The Lunatic and the Devil's Disciple: The 'Lovers' in Wuthering Heights

Author(s): Marianne Thormählen

Source: The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 48, No. 190 (May, 1997), pp. 183-197
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/518669
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 THE LUNATIC AND THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE:
THE 'LOVERS' IN WUTHERING HEIGHTS

By MARIANNE THORMXHLEN

ANY discussion of WutheringHeights, whether among 'common readers',

in classrooms, or in the pages of scholarly works, is bound to focus on the
relationship between Catherine Earshaw and Heathcliff. That relation-
ship is usually referred to as 'love'-'the passion of elemental love',1 'the
love that devours life itself',2 and so on. It is often represented as an inexor-
able force, overriding the laws, conventions, and considerations of lesser
mortals, even transcending the boundary between life and death. The
adolescent reader is easily swept along by this force and tends to remember
Catherine and Heathcliff as the protagonists of the grand romantic passion
of English fiction.
But to the adult reader who returns to WutheringHeights, that concep-
tion is soon undermined by a growing sense of wrongness. There is some-
thing decidedly odd about this supposedly archetypal romance. What
truly infatuated teenage girl tells a confidante that marrying the boy from
whom she claims to be inseparable would degrade her? What of Cather-
ine's claim, uttered at the same time, to 'love the ground under [Edgar's]
feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and everything
he says'? And how can two people supposedly in love torment each other
so cruelly as Catherine and Heathcliff do, recklessly repeating unloverlike
assertions such as 'I care nothing for your sufferings' and 'I have not one
word of comfort-you deserve this'?
For anyone who turns his or her 'attention to the human core of the
novel', as Q. D. Leavis urged WutheringHeights critics to do,3 a funda-
mental problem manifests itself: the problem of sympathy. The varying
views regarding the relative degrees of evil exhibited by the characters in
Wuthering Heights reflect the issue, from the early condemnations of

L. Abercrombie, 'The Unquestionable Supremacy of Emily', Bronte Society Transactions

(1924); repr. in M. Allott (ed.), Emily Bronte WutheringHeights:A Casebook(London, 1970), 121.
(But an early commentator, W. C. Roscoe, spoke interestingly of the inhuman passion of self-love
in the novel; his review of Mrs Gaskell's Life of CharlotteBrontewas printed in NationalReviewin
July 1857 and is reprinted on pp. 74-7 of Allott's Casebook volume.)
2 Swinburne's opinion, first printed in Athenaeumin 1883 and quoted in Allott (ed.), Case-
book,98.
3 Q. D. Leavis, 'A Fresh Approach to Wuthering Heights',from F. R. and Q. D. Leavis, Lectures
in America(New York, 1969); quoted in the Norton Critical Edition of WutheringHeights, ed.
W. M. Sale, Jr. (New York, 1972), 321.
RES New Series, Vol. XLVIII, No. 190 (1997) C?Oxford University Press 1997
184 THORMAHLEN

Heathcliffto the twentieth-centuryattemptsto assign the villain'srole to

Nelly Dean (or even Lockwood).4Nelly herself illustratesthe difficulty:
both Catherinesand Heathclifftreat her as a friend and confidante;but
although she is capable of warmth, even devotion (as is apparentin her
love of her two charges, Hareton and Cathy), she seems strangely
unmoved by the sufferingsof the two 'lovers'whom she has known since
childhood. In fact, as James Hafsley and others have pointed out, her
actionssometimesexacerbatethem. As forCatherineand Heathcliffthem-
selves, they have no tendernessor compassion for anybody, not even for
each other.
'I own I did not like her, after her infancy was past.'6Nelly's frank
admission preparesthe reader for her seeming callousnessin the face of
young Mrs Linton'stroubles.CatherineEarnshawneversets any storeby
being liked: during her father'sdecline, for example, she takes positive
delight in harassinghim, and 'she was neverso happy as when we were all
scolding her at once'.7Nor does she take much trouble to win the friend-
ship of the Lintons, and she does not have to: the 'honeysuckle'of the
Grange dwellersis always all too ready to wind itself around her 'thorn'.8
Sure of Heathcliff's, and later Edgar's, unconditional devotion, she is
basicallyuninterestedin what anyone else might feel about her.
While the boy Heathcliff'swrongsat Hindley Earnshaw'shands at least
fostera feelingthat he is the victimof harshnessand injustice,the growthof
true sympathyforhim is checkedby severalcircumstances,such as his lack
of discernibleaffectionfor his benefactor,old Mr Earnshaw;the realiza-
tion that Hindley has cause to be jealous, havinghad his nose cruellyput
out ofjoint by the sudden arrivalof the new favourite;Heathcliff'sblack-
mailing effort over the colts; and his intractable sullenness, even to
Catherine, during his years of degradation.It should be noted, though,
that none of this preventsNelly from pitying the young Heathcliffeven to
tears and from trying, unsuccessfully,to remedy his situation. It is when
the grown man resortsto deception and cruelty against those whom she
loves (and against herself, too) that Nelly gradually withdraws from
4 Several commentators have remarked that moder criticism of
Wuthering Heightshas tended
to become increasingly sympathetic towards Heathcliff; see e.g. J. Twitchell, 'Heathcliff as
Vampire', SouthernHumanitiesReview,11 (1977), 355-62. The best-known attempt to rehabilitate
Heathcliff at Nelly Dean's expense is J. Hafsley's 'The Villain in WutheringHeights',Nineteenth-
CenturyFiction, 13 (Dec. 1958), 199-215.
5 Like
Edgar Linton, and many Bronte critics, I distinguish between mother and daughter by
calling the elder 'Catherine' and the younger 'Cathy'.
6 Nelly to Lockwood, vol. i, ch. vIII,
p. 65 in the World's Classics edition of Wuthering Heights,
ed. I.Jack (Oxford, 1981); all subsequent references to the text of WutheringHeightsare to this
edition.
7 Vol. i, ch. v, p. 41.
8 See vol. I, ch. x,
p. 91. The only person who really likes Catherine is her sister-in-lawIsabella,
whose parents died of Catherine's febrile illness and whose own life is subsequently ruined, partly
at Catherine's malicious instigation.
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS 185

