves and brought them inside. When Edgar Linton recognized Cathy as Miss
Earnshaw, the Lintons expressed their disgust at the children's wild manners
and especially at Heathcliff's being allowed to keep Cathy company. They
coddled Cathy and drove Heathcliff out; he went back to Wuthering Heights on
foot after assuring himself that Cathy was all right.
When Hindley found out, he welcomed the
chance to separate Cathy and Heathcliff, so Cathy was to stay for a prolonged
visit with the Lintons while her leg healed and Heathcliff was forbidden to
speak to her.
Analysis
In this chapter we first hear young
Heathcliff speak, and it is worth noting how his language differs from the
narrators we have heard so far. He is more expressive and emotional than
Lockwood or Ellen, and his speech is more literary than Ellen's and less artificial
than Lockwood's. He tends to speak in extreme and vibrant terms: expressing his
scorn for Edgar Linton's cowardice and whiny gentility, he says: "I'd not
exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at
Thrushcross Grange not if I might have
the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the
housefront with Hindley's blood!" (48) He admires the comparative luxury
of the Grange and recognizes its beauty, but he remains entirely devoted to the
freedom of his life with Cathy, and cannot understand the selfishness of the
spoiled children: "When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine
wanted?" His devotion to Cathy is clear, and he sees it as completely
natural and inescapable: "she is so immeasurably superior to them to everyone one earth; is she not,
Nelly?" (51) He admires Cathy for her bravery, and he possesses that same
kind of courage.
The image of the two civilized children
inside the beautiful room forms a parallel to the two wild children outside.
Through this use of parallelism, Brontë turns the window glass into a kind of
mirror. However, the 'mirror' shows the complete opposite rather than the true
images of those who look into it. Although the children are of similar ages,
their breeding differs dramatically, as does their relationship––Edgar and
Isabella fight, but Heathcliff and Cathy are inseparable.
Chapter 7
Summary
Ellen resumes the narrative. Cathy stayed at
Thrushcross Grange for five weeks, until Christmas. When she returned home she
had been transformed into a young lady with that role's attending restrictions:
she could no longer kiss Ellen without worrying about getting flour on her
dress. She hurt Heathcliff's feelings by comparing his darkness and dirtiness
to Edgar and Isabella's fair complexions and clean clothes. The boy had become
more and more neglected in her absence, and was cruelly put in his place by
Hindley and especially by Cathy's new polish. Cathy's affection for Heathcliff
had not really changed, but he did not know this and ran out, refusing to come
in for supper. Ellen felt sorry for him.
The Linton children were invited for a
Christmas party the next day. That morning Heathcliff humbly approached Ellen
and asked her to "make him decent" because he was "going to be
good" (55). Ellen applauded his resolution and reassured him that Cathy
still liked him and that she was grieved by his shyness. When Heathcliff said
he wished he could be more like Edgar––fair, rich, and well-behaved––Ellen told
him that he could be perfectly handsome if he smiled more and was more
trustful.
However, when Heathcliff, now "clean and
cheerful" (57), tried to join the party, Hindley told him to go away because
he was not fit to be there. Edgar unwisely made fun of his long hair and
Heathcliff threw hot applesauce at him, and was taken away and flogged by
Hindley. Cathy was angry at Edgar for mocking Heathcliff and getting him into
trouble, but she didn't want to ruin her party. She kept up a good front, but
didn't enjoy herself, thinking of Heathcliff alone and beaten. At her first
chance after her guests gone home, she crept into the garret where he was
confined.
Later Ellen gave Heathcliff dinner, since he
hadn't eaten all day, but he ate little and when she asked what was wrong, he
said he was thinking of how to avenge himself on Hindley. At this point Ellen's
narrative breaks off and she and Lockwood briefly discuss the merits of the
active and contemplative life, with Lockwood defending his lazy habits and
Ellen saying she should get things done rather than just telling Lockwood the
story. He persuades her to go on.
Analysis
This chapter marks the end of Cathy and
Heathcliff's time of happiness and perfect understanding; Cathy has moved into
a different sphere, that of the genteel Lintons, and Heathcliff cannot follow
her. Although Cathy still cares for the things she did when the two of them ran
wild together, she is under a lot of pressure to become a lady, and she is vain
enough to enjoy the admiration and approval she gets from Edgar, Hindley and
his wife. Cathy's desire to inhabit two worlds––the moors with Heathcliff and
the parlor with Edgar––is a central driving force for the novel and eventually
results in tragedy. Emily Brontë had experienced a personal inability to remain
true to herself while interacting in conventional social terms, and she chose
to abandon society as a result. Cathy takes a different route.
Just as the window separated the Wuthering
Heights children from the Lintons in the last chapter, a material object
separates Cathy from Heathcliff in this one. The fine dress she wears is a very
real boundary between the old friends: it must be sacrificed (smudged,
crumpled) if the two of them are to be as close as they were before. It is
valuable for economic reasons (its cost), for social ones (the respect Cathy
gets on account of it), and because of its artificial beauty. These issues will
consistently come between Cathy and Heathcliff; he is right to recognize the
dress and what it represents as a threat to his happiness.
Chapter 8
Summary
Hindley's wife Frances gave birth to a child,
Hareton, but did not survive long afterwards: she had consumption. Despite the
doctor's warnings, Hindley persisted in believing that she would recover, and
she seemed to think so too, always saying she felt better, but she died a few
weeks after Hareton's birth. Ellen was happy to take care of the baby. Hindley
"grew desperate; his sorrow was of a kind that will not lament, he neither
wept nor prayed––he cursed and defied––execrated God and man, and gave himself
up to reckless dissipation" (65). The household more or less collapsed
into violent confusion––respectable neighbors ceased to visit, except for
Edgar, entranced by Catherine. Heathcliff's ill treatment and the bad example
posed by Hindley made him "daily more notable for savage sullenness and
ferocity." Catherine disliked having Edgar visit Wuthering Heights because
she had a hard time behaving consistently when Edgar and Heathcliff met, or
when they talked about each other. Edgar's presence made her feel as though she
had to behave like a Linton, which was not natural for her.
One day when Hindley was away, Heathcliff was
offended to find Catherine dressing for Edgar's visit. He asked her to turn
Edgar away and spend the time with him instead but she refused. Edgar was by
this time a gentle, sweet young man. He came and Heathcliff left, but Ellen
stayed as a chaperone, much to Catherine's annoyance. She revealed her bad
character by pinching Ellen, who was glad to have a chance to show Edgar what
Catherine was like, and cried out. Catherine denied having pinched her,
blushing with rage, and slapped her, then slapped Edgar for reproving her. He
said he would go; she, recovering her senses, asked him to stay, and he was too
weak and enchanted by her stronger will to leave. Brought closer by the
quarrel, the two "confess[ed] themselves lovers" (72). Ellen heard
Hindley come home drunk, and out of precaution unloaded his gun.
Analysis
Hindley's dissipation and moral degradation
are further evidence that only a strong character can survive defeat or
bereavement without becoming distorted. His desperation is a result of his lack
of firm foundations: Ellen says that he "had room in his heart for only
two idols––his wife and himself––he doted on both and adored one" (65)
Evidently it is impossible to live well when only caring about one's self, as
Hindley does following his wife's death. It would be interesting to compare
Hindley's behavior and Heathcliff's in the opening chapters: both survive after
the deaths of their beloveds, and both live in a chaotic and cheerless
Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff, however, has not entirely lost contact with
Cathy: their closer relationship rules out a complete separation, even after
death. Emily Brontë's obvious model for Hindley is her brother Branwell, who
was sinking into dissipation when she was writing the novel.
This is the first time we really see Cathy
behaving badly, showing that her temper makes the gentle and repressed life led
by Edgar Linton unsuitable for her. Here she blushes with rage and in a later
chapter she refers to her blood being much hotter than Edgar's: heat and
coolness of blood are markers of different personalities. The physical
differences between Cathy and Edgar are linked to their moral differences, not
only in their appearances but even in their blood and bones.
Chapter 9
Summary
Hindley came in raging drunk and swearing,
and caught Ellen in the act of trying to hide Hareton in a cupboard for his
safety. Hindley threatened to make Nelly swallow a carving knife, and even
tried to force it between her teeth, but she bravely said she'd rather be shot,
and spat it out. Then he took up Hareton and said he would crop his ears like a
dog, to make him look fiercer, and held the toddler over the banister. Hearing
Heathcliff walking below, Hindley accidentally dropped the child, but
fortunately Heathcliff caught him. Looking up to see what had happened, he
showed "the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of
thwarting his own revenge" (75). In other words, he hated Hindley so much
that he would have liked to have him to kill his own son by mistake. If it had
been dark, Ellen said, "he would have tried to remedy the mistake by
smashing Hareton's skull on the steps." Hindley was somewhat shaken, and
began to drink more. Heathcliff told Nelly he wished Hindley would drink
himself to death, but that was unlikely to happen as he had a strong
constitution.
