Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is Emily Bront's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under
the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister
Charlotte. The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which
the story centres (as an adjective, wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent
weather). The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted,
love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion
eventually destroys them and many around them.
Now considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights' innovative
structure, which has been likened to a series of Matryoshka dolls,[citation needed] met with mixed
reviews by critics when it first appeared, with many horrified by the stark depictions of
mental and physical cruelty.[1][2] Though Charlotte Bront's Jane Eyre was originally
considered the best of the Bront sisters' works, many subsequent critics of Wuthering
Heights argued that its originality and achievement made it superior.[3] Wuthering Heights
has also given rise to many adaptations and inspired works, including films, radio,
television dramatisations, a musical by Bernard J. Taylor and songs (notably the hit
Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush), ballet and opera.

Plot summary
The narrative is non-linear, involving several flashbacks, and involves two narrators Mr. Lockwood and Ellen "Nelly" Dean. The novel opens in 1801, with Lockwood arriving at
Thrushcross Grange, a grand house on the Yorkshire moors he is renting from the surly
Heathcliff, who lives at nearby Wuthering Heights. Lockwood spends the night at
Wuthering Heights and has a terrifying dream: the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw, pleading
to be admitted to the house from outside. Intrigued, Lockwood asks the housekeeper Nelly
Dean to tell the story of Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights while he is staying at the Grange
recovering from a cold.
Nelly takes over the narration and begins her story thirty years earlier, when
Heathcliff, a foundling living on the streets of Liverpool, is brought to Wuthering Heights by
the then-owner, Mr. Earnshaw, and raised as his own. Ellen comments casually that
Heathcliff might have been descended from Indian or Chinese origins [4]. He is often
described as "dark" or "gypsy". Earnshaw's daughter Catherine becomes Heathcliff's
inseparable friend. Her brother Hindley, however, resents Heathcliff, seeing him as an
interloper and rival. Mr. Earnshaw dies three years later, and Hindley (who has married a
woman named Frances) takes over the estate. He brutalises Heathcliff, forcing him to work
as a hired hand. Catherine becomes friends with a neighbour family, the Lintons of

Thrushcross Grange, who mellow her initially wild personality. She is especially attached to
the refined and mild young Edgar Linton, whom Heathcliff instantaneously dislikes.
A year later, Hindley's wife dies, apparently of consumption, shortly after giving birth
to a son, Hareton; Hindley takes to drink. Some two years after that, Catherine agrees to
marry Edgar. Nelly knows that this will crush Heathcliff, and Heathcliff overhears
Catherine's explanation that it would be "degrading" to marry him. Heathcliff storms out and
leaves Wuthering Heights, not hearing Catherine's continuing declarations that Heathcliff is
as much a part of her as the rocks are to the earth beneath. Catherine marries Edgar, and
is initially very happy. Some time later, Heathcliff returns, intent on destroying those who
prevent him from being with Catherine. He has, mysteriously, become very wealthy.
Through loans he has made to the drunken and dissipated Hindley that Hindley cannot
repay, he takes ownership of Wuthering Heights upon Hindley's death. Intent on ruining
Edgar, Heathcliff elopes with Edgar's sister Isabella, which places him in a position to
inherit Thrushcross Grange upon Edgar's death.
Catherine becomes very ill after Heathcliff's return and dies a few hours after giving
birth to a daughter also named Catherine, or Cathy. Heathcliff becomes only more bitter
and vengeful. Isabella flees her abusive marriage a month later, and subsequently gives
birth to a boy, Linton. At around the same time, Hindley dies. Heathcliff takes ownership of
Wuthering Heights, and vows to raise Hindley's son Hareton with as much neglect as he
had suffered at Hindley's hands years earlier.
Twelve years later, the dying Isabella asks Edgar to raise her and Heathcliff's son,
Linton. However, Heathcliff finds out about this and takes the sickly, spoiled child to
Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff has nothing but contempt for his son, but delights in the idea
of him ruling the property of his enemies. To that end, a few years later, Heathcliff attempts
to persuade young Cathy to marry Linton. Cathy refuses, so Heathcliff kidnaps her and
forces the two to marry. Soon after, Edgar Linton dies, followed shortly by Linton Heathcliff.
This leaves Cathy a widow and a virtual prisoner at Wuthering Heights, as Heathcliff has
gained complete control of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. It is at this
point in the narrative that Lockwood arrives, taking possession of Thrushcross Grange, and
hearing Nelly Dean's story. Shocked, Lockwood leaves for London.
During his absence from the area, however, events reach a climax that Nelly
describes when he returns a year later. Cathy gradually softens toward her rough,
uneducated cousin Hareton, just as her mother was tender towards Heathcliff. When
Heathcliff realizes that Cathy and Hareton are in love, he abandons his life-long vendetta.
He dies broken and tormented, but glad to be rejoining Catherine, whose ghost had
haunted him since she died. Cathy and Hareton marry. Heathcliff is buried next to