Heathcliff,to the point of refusingto sit with him when he asks for some-
one to keep him company shortlybeforehis death.
Fortunately,interestin a person is not dependent on sympathyfor him
or her, or Lockwoodwould never have asked the housekeeperat Thrush-
cross Grangeto tell him 'the historyof Mr. Heathcliff',and she could not
have renderedsuch a detailednarrative,down to reproductionsof lengthy
conversations.The contrastbetween the humdrumnarratorsin Wuthering
Heightsand the extraordinarymain protagonistsof the story has been
commented on for more than a hundred years.The failuresand foibles of
the formerensure that a reader'ssympathyis not naturallydrivento fuse
with any viewpointof theirs.The result is that the readeris liberatedfrom
any pressureto identify with any person or persons in the novel. Emily
Bronte forces us to take up our own standpoint,or to decide to forgo the
adoption of any point of view at all. There are severalindicationsto the
effectthat this absence of guidancetowardsan attitudeis the outcome of a
deliberate authorial policy. Bronti does not even allow young Cathy-
warmheartedand courageousin herself,but stubborn,spoilt, and incon-
siderate,too-to ingratiateherselfwith the reader,any more than she does
with Lockwoodon his firstarrivalat the Heights.
The natureof the bond between Catherineand Heathcliffhas been the
subjectof much speculation.Severalrecentcommentatorshave picked up
the suggestion,firstput forward-as faras I havebeen able to find out-by
Eric Solomon,9that Heathcliffmay have been an illegitimatechild of old
Mr Earshaw's, and hence Catherine'shalf-brother.This would go some
way towards accounting for the kinship one senses between them. In
addition, it would explain Mr Earshaw's seemingly incomprehensible
partialityfor the gypsy-darkfoundling. The chroniclersof Gondal and
Angria, who were also admirersof Byron, were thoroughlyfamiliarwith
the existence of various kinds of forbidden love, including that of half-
siblings. The sexlessness of the Catherine-Heathcliffrelationship,noted
(as 'purity') by early reviewersand emphasized in Lord David Cecil's
seminal appraisal,10has been regardedin the light of possible blood ties.
But if Catherine and Heathcliff are indeed related by blood, they will
hardlyknow it themselves.Nor will anybody else afterthe death of old Mr
Earshaw, who does nothing to check their intimacy. Consequently,talk
of 'incest' seems a little off-target.
The only time when the closeness between Catherineand Heathcliffis
untroubled by anything except the interferenceof elders is their child-
hood. It is a state of total alliancewhich ends with Catherine'sfirststay at
9 'The Incest Theme in Fiction, 14 (June 1959), 80-3.
WutheringHeights',Nineteenth-Century
10 First Novelistsin 1935 and reprinted, in excerpts, in several volumes
printed in Early Victorian
of WutheringHeightscriticism, including Allott's Casebookand the Norton Critical Edition of the
novel.
186 THORMAHLEN

the Grange, from which she returns transformedinto a young lady.