In the kitchen Cathy came to talk to Nelly
(neither of them knew Heathcliff was in the room, sitting behind the settle).
Cathy said she was unhappy, that Edgar had asked her to marry him, and she had
accepted. She asked Nelly what she should have answered. Nelly asked her if and
why she loved Edgar; she said she did for a variety of material reasons:
"he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman in the
neighborhood, and I shall be proud of such a husband" (78). Nelly
disapproved, and Cathy admitted that she was sure she was wrong: she had had a
dream in which she went to heaven and was unhappy there because she missed
Wuthering Heights. She said:
"I have no more business to marry Edgar
Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not
brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me
to marry Heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not
because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever
our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different
as a moonbeam from lightening, or frost from fire." (81)
Heathcliff left after hearing that it would
degrade her to marry him and did not hear Cathy's confession of love. Nelly
told Cathy that Heathcliff would be deserted if she married Linton, and Cathy
indignantly replied that she had no intention of deserting Heathcliff, but
would use her influence to raise him up. Nelly said Edgar wouldn't like that,
to which Cathy replied: "Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt
into nothing, before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff!" (82)
Later that night it turned out that no one
knew where Heathcliff was. Cathy went out in the storm looking for him,
unsuccessfully––he had run away. The next morning she was sick. After some time
she went to stay with the Lintons a
healthier environment and she got
better, although Edgar and Isabella's parents caught the fever from her and
died. She returned to Wuthering Heights "saucier, and more passionate, and
haughtier than ever" (88). When Nelly said that Heathcliff's disappearance
was her fault, Cathy stopped speaking to her. She married Edgar three years
after Mr. Earnshaw's death, and Ellen unwillingly went to live with her at the
Grange, leaving Hareton to live with his wretched father and Joseph.
Analysis
The atmosphere of careless violence, despair,
and hatred in the first part of the chapter is almost suffocating. Heathcliff's
willingness to kill an innocent child out of revenge is the first real
indication of his lack of morality. It is unclear whether that immorality is a
partly a result of his hard childhood and miserable circumstances, or whether
he was always like that. Certainly he appears quite changed from the sensitive
boy who wanted to look nice so Cathy wouldn't reject him for Edgar, and who
relied trustfully on Ellen, but he had spoken of wanting to paint the house
with Hindley's blood much earlier.
The definition of love for Cathy and
Heathcliff is perhaps Emily Brontë's original creation. It is not based on
appearances, material considerations, sexual attraction, or even virtue, but
rather a shared being. Cathy says: "I am Heathcliff––he's always, always
in my mind––not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to
myself-–but as my own being" (82). In this sense, her decision to marry
Edgar is a terrible mistake: she will be abandoning the essence of herself.
Apparently the sexual aspect of love is so meaningless for her that she
believes marriage to Edgar will not come between her and Heathcliff: she would
not consciously abandon her soul. Heathcliff thinks otherwise, since he runs
away.
Chapter 10
Summary
Catherine got along surprisingly well with
her husband and Isabella, mostly because they never opposed her. She had
"seasons of gloom and silence" (92) though. Edgar took these for the
results of her serious illness.
When they had been married almost a year,
Heathcliff came back. Nelly was outside that evening and he asked her to tell
Catherine someone wanted to see her. He was quite changed: a tall and athletic
man who looked as though he might have been in the army, with gentlemanly
manners and educated speech, though his eyes contained a "half-civilized
ferocity" (96). Catherine was overjoyed and didn't understand why Edgar
didn't share her happiness. Heathcliff stayed for tea, to Edgar's peevish
irritation. It transpired that Heathcliff was staying at Wuthering Heights,
paying Hindley generously, but winning his host's money at cards. Catherine wouldn't
let Heathcliff actually hurt her brother.
In the following weeks, Heathcliff often
visited the Grange. Edgar Linton's sister, Isabella, a "charming young
lady of eighteen" (101) became infatuated with Heathcliff, to her
brother's dismay. Isabella got angry at Catherine for keeping Heathcliff to
herself, and Catherine warned her that Heathcliff was a very bad person to fall
in love with and that Isabella was no match for him:
"I never say to him to let this or that
enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them, I say "Let them alone, because I should hate
them to be wronged"; and he'd crush you, like a sparrow's egg, Isabella,
if he found you a troublesome charge." (103)
Catherine teased Isabella by telling
Heathcliff in her presence that Isabella loved him. Humiliated, Isabella tried
to run away, but Catherine held her. Isabella scratched Catherine's arm and
managed to escape, and Heathcliff, alone with Catherine, expressed interest in
marrying Isabella for her money and to enrage Edgar. He said he would beat
Isabella if they were married because of her "mawkish, waxen face"
(106).
Analysis
Catherine's belief that Edgar should not be
jealous of her relationship with Heathcliff emphasizes the difference in her
mind between her passionate love for her adopted brother and ordinary love
affairs. Catherine says that just as she does not envy Isabella's blonde hair,
so Edgar shouldn't become jealous when Cathy praises Heathcliff––he should be
glad for her sake. The comparison with Isabella suggests that Cathy and
Heathcliff are sister and brother, which is evidently not the case––but it is a
comparison that makes sense to her.
Catherine makes several analogies to the
natural world: Heathcliff would crush Isabella "like a sparrow's egg"
(103), and he is "an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone" (102).
Isabella uses what seems to be a natural metaphor, but is in fact a literary
one: she compares Catherine to "a dog in the manger" (102) for
keeping Heathcliff to herself. The sisters-in-law speak and think quite
differently despite superficial similarities.
There are also important differences between
the ways that Edgar and Catherine view class. Edgar thinks that Heathcliff,
"a runaway servant" (96), should be entertained in the kitchen, not
the parlor. Catherine jokes that she will have two tables laid, one for the
gentry (Edgar and Isabella) and one for the lower classes (herself and
Heathcliff). Likewise, she and Heathcliff both call the narrator Nelly, while
Edgar coldly calls her Ellen.
Chapters 11-15
Chapter 11
Summary
Nelly went to visit Wuthering Heights to see
how Hindley and Hareton were doing. She saw little Hareton outside, but he
didn't recognize her as his former nurse, so he threw a rock at her and cursed.
She found that his father had taught him how to curse, and that Hareton liked
Heathcliff because he defended Hareton from Hindley's curses, and allowed
Hareton to do what he liked. Nelly was going to go in when she saw Heathcliff
there; frightened, she ran back home.
The next time Heathcliff visited Thrushcross
Grange, Nelly saw him kiss Isabella in the courtyard. She told Catherine what
had happened, and when Heathcliff came in the two had an argument. Heathcliff
said he had a right to do as he pleased, since Catherine was married to someone
else. He said: "You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement,
only, allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style" (112).
Nelly found Edgar, who came in while
Catherine was scolding Heathcliff. Edgar scolded Catherine for talking to
"that blackguard" (113), which made her very angry, since she had
been defending the Lintons. Edgar ordered Heathcliff to leave, who scornfully
ignored him. Edgar motioned for Nelly to fetch reinforcements, but Catherine
angrily locked the door and threw the key into the fire when Edgar tried to get
it from her. Catherine and Heathcliff mocked the humiliated and furious Edgar,
so he hit Heathcliff and went out by the back door to get help. Nelly warned
Heathcliff that he would be thrown out by the male servants if he stayed, so he
chose to leave.
Left with Nelly, Catherine expressed her
anger at her husband and Heathcliff: "Well, if I cannot keep Heathcliff
for my friend––if Edgar will be mean and jealous, I'll try to break their
hearts by breaking my own" (116). Edgar came in and demanded to know
whether Catherine would drop Heathcliff's acquaintance, and she had a temper
tantrum, ending with a faked "fit of frenzy" (118). When Nelly
revealed that the fit was faked, Catherine ran to her room and refused to come out
or to eat for several days.
Analysis
Nelly may seem unfeeling in her unsympathetic
descriptions of Catherine and Heathcliff, but her behavior to Hareton and
Hindley (who was her foster-brother) reveals her to be extremely tender-hearted
and maternal at times. However, she is independent and spirited, and doesn't
like to be bullied or imposed upon by Catherine, so she has no qualms about
siding with Edgar Linton when her mistress is being temperamental.