Catherine (the elder), and the story concludes with Lockwood visiting the grave, unsure of
what to feel.

Characters
Heathcliff is the central male character of the novel. An orphaned foundling raised
by the Earnshaw family, he forms an early bond with his foster sister Catherine Earnshaw,
and they both fall passionately in love with each other as they grow. Meanwhile he nurses
a bitter rivalry with his cruel foster brother Hindley, who resents the attention their father
shows Heathcliff. A brooding, vindictive man, his anger and bitterness at Catherine's later
marriage to their neighbour Edgar Linton sees him engage in a ruthless vendetta to destroy
not only his enemies but their heirs, a crusade that only intensifies upon Catherine's death.
Catherine Earnshaw is Heathcliff's adoptive sister. A free-spirited and somewhat
spoiled young woman, she returns Heathcliff's love utterly, but considers him too far
beneath her for marriage into poverty from both not having any money; instead choosing
another childhood friend, Edgar Linton, through which marriage she hopes to advance
Heathcliff. Later, after Heathcliff's return, she acknowledges to both men that Heathcliff is
her true love. However her physical and mental health is destroyed by the stress of
regretting her marriage to Edgar and the feud between them, and she descends into
prophetic madness before dying during childbirth.
Edgar Linton is a childhood friend of Catherine Earnshaw's, who later marries her.
A mild and gentle man, if slightly cold, cowardly and distant, he loves Catherine deeply but
is unable to reconcile his love for her with her feelings for her childhood friend. This leads
to a bitter antagonism with Heathcliff, and it is partly this which leads to Catherine's mental
breakdown and death. Linton is incapable of competing with Heathcliff's guile and ruthless
determination across the decades, and his health fails him while still a relatively young
man.
Isabella Linton is the younger sister of Edgar who becomes infatuated with
Heathcliff. She fundamentally mistakes his true nature and elopes with him despite his
apparent dislike of her. Her love for him turns to hatred almost immediately, as she is ill
treated both physically and emotionally and held captive against her will. Eventually she
escapes, leaves for London and gives birth to their son Linton Heathcliff, whom she
attempts to raise away from Heathcliff's corrupting influence.
Hindley Earnshaw is Catherine's brother and Heathcliff's other rival. Having loathed
Heathcliff since childhood, Hindley delights in turning him into a downtrodden servant upon
inheriting Wuthering Heights. However, his wife's death in childbirth destroys him; he
becomes a self-destructive alcoholic and gambler and it is this that allows Heathcliff, upon

returning to Wuthering Heights, to turn the tables and to manoeuvre the family property
away from him.
Ellen (Nelly) Dean is, at various points, the housekeeper of both Thrushcross
Grange and Wuthering Heights, and is one of the two narrators of the novel. She
recognizes early on that Heathcliff is Catherine's true love and tries to dissuade her from
the disastrous marriage to Edgar. Having been a disapproving witness and unwilling
participant to many of the events between Heathcliff and both the Earnshaw and Linton
families for much of her life, she narrates the story to Lockwood during his illness.
Linton Heathcliff is the son of Isabella and Heathcliff. He bears no resemblance to
Heathcliff and takes after his mother. He is a sickly child who grows up ignorant of his
father until his mother's death, when he is thirteen years old. He is forced to live at
Wuthering Heights and grows into a bullied, trembling shadow of his father. Heathcliff
arranges for him to marry his cousin Catherine Linton so that he may inherit both the
estates of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. He dies shortly after entering into
the forced marriage.
Catherine Linton is the daughter of Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton. She
inherits both her mother's free-spiritedness and dark eyes and her father's gentle nature,
facial features and fair hair. Heathcliff takes advantage of her fundamentally pure nature
and manipulates her into marrying his own son, Linton. Once she has become another
captive of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff resorts to the same torture he applies to everyone
against whom he bears a grudge. As a result, she regards him with contempt and disgust
and becomes silent and morose. She later falls in love with her cousin, Hareton Earnshaw.
Hareton Earnshaw is the son of Hindley Earnshaw, who is adopted by Heathcliff
upon Hindley's death. Even before this, he has waged a campaign of torment against the
young man while living together at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff spitefully turns Hareton
into a downtrodden, illiterate servant, much as Hindley once did to him, but does not further
mistreat him as Hindley had done. Despite this, Hareton remains strangely loyal to him,
even adopting a superficially similar personality. Quick tempered and easily embarrassed,
he falls in love with Catherine at an early point, and despite her contempt for him is thus
inspired to improve himself. He bears a strong likeness to his aunt and is the only person
who mourns Heathcliff upon his death.
Joseph is a servant of the Earnshaws and later Heathcliff. A bullying, lazy and snide
man, he hates Heathcliff but is somehow bound to be his servant. Intensely religious, he is
sanctimonious, self-righteous and largely held in contempt by those around him. He
speaks in the traditional West Yorkshire dialect. This dialect was still used in the Haworth
area up until the late 1970s, but there are now only portions of it still in common use. [5]