The strain imposed on the three
characters––Catherine, Edgar, and Heathcliff––has finally resulted in outright
violence: it is no longer possible to conceal the strength of the emotions
involved. Edgar is in a particularly difficult situation: Catherine and
Heathcliff are used to violent expressions of feeling, but he is not, and hates
having to adjust to their modes of communication. He is more committed to
gentility of behavior than the others, although they now appear as well-dressed
and cultivated as he does.
Heathcliff and Catherine call Edgar a
"lamb," a "sucking leveret," and a "milk-blooded
coward" (115). The first two insults are natural images that might easily
come to mind for people who grew up on the moors; the third again uses the
'blood' imagery which appears to be central to the way they think about
personality.
Chapter 12
Summary
After three days in which Catherine stayed
alone in her room, Edgar sat in the library, and Isabella moped in the garden,
Catherine called Nelly for some food and water because she thought she was
dying. She ate some toast, and was indignant to hear that Edgar wasn't frantic
about her. She said: "How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and
despised each other, they could not avoid loving me––and they have all turned
to enemies in a few hours" (122). It became clear to Ellen that Catherine
was delirious, and thought she was back in her room at Wuthering Heights. After
seeing her reflection in a mirror, Catherine became frightened because she
thought there was no mirror there. She opened the window and talked to
Heathcliff (who was not there) as though they were children again. Edgar came
in and was very concerned for Catherine, and angry at Ellen for not having told
him what was going on.
Going to fetch a doctor, Ellen noticed that
Isabella's little dog almost dead, hanging by a handkerchief on the gate. She
rescued it, and found Dr. Kenneth, who told her that he had seen Isabella
walking for hours in the park with Heathcliff. Moreover, Dr. Kenneth had heard
a rumor that Isabella and Heathcliff were planning to run away together. Ellen
rushed back to the Grange found that Isabella had indeed disappeared, and a
little boy told her he had seen the girl riding away with Heathcliff. Ellen
told Edgar, hoping he would rescue his sister from her ill-considered
elopement, but he coldly refused to do so.
Analysis
In her delirium, Catherine reveals that her
true emotional identity has not altered since she was twelve, just before she
stayed with the Lintons for some weeks. Everything that happened to her since
then ceases to have any importance when she is irrational:
"...supposing at twelve years old, I had
been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all,
as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted, at a stroke, into Mrs.
Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger; an exile,
and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world You may fancy a glimpse at the abyss where I
groveled!" (125)
Time is unimportant: it has no effect on the
true, deep emotions in Brontë's world.
Edgar's coldness to Isabella seems to result
from his sister deserting him for his greatest enemy. His willingness to
abandon her because of hurt pride is perhaps his greatest moral flaw. The
emphasis he places on personal dignity differentiates him from the other
characters––who certainly have many faults, though not that one.
Chapter 13
Summary
In the next two months Catherine
"encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain
fever" (134), but it became clear that she would never really recover. She
was pregnant. Heathcliff and Isabella returned to Wuthering Heights, and
Isabella wrote Edgar an apology and a plea for forgiveness, to which he gave no
reply. She later sent Ellen a longer letter asking whether Heathcliff were a
demon or crazy, and recounting her experiences. She found Wuthering Heights
dirty, uncivilized and unwelcoming: Joseph was rude to her, Hareton was
disobedient, Hindley was a half-demented wreck of a man, and Heathcliff treated
her cruelly. He refused to let her sleep in his room, which meant she had to
stay in a tiny garret. Hindley had a pistol with a blade on it, with which he
dreamed of killing Heathcliff, and Isabella coveted it for the power it would
have given her. She was miserable and regretted her marriage heartily.
Analysis
Isabella's reactions to her new home reveal
her lack of inner fortitude: although she tries at first to stand up to Joseph
and Hareton, her ladylike education has in no way prepared her for her married
life, so when she loses her pride she has little else to fall back on. Her envy
upon seeing Hindley's pistol is a little disconcerting, and she herself is
horrified by it.
It is worth noting the unfortunate position of
women who depend on men: Isabella cannot escape from Heathcliff without the
help of her brother, who does not want to help her. Surrounded by hatred and
indifference, she can only fall back on Ellen's pity.
Chapter 14
Summary
Ellen, distressed by Edgar's refusal to
console Isabella, went to visit her at Wuthering Heights. She told Isabella and
Heathcliff that Catherine would "never be what she was" (135) and
that Heathcliff should not bother her anymore. Heathcliff asserted that he would
not leave her to Edgar's lukewarm care, and that she loved him much more than
her husband. He said that if he had been in Edgar's place he would never have
interfered with Catherine's friendships, although he would kill the friend the
moment Catherine no longer cared about him.
Ellen urged Heathcliff to treat Isabella
better, and he expressed his scorn and hatred for his wife (in her presence, of
course). He said Isabella knew what he was when she married him: she had seen
him hanging her pet dog. Isabella told Ellen that she hated Heathcliff, and he
ordered her upstairs so he could talk to Ellen.
Alone with her, he told her that if she did
not arrange an interview for him with Catherine, he would force his way in
armed, and she agreed to give Catherine a letter from him.
Analysis
This chapter includes a great deal of
criticism of the Lintons: Edgar is called proud and unfeeling, and Heathcliff
says that Isabella was actually attracted by his brutality until she herself
suffered from it. Edgar's explanation of his refusal to write to Isabella is
extremely unconvincing: "I am not angry, but sorry to have lost her:
especially as I can never think she'll be happy. It is out of the question my
going to see her, however; we are eternally divided" (145). Edgar is angry,
of course, because he hates Heathcliff: presumably he is jealous of him.
Heathcliff considers Edgar's version of love to be selfish, as though Edgar
thought he owned his wife, and had a right to restrict her behavior:
"Had he been in my place, and I in his,
though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would
have raised a hand against him... I never would have banished him from her
society, as long as she desired his. (147)
Correspondingly, Heathcliff imagines
Catherine's affection for Edgar in terms of property: "He is scarcely a
degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse––it is not in him to be loved
like me" (148). Brontë has always associated the Lintons with material
wealth. Heathcliff extends ideas of property and ownership to their emotions as
well.
Isabella's case is somewhat different.
Heathcliff despises her because she loves him despite knowing what he is. This
is an interesting point: Heathcliff is an obviously romantic figure, with his
mysterious past, dark appearance, and passionate emotions. But Brontë makes it
very clear that although he exerts a certain amount of fascination, he should
in no way be considered a "hero of romance" (149). For doing so,
Isabella is called a "pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach" (150). In
this very romantic novel, one can never rely on conventional notions of romance:
through Heathcliff's character, Brontë suggests that brutality should never be
considered attractive. Even Catherine does not find Heathcliff attractive––she
simply finds him inescapable, a part of herself.
Chapter 15
Summary
The Sunday after Ellen's visit to Wuthering
Heights, while most people were at church, she gave Catherine Heathcliff's
letter. Catherine was changed by her sickness: she was beautiful in an
unearthly way and her eyes "appeared always to gaze beyond, and far
beyond" (158). Ellen had left the door open, so Heathcliff walked in and
Catherine eagerly waited for him to find the right room. Their reunion was
bitter-sweet: though passionately glad to be reunited, Catherine accused
Heathcliff of having killed her, and Heathcliff warned her not to say such
things when he would be tortured by them after her death––besides, she had been
at fault by abandoning him. She asked him to forgive her, since she would not
be at peace after death, and he answered: "It is hard to forgive, and to
look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands... I love my murderer––but
yours! How can I?" (163) They held each other closely and wept until Ellen
warned them that Linton was returning. Heathcliff wanted to leave, but
Catherine insisted that he stay, since she was dying and would never see him
again. He consented to stay, and "in the midst of the agitation, [Ellen]
was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed... She's
fainted or dead, so much the better..." (164) Linton came in, and Heathcliff
handed him Catherine's body and told him to take care of her: "Unless you
be a fiend, help her first then you
shall speak to me!" He told Nelly he would wait outside for news of
Catherine's welfare, and left.
Analysis
The passionate scene between Catherine and
Heathcliff in this chapter is probably the emotional climax of the novel,
though it only marks the middle of the book. It reveals how little their love
relies on pleasure: they can hardly be said to be fond of one another, or to
enjoy each other's company, yet they are absolutely necessary to each other. It
is as though they were members of a different species from other humans, and
they belonged together. Ellen says: "The two, to a cool spectator, made a
strange and fearsome picture" (160). Catherine tore Heathcliff's hair, and
he left bruises on her arm. Later, he "foamed like a mad dog, and gathered
her to him with greedy jealousy. [Ellen] did not feel as though [she] were in
the company of a member of [her] own species" (162). Love appears to be a
form of madness.
Catherine and Heathcliff's emotional reunion
is counteracted by Ellen's cool and unsympathetic narration: their passionate
conversation is interspersed with dry commentary on her part.
Chapters 16-20
Chapter 16
Summary
Around midnight, Catherine gave birth to a
daughter (also named Catherine––she is Catherine Linton, the teenage girl
Lockwood saw at Wuthering Heights). Catherine Earnshaw died two hours later
without recovering consciousness. No one cared for the infant at first, and Ellen
wished it had been a boy: with no son, Edgar's heir was Isabella, Heathcliff's
wife. Catherine's corpse looked peaceful and beautiful, and Ellen decided that
she had found heaven at last.
She went outside to tell Heathcliff and found
him leaning motionless against an ash tree. He knew Catherine was dead, and
asked Ellen how it had happened, attempting to conceal his anguish. Ellen was
not fooled, and told him that Cahterine had died peacefully, like a girl
falling asleep. Heathcliff cursed Catherine and begged her to haunt him so he
would not be left in "this abyss, where I cannot find you!... I cannot
live without my soul!" (169) He dashed his head against the tree and
howled "like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and
spears." Ellen was appalled.
On Tuesday, when Catherine's body was still
lying in the Grange, strewn with flowers, Heathcliff took advantage of Edgar's
short absence from the bedchamber to see her again, and to replace Edgar's hair
in Catherine's locket with some of his own. Ellen noticed the change, and
enclosed both locks of hair together.
Catherine was buried on Friday in a green
slope in a corner of the kirkyard, where, Ellen said, her husband now lies as
well.
Analysis
The question of what happens after death is
important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is
ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, "where life is
boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its
fullness" (167) But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace
when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter
before, Catherine said: "I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world,
and to be always there; not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it
through the walls of an aching heart, but really with it, and in it"
(162). It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in
every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom.
Another interesting question that comes up in
this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries
to conceal his weakness and grief, holding "a silent combat with his
inward agony" (168), but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless,
since he only tempts God to wring his "heart and nerves." Yet we know
that Emily Brontë herself was incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter
her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness.
Chapter 17
Summary
The next day, while Ellen was rocking baby
Catherine, Isabella came in laughing giddily. Isabella was pale, her face was
cut, and her thin silk dress was torn by briars. She asked Ellen to call a
carriage for the nearest town, Gimmerton, since she was escaping from her
husband, and to have a maid get some clothes ready. Then she allowed Ellen to
give her dry clothes and bind up the wound. Isabella tried to destroy her
wedding ring by throwing it in the fire, and told Ellen what had happened to
her in the last few days.
Isabella said that she hated Heathcliff so
much that she could feel no compassion for him even when he was in agony
following Catherine's death. He hadn't eaten for days, and spent his time at
Wuthering Heights in his room, "praying like a methodist; only the deity
he implored was senseless dust and ashes" (175). The evening before,
Isabella sat reading while Hindley drank morosely. When they heard Heathcliff
returning from his watch over Catherine's grave, Hindley warned Isabella of his
plan to lock Heathcliff out, and try to kill him with his bladed pistol if he
came in. Isabella would have liked Heathcliff to die, but refused to help in
the scheme, so when Heathcliff knocked she refused to let him in, saying:
"If I were you, I'd go stretch myself over her grave, and die like a
faithful dog... The world is not worth living in now, is it?" (178)
Hindley went to the window to kill Heathcliff, but the latter grabbed the
weapon so the blade shut on Hindley's wrist; then he forced his way in. He
kicked and trampled Hindley, who had fainted from the loss of blood, then
roughly bound up the wound, and told Joseph and Isabella to clean up the blood.
The next morning when Isabella came down,
Hindley "was sitting by the fire, deadly sick; his evil genius, almost as
gaunt and ghastly, leant by the chimney" (180). After eating breakfast by
herself, she told Hindley how he had been kicked when he was down, and mocked
Heathcliff for having so mistreated his beloved's brother, saying to Hindley:
"everyone knows your sister would have been living now, had it not been
for Mr. Heathcliff" (182). Heathcliff was so miserable that he could
hardly retaliate, so Isabella went on and said that if Catherine had married
him, he would have beaten her the way he beat Hindley. Heathcliff threw a knife
at Isabella, and she fled, knocking down Hareton, "who was hanging a
litter of puppies from a chairback in the doorway” (183). She ran to the
Grange.
That morning, Isabella left, never to return
to the moors again. Later, in her new home near London, she gave birth to a
son, named Linton, "an ailing, peevish creature.” Isabella died of illness
when her son was about twelve years old.
Edgar grew resigned to Catherine's death, and
loved his daughter, who he called Cathy, very much. Ellen points out the
difference between his behavior and Hindley's in a similar situation.
Hindley died, "drunk as a lord” (186),
about six months after Catherine. He was just 27, meaning that Catherine had
been 19, Heathcliff was 20, and Edgar was 21. Ellen grieved deeply for him they had been the same age and were brought
up together. She made sure he was decently buried. She wanted to take Hareton
back to the Grange, but Heathcliff said he would keep him, to degrade him as
much as he himself had been degraded by Hindley. If Edgar insisted on taking
Hareton, Heathcliff threatened to claim his own son Linton, so Ellen gave the
idea up.
Analysis
Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty
shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty
operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to
Brontë and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness
is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian
tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred,
they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally.
Ellen's particular grief for Hindley
emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley,
Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together
(Ellen's mother was Hindley's wet-nurse, so they literally shared mother's
milk) under somewhat fraternal conditions. Brontë's careful structure and
concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an
interesting contrast with the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail.
Chapter 18
Summary
In the next twelve years, Cathy Linton grew
up to be "the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a
desolate house” (189). She was fair like a Linton, except for her mother's dark
eyes. High-spirited but gentle, she seemed to combine the good qualities of
both the Lintons and the Earnshaws, though she was a little saucy because she
was accustomed to getting her way. Her father kept her within the park of the
Grange, but she dreamed of going to see some cliffs, Penistone Craggs, which
were located not too far away on the moor.
When Isabella fell ill, she wrote to Edgar to
come visit her, so he was gone for three weeks. One day Cathy asked Ellen to
give her some food for a ramble around the grounds––she was pretending to be an
Arabian merchant going across the desert with her caravan of a pony and three
dogs. She left the grounds, however, and later Ellen went after her on the road
to Penistone Crags, which passed Wuthering Heights. She found Cathy safe and
sound there––Heathcliff wasn't home, and the housekeeper had taken her in––
chattering to Hareton, now 18 years old. After Ellen arrived, Cathy offended
Hareton by asking whether he was the master's son, and when he said he wasn't,
deciding that he must be a servant. The housekeeper told Cathy that Hareton was
her cousin, which made her cry. Hareton offered her a puppy to console her,
which she refused. Ellen told Cathy that her father didn't want her to go to
Wuthering Heights, and asked her not to tell Edgar about the incident, to which
Cathy readily agreed.
Analysis
We have moved from the violent and discordant
world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between
the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly
be clearer. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the
story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps her
daughter’s life will be more serene. Indeed, there are many similarities
between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad
qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy.
Although Cathy appears to display more Linton
characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness
outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights
clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her
aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton (just as Catherine thought
it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff, who was at the time very much like
Hareton).
Chapter 19
Summary
Isabella died, and Edgar returned home with
his half-orphaned nephew, Linton, a "pale, delicate, effeminate boy” (200)
with a "sickly peevishness" in his appearance. Cathy was excited to
see her cousin, and took to babying him when she saw that he was sickly and
childish. That very evening, Joseph came to demand the child on Heathcliff’s
behalf––Linton was, after all, Heathcliff’s son. Ellen told him Edgar was
asleep, but Joseph went into Edgar’s room and insisted on taking Linton. Edgar
wished to keep Linton at the Grange, but could not legally claim him, so he
could only put it off until the next morning.
Analysis
The contrast between Cathy and her cousin
Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp
and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Brontë distributes conventionally
masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for
gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair
even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless ‘lady’ of the two, who cries when
he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be cared for by his female cousin.