Lockwood is the narrator of the novel. A recently-arrived tenant at Thrushcross

Grange at the beginning of the novel, he is intrigued by the curious goings-on at Wuthering
Heights, and persuades Nelly Dean to tell him the story of what happened during a bout of
sickness. Lockwood is apparently a wealthy, relatively young man who comes to regret not
approaching the younger Catherine Linton himself. Despite displaying many self-centred
attributes, he is also a sensitive and romantic soul who is deeply affected by the saga of
Heathcliff and Catherine.
Frances Earnshaw is the wife that Hindley married while away at college. The fact
that he did not tell his father suggests that Frances is not of high social standing. From her
introduction she proves to be a kind woman to Nelly and Cathy but dislikes Heathcliff. She
dies after childbirth, a death brought about by consumption, or tuberculosis, a fate shared
by most of the Bront sisters.
Mr. Kenneth, the local doctor and drinking partner of Hindley. Kenneth often sees to
the ill or dead characters: Cathy in her madnesses, Frances during childbirth and TB,
Heathcliff and his early illness, Edgar's final hours, and Hindley's death. Nelly tells
Heathcliff that he should send for Kenneth to tend to his ill son, but does not tell him that
Heathcliff's death is suicide by starvation. He also reports to Nelly that he saw Isabella
leaving with Heathcliff.

Literary allusions
Traditionally, this novel has been seen as a unique piece of work conceived in
solitude by a genius confined to the lonesome heath, detached from the literary
movements of the time. However, Emily Bront received literary training at the
Pensionnat Hger in Brussels by imitating and analysing the styles of classic writers.
She also learned German, and was able to read the German Romantics in the original.
The work of Lord Byron was also admired by all three Bront sisters. The brothersister relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy is reminiscent of the brother-sister
couples in Byron's epics. The character of Heathcliff is reminiscent of the Byronic hero.

Gothic and supernatural elements

The novel contains many Gothic and supernatural elements, although the true
nature of the latter is always ambiguous. The mystery of Heathcliff's parentage is
never solved. He is described by Hindley as an 'imp of Satan' in chapter four, and by
the end of the novel Nelly Dean is entertaining notions that Heathcliff may be some
hideous ghoul or vampire. The awesome but unseen presence of Satan is also alluded
to at several points in the novel, and it is noted in chapter three that 'no clergyman will
undertake the duties of pastor' at the local chapel, which has fallen into dereliction.

Ghosts also play a role in the novel. Lockwood has a horrible vision of Catherine
(the elder) as a child, appearing at the window of her old chamber at Wuthering
Heights and begging to be allowed in. Heathcliff believes this story of Catherine's
ghostly return, and late in the novel behaves as though he has seen her ghost himself.
When Heathcliff dies, he is found in the bedroom with the window open, raising the
possibility that Catherine's ghost entered Wuthering Heights just as Lockwood saw in
his dream. At the end of the novel, Nelly Dean reports that various superstitious locals
have claimed to see Catherine and Heathcliff's ghosts roaming the moors. Lockwood,
however, discounts the idea of "unquiet slumbers for those sleepers in that quiet
earth."