Chapter 20
Summary
The next morning, Ellen woke Linton early and
took him over to Wuthering Heights, promising dishonestly that it was only for
a little while. Linton was surprised to hear he had a father, since Isabella
had never spoken of Heathcliff. When they arrived, Heathcliff and Joseph
expressed their contempt for the delicate boy. Heathcliff told Linton that his
mother was a "wicked slut" (208) because she did not tell Linton
about his father. Ellen asked Heathcliff to be kind to the boy, and he said
that he would indeed have him carefully tended, mostly because Linton was heir
to the Grange, so he wanted him to live at least until Edgar was dead and he
inherited. So when Linton refused to eat the homely oatmeal Joseph offered him,
Heathcliff ordered that his son be given tea and boiled milk instead. When
Ellen left, Linton begged her not to leave him there.
Analysis
Brontë's novel is full of innocent children
who are abandoned into cold and unfriendly homes: Heathcliff as an orphan in
Liverpool; Hindley sent away to college; Heathcliff and Cathy after Earnshaw's
death; Hareton and Linton at Wuthering Heights, and Cathy Linton at her
father's death. The effect of this is that each character, no matter how
ruthless and cruel they may be, contains at their core the same wish for love
and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to
judge any character too harshly because we know this. Linton is a particularly
interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one
can only pity him for being so abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a
home where everyone despises him.
Chapters 21-25
Chapter 21
Summary
Cathy missed her cousin when she woke up that
morning, but time made her forget him. Linton grew up to be a selfish and
disagreeable boy, continually complaining about his health. On Cathy's
sixteenth birthday she and Ellen went out on the moors, and strayed onto
Heathcliff's land, where he found them. He invited them to come to Wuthering
Heights, telling Ellen that he wanted Linton and Cathy to marry so he would be
doubly sure of inheriting the Grange. Cathy was glad to see her cousin, though
she was somewhat taken back by his invalidish behavior. Hareton, at
Heathcliff's request, showed Cathy around the farm, though he was shy of her
and she teased him unkindly. Linton mocked Hareton’s lack of education in front
of Cathy, showing himself to be mean-spirited.
Later, Cathy told her father where she had
been, and asked him why he had not allowed the cousins to see each other.
Heathcliff had told her that Edgar was still angry at him because he thought
Heathcliff too poor to marry Isabella. Edgar told her of Heathcliff's
wickedness, and forbade her to return to Wuthering Heights. Cathy was unhappy,
and began a secret correspondence with Linton. By the time Ellen discovered it,
they were writing love letters––affected ones on Linton's part, that Ellen
suspected had been partially dictated by Heathcliff. Ellen confronted Cathy and
burned the letters, threatening to tell her father if Cathy continued to write
to Linton.
Analysis
Trespassing becomes an important issue in
this chapter, which recalls the scene in Chapter 6 when Cathy Earnshaw and
Heathcliff are caught on the Lintons' land. This chapter is almost an inversion
of the earlier one, especially considering that this Cathy will marry Linton,
just as the earlier Cathy married Edgar. The fact that people frequently leave
their property and marriages often result from trespassing speaks to the wild,
dynamic quality of the moors. The emphasis on land and privacy might be taken
for a metaphor for more emotional intimacy: in order for two people to become
close, one must in some way trespass. On the other hand, the marriages that
result from trespassing are unhappy, while those that result from exploration,
such as Cathy Linton’s first meeting with Hareton in Chapter 18, are happy. Of
course, the difference between trespassing and innocent exploration depends entirely
on the attitude taken by the people whose lands are being entered.
Often in literature, land and women are
identified with one another, so that trespassing could be taken for a metaphor
for sex. This hardly seems to be the case in Wuthering Heights: Linton and
Edgar remain passively in their places while their future wives come to see
them. This is consistent with the way the male Lintons are frequently given
female characteristics. Isabella, both biologically female and Lintonishly
feminine, meets Heathcliff when he intrudes at the Grange.
Chapter 22
Summary
That fall, Edgar caught a cold that confined
him to the house all winter. Cathy grew sadder after the end of her little
romance, and told Ellen that she was afraid of being alone after Ellen and her
father die. Taking a walk, Cathy ended up briefly stranded outside of the wall
of the park, when Heathcliff rode by. He told her that Linton was dying of a
broken heart, and that if she were kind, she would visit him. Ellen told her
that Heathcliff was probably lying and couldn't be trusted, but the next day
Cathy persuaded her to accompany her on a visit to Wuthering Heights.
Analysis
See the analysis of Chapter 20 for a
discussion of children left alone in the world––Cathy Linton is not the only
character to fear a parent's death, nor is her fear unjustified. Cathy is
particularly vulnerable because, as a girl, she will not inherit her father's
estate: her father's nephew Linton will. This is a result of legal conventions,
and has nothing to do with Edgar’s relationshipwith his daughter.
Emily Brontë was especially conscious of the
position of orphaned children: although her father outlived her, her mother,
like Cathy’s mother, died when she was very young, and Emily’s older sister
Maria, who took a mothering role with her younger siblings, died in childhood
of tuberculosis. See Chapter 12 for further evidence of the importance of
abandoned children: in her delirium Catherine Earnshaw remembers a nest of baby
birds that died of starvation ("little skeletons") after Heathcliff
caught their mother. She had been deeply upset by the sight and made Heathcliff
promise never to kill a mother bird again. This may be the key to Brontë's
continual emphasis on that theme: she was deeply familiar with the natural
world, in which orphaned baby animals stand little chance of survival.
Chapter 23
Summary
At Wuthering Heights, Cathy and Ellen heard
"a peevish voice" (236) calling Joseph for more hot coals for the
fire. Following the sound of the voice, they discovered Linton, who greeted
them rather ungraciously: "No don't
kiss me. It takes my breath dear
me!" (237) He complained that writing to Cathy had been very tiring, and
that the servants didn't take care of him as they ought, and that he hated
them. He said that he wished Cathy would marry him, because wives always loved
their husbands, upon which Cathy answered that this was not always so. Her
father had told her that Isabella had not loved Heathcliff. Upon hearing this,
Linton became angry and answered that Catherine's mother had loved Heathcliff
and not Edgar. Cathy pushed his chair and he coughed for a long time, for which
she was very sorry. Linton took advantage of her regret and bullied her like a
true hypochondriac, making her promise to return the next day to nurse him.
When Cathy and Ellen were on their way home,
Ellen expressed her disapproval of Linton and said he would die young––a “small
loss” (242). She added that Cathy should on no account marry him. Cathy was not
so sure he would die, and was much more friendly toward him.
Ellen caught a cold and was confined to her
room. Cathy spent almost all her time taking care of her and Edgar, but she was
free in the evenings. As Ellen later found out, she used this time to visit
Linton.
Analysis
In this chapter, Brontë explores the
intersections between love and power: to what extent does Linton want Cathy to
love him freely, and to what extent does he want to have husbandly control over
her? It would appear that for him, love is just another form of control: he
uses Cathy's love for him to make her do whatever he likes, without any
consideration for her own happiness. Is this form of controlling love
essentially linked to marriage? That might well be the case: see how the
relationship between the older Catherine and her husband Edgar breaks down when
he tries to control her friendships. However, Edgar unmistakably loved
Catherine, whereas Linton seems to care for no one but himself. Marriage in
Wuthering Heights is not an unqualified good: it must be accompanied by
unselfish love on both sides in order to be successful.
Chapter 24
Summary
Three weeks later, Ellen was much better, and
discovered Cathy's evening visits to Wuthering Heights. Cathy told her what had
happened:
Cathy bribed a servant with her books to take
care of saddling her pony and keep her escapades secret. On her second visit,
she and Linton had an argument about the best way of spending a summer
afternoon: Linton wanted to lie in the heather and dream it away, and she
wanted to rock in a treetop among the birds. "He wanted to lie in an
ecstasy of peace;” Cathy explained “I wanted all to sparkle, and dance in a
glorious jubilee" (248). They made up and played ball until Linton became
unhappy because he always lost, but as usual, Cathy consoled him for that.
Cathy looked forward to her next visit, but
when she arrived, she met Hareton, who showed her how he had learned to read
his name. She mocked him for it. (Here Ellen rebuked Cathy for having been so
rude to her cousin. Cathy was surprised by Ellen’s reaction, but went on.) When
she was reading to Linton, Hareton came in angrily and ordered them into the
kitchen. Shut out of his favorite room, Linton staged a frightening temper
tantrum, wearing an expression of "frantic, powerless fury" (251) and
shrieking that he would kill Hareton. Joseph pointed out that he was showing
his father's character. Linton coughed blood and fainted; Cathy fetched Zillah.
Hareton carried the boy upstairs but wouldn't let Cathy follow. When she cried,
Hareton began to regret his behavior. Cathy struck him with her whip and rode
home.
On the third day, Linton refused to speak to
her except to blame her for the events of the preceding day, and she left
resolving not to return. However, she did eventually, and took Linton to task
for being so rude. He admitted that he was worthless, but said that she was
much happier than he and should make allowances. Heathcliff hated him, and he
was very unhappy at Wuthering Heights. However, he loved Cathy.
Cathy was sorry Linton had such a distorted
nature, and felt she had an obligation to be his friend. She had noticed that
Heathcliff avoided her, and reprimanded Linton when he did not behave well to
her.
Ellen told Edgar about the visits, and he
forbade Cathy to return to Wuthering Heights, but wrote to Linton that he could
come to the Grange if he liked.
Analysis
The contrast between Linton and Cathy's ideas
of how to spend an afternoon sums up the differences in their characters.
However, the juxtaposition of Linton's peaceful ideal afternoon with his
furious temper tantrum is somewhat disconcerting. Are passivity and laziness
essentially related to hatred and fury in the novel? This hardly seems
possible, considering Edgar's peaceful and generally loving character. However,
the juxtaposition serves to remind us that weakness and goodness are not to be
carelessly equated.
Chapter 25
Analysis
Ellen points out to Lockwood that these
events only happened the year before, and she hints that Lockwood might become
interested in Cathy, who is not happy at Wuthering Heights. Then she continues
with the narrative.
Edgar asked Ellen what Linton was like, and
she told him that he was delicate and had little of his father in him––Cathy
would probably be able to control him if they married. Edgar admitted that he
was worried about what would happen to Cathy if he were to die. As spring
advanced Edgar resumed his walks, but although Cathy took his flushed cheeks
and bright eyes for health, Ellen was not so sure. He wrote again to Linton,
asking to see him. Linton answered that his father refused to let him visit the
Grange, but that he hoped to meet Edgar outside sometime. He also wrote that he
would like to see Cathy again, and that his health was improved.
Edgar could not consent, because he could not
walk very far, but the two began a correspondence. Linton wrote well, without
complaining about his health (since Heathcliff carefully edited his letters)
and eventually Edgar agreed to Cathy's going to meet Linton on the moors, with
Ellen's supervision. Edgar wished Cathy to marry Linton so she would not have to
leave the Grange when he died––but he would not have wished it if he knew that
Linton was dying as fast as he was.
Analysis
The prominent presence of tuberculosis in
this novel is disturbingly prescient, considering that the illness was soon to
be the cause of Brontë’s own death. Cathy fools herself into thinking that
Edgar is getting better, just as Hindley’s wife Frances (and Brontë herself)
tried hard to pretend that she was not sick.
In Wuthering Heights, death is a mysterious
and yet unavoidable presence: the characters cannot simply expect each other to
live until they are old. A cold can turn into a fever, which can turn into
consumption, ending in the grave. In this chapter, Brontë lays the groundwork
for the sudden deaths from illness that will occur in the final third of the
novel.
Chapters 26-30
Chapter 26
Summary
When Ellen and Cathy rode to meet Linton,
they had to go quite close to Wuthering Heights to find him. He was evidently
very ill, though he claimed to be better: "his large blue eyes wandered
timidly over her; the hollowness round them, transforming to haggard wildness,
the languid expression they once possessed" (261). Linton had a hard time
making conversation with Cathy, and was clearly not enjoying their talk, so she
decided to leave. Surprisingly, Linton then looked anxiously towards Wuthering
Heights and begged her to stay longer, and to tell her father he was in
"tolerable health" (262). Cathy half-heartedly agreed, and Linton
soon fell into some kind of slumber. He woke suddenly and seemed to be
terrified that his father might come. Eventually, Cathy and Ellen returned
home, perplexed by his strange behavior.
Analysis
This chapter reveals a level of cruelty in
Heathcliff that has not been seen before. He has no reason to hate his son
beyond the fact that he is a Linton, and yet he is perfectly willing to fill
Linton’s last days with terror and despair. Linton's life is singularly
hopeless, and the mere fact that Brontë invented it testifies to the darkness
of her vision. Linton is unlikable and dislikes everyone; he will die without
ever achieving anything worthwhile or good, and probably without ever having
been happy. A more pointless, bitter existence could hardly be imagined. In
contrast, Heathcliff seems energetic and happy in this section of the novel,
such that he seems to draw vitality from his son’s misery.
Chapter 27
Summary
A week later, Ellen and Cathy were to visit
Linton again. Edgar was much sicker, and Cathy didn't want to leave him, but he
encouraged her relationship with Linton, hoping to ensure his daughter's
welfare thereby. Linton "received us with greater animation on this
occasion; not the animation of high spirits though, nor yet of joy; it looked
more like fear" (266). Cathy was angry that she had had to leave her
father, and she was disgusted by Linton's abject admissions of terror of his
father. Heathcliff came upon them, and asked Ellen how much longer Edgar had to
live: he was worried that Linton would die before Edgar, thus preventing the
marriage. Heathcliff then ordered Linton to get up and bring Cathy into the
house, which he did, against Cathy's will: "Linton... implored her to
accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial" (269).
Heathcliff pushed Ellen into the house as well and locked the door behind them.
When Cathy protested that she must get home to her father, Heathcliff slapped her
brutally and made it clear that she wouldn't leave Wuthering Heights until she
married Linton. Linton showed his true character: as Heathcliff said,
"He'll undertake to torture any number of cats if their teeth be drawn,
and their claws pared” (274). Cathy and Heathcliff declared their mutual
hatred. Ellen remained imprisoned separately from Cathy for five days with
Hareton as her jailer: he gave her food but refused to speak to her beyond what
was necessary. She did not know what was happening to Cathy.
Analysis
This chapter provides further evidence of
Linton's bad character; he thinks exclusively of himself despite Cathy’s pain
and terror. Cathy's pity and kindness are the causes of her misfortunes here:
in the presence of Heathcliff's intelligent hatred, her good qualities only
leave her vulnerable to his plans.
Chapter 28
Summary
On the fifth afternoon of the captivity,
Zillah released Ellen, explaining that Heathcliff said she could go home and
that Cathy would follow in time to attend her father's funeral. Edgar was not
dead yet, but soon would be. Ellen asked Linton where Catherine was, and he
answered that she was shut upstairs, that they were married, and that he was
glad she was being treated harshly. Apparently he resented that she hadn't
wished to marry him. He was annoyed by her crying, and was glad when Heathcliff
struck her as punishment.
Ellen rebuked Linton for his selfishness and
unkindness, and went to the Grange to get help. Edgar was glad to hear his
daughter was safe and would be home soon: he was almost dead, at the age of 39.
Upon hearing of Heathcliff’s plot to take control of his estate, Edgar sent for
Mr. Green, the local attorney, to change his will so that his money would be
held in a trust for Cathy. However, Heathcliff bought off Mr. Green and the
lawyer did not arrive until it was too late to change the will. The men sent to
Wuthering Heights to rescue Cathy returned without her, having believed
Heathcliff's tale that she was too sick to travel. Very early the next morning,
however, Catherine came back by herself, joyful to hear that her father was
still alive. She had convinced Linton to help her escape. Ellen asked her to
tell Edgar that she would be content with Linton so that he could die happy, to
which she agreed. Edgar died "blissfully” (283). Catherine was stony-eyed
with grief. Mr. Green, now employed by Heathcliff, gave all the servants but
Ellen notice to quit, and hurried the funeral.
Analysis
One part of Heathcliff's revenge fails: Cathy
manages to escape in time to see her father again, and Edgar dies happy. Given
the great importance attached to last words and dying moments, this is a
notable victory for Cathy, and an essential one if all of Heathcliff's evil
work is to be undone in the end. If Edgar had died miserably, no amount of
happy endings could ever have undone that tragedy. This chapter also includes
some brief satire of lawyers; much as in modern society, many Victorians
considered lawyers to be untrustworthy. Mr. Green’s willingness to be bought by
the highest bidder demonstrates a moral bankruptcy that rivals Heathcliff’s.
Chapter 29
Summary
Heathcliff came to the Grange to fetch
Catherine to Wuthering Heights to take care of Linton, who was dying in terror
of his father. When Ellen begged him to allow Cathy and Linton to live at the
Grange, Heathcliff explained that he wanted to get a tenant for the estate (Mr.
Lockwood, as it turned out). Catherine agreed to go because Linton was all she
had to love, and explained that she pitied Heathcliff because no one loved him.
Then she left the room.
Heathcliff, in a strange mood, told Ellen
what he had done the night before. He had bribed the sexton who was digging
Edgar's grave to uncover his Catherine's coffin, so he could see her face
again––he said it was hers yet. The sexton told him that the face would change
if air blew on it, so he tore himself away from contemplating it, and struck
one side of the coffin loose and bribed the sexton to put his body in with
Catherine's when he was dead. Ellen was shocked, and scolded him for disturbing
the dead, at which he replied that on the contrary she had haunted him night
and day for eighteen years, and––"yesternight, I was tranquil. I dreamt I
was sleeping my last sleep, by that sleeper, with my heart stopped, and my
cheek frozen against hers” (289).
Heathcliff then told Ellen what he had done
the night after Catherine's burial (the night he beat up Hindley). He had gone
to the kirkyard and dug up the coffin "to have her in his arms again”
(289), but while he was wrenching at the screws he suddenly felt sure of her
living presence. He was consoled, but tortured as well: from that night for 18
years he constantly felt as though he could almost see her, but not quite. He
tried sleeping in her room, but constantly opened his eyes to see if she were
there, he felt so sure she was.
Heathcliff finished his story, and Cathy
sadly bade farewell to Ellen.
Analysis
Heathcliff's continued love for Catherine's
dead body after 18 years emphasizes the physical, yet non-physical nature of
their relationship. It would appear to physical in a way that transcends conventional
ideas about sexuality: Heathcliff was pleased to see that Catherine still
looked like herself after 18 years, but claimed that if she had been
"dissolved into earth, or worse" (289) he would have been no less
comforted by the proximity to her body. His idea of heaven is to be utterly and
completely unified with Catherine in body, as in spirit––and this could just as
well mean to disintegrate into dust together as to be joined in the act of
love. The difference between these two forms of union is that while people are
joined during sexual intercourse, their separate bodies and identities remain
clear. But in Heathcliff and Catherine's corporeal and spiritual unity, as
envisioned by him, an observer would not be able to tell "which is which”
(288) This is similar to Catherine's statement in Chapter 9 that she was
Heathcliff.
Chapter 30
Summary
Ellen has now more or less reached the
present time in her narrative, and tells Lockwood what Zillah told her about
Cathy’s reception at Wuthering Heights. Cathy spent all her time in Linton's
room, and when she came out she asked Heathcliff to call a doctor, because
Linton was very sick. Heathcliff replied: "We know that! But his life is
not worth a farthing” (292). Cathy was thus left to care for her dying cousin
all by herself––Zillah, Hareton and Joseph would not help her––and became
haggard and bewildered from lack of sleep. Finally Linton died, and when
Heathcliff asked Cathy how she felt, she said: "He's safe and I'm free. I
should feel very well but you have left
me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I
feel like death!" (294) Hareton was sorry for her.
Cathy was ill for the next two weeks.
Heathcliff informed her that Linton had left all of his and his wife's property
to himself. One day when Heathcliff was out, Cathy came downstairs. Hareton
made shy, friendly advances, which she angrily rejected. He asked Zillah to ask
Cathy to read for them (he was illiterate, but wished to learn) but she refused
on the grounds that she had been forsaken during Linton's illness, and had no
reason to care for Hareton or Zillah. Hareton said that he had in fact asked
Heathcliff to be allowed to relieve her of some of her duties, but was denied.
Cathy was in no mood to forgive, however, and thus became the unfriendly young
woman whom Lockwood had seen at Wuthering Heights. According to Zillah:
"She'll snap at the master himself, and as good dares him to thrash her;
and the more hurt she gets, the more venomous she grows" (297). Ellen
wanted to get a cottage and live there with Cathy, but Heathcliff would not
permit it. Ellen now believes that the only way Cathy might escape from
Wuthering Heights is to marry a second time.
Analysis
Some believe that difficult and painful
experiences open the door to personal growth. If this is the case, Cathy’s
short marriage to Linton should have caused her to grow a great deal from the
happy and innocent girl she had formerly been. Instead, it appears to make her
venomous and permanently angry. However, one might make the argument that the
humbling she undergoes is necessary because, without it, she never would have
bothered to see the good in Hareton. Is the time Cathy spends caring for Linton
a complete loss, or does she learn anything valuable from it? This is related
to the question of whether Wuthering Heights is a Christian novel: in Christian
theology, suffering is usually considered ennobling. See the analysis of the
next chapter for a discussion of the role of education and books in Cathy and
Hareton’s relationship.
Chapters 31-34
Chapter 31
Summary
Lockwood goes to Wuthering Heights to see
Heathcliff and tell him he is moving to London and thus doesn’t want to stay at
the Grange any longer. He notices that Hareton is "as handsome a rustic as
need be seen" (299). He gives Cathy a note from Ellen. Initially, Cathy
thinks it is from Lockwood and rejects it, but when Lockwood makes it clear
that it isn’t, Hareton snatches it away, saying that Heathcliff should look at
it first (he isn’t home yet). Cathy tries to hide her tears, but Hareton
notices and lets the letter drop beside her seat. She reads it and expresses
her longing for freedom, telling Lockwood that she can’t even write Ellen back
because Heathcliff has destroyed her books. Hareton has all the other books in
the house: he has been trying to learn to read. Catherine mocks him for his
clumsy attempts at self-education: "Those books, both prose and verse,
were consecrated to me by other associations, and I hate to hear them debased
and profaned in his mouth!" (302) Poor Hareton fetches the books and
throws them into her lap, saying he doesn’t want to think about them any
longer. She persists in her mockery, reading aloud in "the drawling tone
of a beginner," for which Hareton slaps her and throws the books into the
fire. Lockwood "read[s] in his countenance what anguish it was to offer
that sacrifice to spleen."
Heathcliff enters and Hareton leaves,
"to enjoy his grief and anger in solitude” (303). Heathcliff moodily
confides to Lockwood that Hareton reminds him more of Catherine Earnshaw than
he does of Hindley. He also tells Lockwood that he will still have to pay his
full rent even if he leaves the Grange, to which Lockwood, insulted, agrees.
Heathcliff invites Lockwood to dinner, and informs Cathy that she can eat with
Joseph in the kitchen. Lockwood eats the cheerless meal and leaves,
contemplating the possibility of his courting Cathy and bringing her "into
the stirring atmosphere of the town” (304).
Analysis
Books take on an important role in the
relationship between Hareton and Catherine: Hareton's illiteracy is the most
glaring result of Heathcliff's mistreatment of him, designed to reduce him to
rustic ignorance. Hareton never rebels against Heathcliff, but his contact with
Catherine, who was carefully educated by her father, makes him extremely
conscious of his shortcomings. One might wonder how great the value of
book-learning is in this novel: Linton, who can read, is obviously inferior to
his more vigorous cousin Hareton, which might lead one to think that Brontë is
championing native energy over imposed refinement. However, for Catherine and
Hareton to become close it is absolutely necessary for Hareton to wish to educate
himself, and in the last chapter their love will be symbolized in the joint
reading of a book. Similarly, Heathcliff's youthful degradation really begins
when he ceases to follow Catherine's lessons. It appears that book-learning is
not enough to make a person good, but that the lack of it is enough to make
someone ridiculous. Literacy is, in short, a basic and essential quality.
Chapter 32
Summary
In the fall of 1802, later that year,
Lockwood returns to the Grange because he is passing through the area on a
hunting trip. He finds the Grange more or less empty: Ellen is now at Wuthering
Heights, and an old woman had replaced her. Lockwood visits Wuthering Heights
to see what has changed. He notices flowers growing around the old farm house,
and overhears a pleasant lesson from indoors. Cathy, sounding "sweet as a
silver bell" (307) is teaching Hareton, now respectably dressed, to read.
The lesson is interspersed with kisses and very kind words. Lockwood doesn’t
want to disturb them, and goes around to the kitchen to find Ellen singing and
Joseph complaining as usual. Ellen is glad to see Lockwood and tells them that
he will have to settle the rent with her, since she is acting for Cathy.
Heathcliff has been dead for three months. Ellen tells Lockwood what has
happened in his absence.
A fortnight after Lockwood left the Grange
the previous spring, Nelly was summoned to Wuthering Heights, where she gladly
went, hoping to keep Cathy out of Heathcliff's way. She was pleased to see
Cathy, but saddened by the way the young woman’s personality had changed.
One day when Cathy, Ellen, and Hareton were
sitting in the kitchen, Cathy grew tired of the animosity between herself and
her cousin and offered him a book, which he refused. She left it close to him,
but he never touched it. Hareton was injured in a shooting accident in March,
and since Heathcliff didn't like to see him, he spent a lot of time sitting in
the kitchen, where Cathy found many reasons to go. Finally her efforts at
reconciliation succeeded, and they became loving friends, much to Joseph's
indignation.
Analysis
Cathy and Hareton’s is not surprising given
Brontë’s preoccupation with symmetry.. At the beginning of the story, Hindley
and Catherine inhabited Wuthering Heights and Edgar and Isabella inhabited the
Grange. The obvious symmetrical plot would have been: Hindley married Isabella
producing a son, while Catherine married Edgar, producing Cathy. Then Cathy and
her male cousin would marry, unifying the two houses completely, and Cathy
Linton would become Catherine Earnshaw, taking her mother's maiden name. The
harmony of this plot was disrupted by the introduction of Heathcliff, an alien
figure who destroyed the potential marital balance. By the end of the novel,
however, Heathcliff and his issue are eliminated, and the unifying marriage
between the Linton and Earnshaw families will take place after all, as though
Heathcliff had never existed. The union between Isabella and Heathcliff should
not have taken place, so naturally Linton Heathcliff was a mistake, an
unlikable and weakly being. Cathy Linton's marriage to Linton Heathcliff was
likewise a mistake, forced by Heathcliff, and in order to preserve the
integrity of the pattern, their marriage was childless. For harmony to be
reinstated, no descendants of Heathcliff must remain by the end of the novel.
Another beauty of Brontë's plot is that the
three names that Lockwood reads when he stays at Wuthering Heights in Chapter
3––Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff, and Catherine Linton––are all
assumed at one point or another by each of the two Catherines. The first Catherine
is named Earnshaw, then Linton when she marries Edgar, then perhaps Heathcliff
when she and Heathcliff are finally united in the grave. Her daughter is first
Catherine Linton, then Heathcliff, then Earnshaw.
Chapter 33
Summary
The next morning Ellen found Catherine with
Hareton in the garden, planning a flower garden in the middle of Joseph's
cherished currant bushes. She warned them that they would be punished for
destroying the bushes, but Hareton promised to take the blame. At tea, Cathy was
careful not to talk to Hareton too much, but she put flowers into his porridge,
which made him laugh and made Heathcliff angry. Heathcliff assumed Cathy had
laughed, but Hareton quietly admitted his fault. Joseph came in and
incoherently bewailed the fate of his bushes. Hareton said he had uprooted
some, but would plant them again, and Cathy said it had been at her
instigation. Heathcliff called her an "insolent slut” (319) and Cathy
accused him of having stolen her land and Hareton's. Heathcliff commanded
Hareton to throw her out. The poor boy was torn between his two loyalties and
tried to persuade Catherine to leave. Heathcliff seemed "ready to tear
Catherine in pieces" (319) when he suddenly calmed down and told everyone
to leave. Later Hareton asked Catherine not to speak ill of Heathcliff in front
of him because Hareton considers him to be his father. Cathy understood his
position and refrained from insulting her oppressor from then on. Ellen was
glad to see her two ‘children’ happy together; Hareton quickly shook off his
ignorance and boorishness and Catherine became sweet again.
When Heathcliff saw them together he was
struck by their resemblances to Catherine Earnshaw, and told Ellen that he had
lost his motivation for destruction. He no longer took any interest in everyday
life. Catherine and Hareton didn't appear to him to be distinct characters of
their own, but apparitions that evoked his beloved. He also felt Hareton to be
very much like himself as a youth. But most importantly, his Catherine haunted
him completely: "The most ordinary faces of men, and women my own features mock me with a resemblance.
The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and
that I have lost her!" (324) He told Nelly that he felt a change
coming––that he could no longer exist in the living world when he felt so close
to that of the dead, or the immortal. Nelly wondered whether he was ill, but
decided that he was in fine health and mind, except for his “monomania” (324)
for Catherine Earnshaw.
Analysis
This chapter offers us an extraordinary
window into Heathcliff’s mind. Whenever he looks at something, he sees
Catherine in it, and he hears her voice in every sound. This is Brontë's
conception of true haunting, which seems to bear far more resemblance to
madness than it does to scary noises in the dark. It is mainly an interior
phenomenon: if the ghost of Catherine is at work, she has found her home in
Heathcliff's mind, and her vocation in distorting his perception and his
ability to communicate with the outside world.
Chapter 34
Summary
In the next few days Heathcliff all but
stopped eating, and spent the nights walking outside. Catherine, happily
working on her garden, came across him and was surprised to see him looking
"very much excited, and wild, and glad" (327). Ellen urged him to
eat, and indeed at dinner he took a heaping plate, but abruptly lost interest
in food, seemed to be watching something by the window, and went outside.
Hareton followed to ask him what was wrong, and Heathcliff told him to go back
to Catherine and not bother him. He came back an hour or two later, with the
same "unnatural appearance of joy” (328), shivering the way a
"tight-stretched cord vibrates a
strong thrilling, rather than trembling." Ellen asked him what was going
on, and he answered that he was within sight of his heaven, hardly three feet
away. His heaven, needless to say, was being buried alongside Catherine
Earnshaw.
Later that evening, Ellen found Heathcliff
sitting in the dark with all the windows open. His black eyes and pale face
frightened her. Ellen half-wondered if he were a vampire, but told herself that
she was foolish, since she had watched him grow up. The next day he was even
more restless and could hardly speak coherently, and stared with fascination at
nothing with an "anguished, yet raptured expression" (331). Early the
next morning, ¬¬he declared he wanted to settle things with his lawyer, Mr.
Green. Ellen said he should eat, and get some sleep, but he replied that he
could do neither: "My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy
itself" (333). Ellen told him to repent his sins, and he thanked her for
the reminder and asked her to make sure that he was buried next to Catherine:
"I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether
unvalued, and uncoveted by me." Heathcliff behaved more and more
strangely, talking openly of Catherine. Ellen called the doctor, but Heathcliff
refused to see him. The next morning she found him dead in his room, by the
open window, wet from the rain and cut by the broken window-pane, with his eyes
fiercely open and wearing a savage smile. Hareton mourned deeply for him. The
doctor wondered what could have killed him, although Ellen knew that it was
Heathcliff’s depression. He was buried alongside Catherine’s remains, as he had
asked. People claim that his ghost roams the moors with Catherine. Ellen once
came across a little boy crying because he believed he had seen Heathcliff’s
phantom with a woman and dared not pass them.
Cathy and Hareton are engaged, and they plan
to move to the Grange, leaving Wuthering Heights to Joseph and the ghosts.
Lockwood notices on his walk home that the church was falling apart from
neglect, and he found the three headstones––Catherine's, Edgar's, and
Heathcliff's––covered by varying degrees of heather. He "wondered how
anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for sleepers in that quiet
earth" (337).
Analysis
An essential question for thinking about this
novel is: does it end happily or not, and why? Is the novel on the side of the
Grange and civilization, since Catherine and Hareton move there after
Heathcliff dies? Or should we miss the passionate intensity of Wuthering
Heights? Who wins? It seems at first that the Grange wins, and yet we should
remember that Heathcliff achieves his version of heaven as well. Several film
versions of Wuthering Heights prefer to delete the whole second half of the
novel, ending dramatically with Catherine's death––they find that the
restabilizing second half detracts from the romance and power of the first
part. Is this the case? Did Brontë add the second half because society would
not have accepted the first half alone?
When considering these questions, it is
important to keep in mind the novel’s carefully designed, symmetrical
structure. This might lead to the conclusion that civilization really does win,
since the marriage of Cathy and Hareton is the final and necessary conclusion
to two generations of unrest, and all traces of Heathcliff disappear. In
another sense, however, Cathy and Hareton resemble the earlier Catherine and
Heathcliff, purified of their wilder and more antisocial elements. Their
marriage could be an echo of the marriage that never took place between
Catherine and Heathcliff. This is supported by the fact that the story begins
and ends with a Catherine Earnshaw, and that the name Hareton is very similar
to Heathcliff.
In another reading, one might remember that
Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff belonged above all to the natural and
immaterial world, whereas the Lintons belonged to a material society. The
reunion in death of the two lovers constitutes their achievement of complete
freedom––as far as they are concerned, it hardly matters what happens on earth.
Heathcliff’s realization at the end of the novel that he no longer cares about
getting revenge on Hindley and Edgar, both long dead, supports this
interpretation.
One might also conclude that Emily Brontë was
really more drawn to her wild characters––Catherine and Heathcliff––but
realized that their extreme personalities posed a great threat to the existence
of peaceful life on earth. Perhaps she eliminated them because she was
unwilling to sacrifice the rest of the world for such a wild ideal, whatever
its appeal. In this case the ambiguous conclusion of the novel may represent an
inner conflict in the author herself.
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