Exposed to the attractionsof luxury, refinement, and flattery(Frances
Earnshawadoptsthe latterstrategyin her attemptsto civilizeher wayward
sister-in-law),the pathologicallyegotisticalCatherineEarnshawbegins to
exploreotheravenuesof self-gratification than the ones she sharedwith her
childhood companion.
'Pathologicallyegotistical'is a drasticexpression,but Catherine'sself-
obsession is alwaysmore potent than the ordinaryself-centrednessof the
young. Not even Nelly's suggestionthat the little girl means no real harm
when deliberatelyvexing family and servants is unproblematic:'when
once she made you cry in good earnest,it seldom happenedthat she would
not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort
her.'1 In otherwords, she compels her victimsto devotetheir sympathyto
the author of their anger and pain. This hardly constitutes exculpatory
behaviourin any human being, regardlessof age.
It is Catherine's inability to regard her self and her conduct from a
distance, and to admit the possibilityof other views of realitythan hers,
that makes for her undoing and Heathcliff's. Not that she is totally in-
sensitive to her surroundings;Nelly is amused by the 15-year-oldgirl's
attemptsto adapt herselfto the company she happensto be in, acting in a
ladylike manner among the Lintons and giving free rein to her 'unruly
nature'at the Heights. Nelly is shrewdenough, though, to appreciatethat
Catherine evinces this 'double characterwithout exactly intending to
deceive anyone'.12In her self-absorption,it does not occur to the 'heroine'
of Wuthering Heightsthat she cannot have, and be, everythingshe wants
whenevershe wants it.
Her inability to conceive of any other viewpoints except her own is
crucial to her relationshipwith Heathcliff. When, in the most quoted
speech in the book, Catherinetells Nelly that she is Heathcliff,she means
exactlywhat she says. Heathcliffbeing a part of her, she does not see him
as a twin spirit.Nor does she feel eroticallyattractedto him; 'one does not
mate with one's self, with one's kind', as one critic has pointed out.13To
Catherine,Heathcliffis an extensionof her self and an integralcomponent
of her egomania; this is why she cannot understand why marriage to
Edgar Linton would separate her from Heathcliff. When she marries
Edgar, the part of her that is Heathcliffwill as it were marry him too,
gaining access to the wealth and civilizinginfluence at the Grange, like
Catherineherself.To a sane person,this seems a most peculiaridea, even
" Vol. I, ch. v, p. 40. 12 Vol. i, ch. vIII,
p. 66.
13
W. Thompson in 'Infanticide and Sadism in WutheringHeights', PMLA 78 (1963), 69-74.
The same point was made by D. Van Ghent some ten years earlier, in an article in Nineteenth-
CenturyFiction,7 (Dec. 1952); repr. in her TheEnglishNovel:Formand Function(New York, 1953).
These two analyses were reprinted in A. Everitt (ed.), WutheringHeights:An Anthologyof Criticism
(London, 1967); see pp. 148 and 163.
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS 187

from a 15- or 16-year-old living in a remote spot in late eighteenth-century

England.'4 Nelly Dean, applying an ordinary rational creature's values
and attitudes to the scheme proposed by Catherine, recoils from it in
disgust; but she simply does not understand the nature of the young girl's
all-exclusive (Heathcliff-inclusive) self-obsession. (Nor have those Wuther-
ing Heights critics who have succumbed to the charms of the 'wild, wick
slip' of a girll5 to the extent of becoming blind to her 'curious case of self-
love carried to the extreme'.16
It is this self-love that sets the disastrous train of events in motion.
Catherine dies half-way through the book, but not before she has in-
directly killed her benefactors, the Linton parents;'7 destroyed the lives of
the two men who love her; brought ruin and misery on her sister-in-law;
and left her small nephew helpless in his drunken father's hands when
removing his nurse (whom Catherine selfishly wants for her own service).
It is true that the initial cause of the dire events at the two estates is old Mr
Earnshaw's bringing the child Heathcliff to Wuthering Heights; but if
Catherine had been able to register any valid desire or sentiment apart
from her own, the effects would not have been so horrendous. The sole
rational grounds for extending any degree of clemency to this monstrous
young woman are offered by her mental instability, which must diminish
her responsibility for her notions and actions.
The fact that Catherine becomes delirious following her quarrel with
Heathcliff and Edgar in January 178418 and never recovers mentally after-
wards is amply demonstrated by chs. xi-xII in WutheringHeights, with
expressions such as 'fits, rages, ravings, mania[c], insanity, delirium,
derangement, madness'. Catherine is left with a 'shaken reason'"9in a state
of melancholy, and is only roused from it when Heathcliff invades the

14 In his
preface to the Washington Square Press edition of the novel (1960), A. J. Gu6rardcalls
Catherine's expectation to 'have' both Heathcliff and Edgar the 'major oddity' of the book; the
preface is reprinted in T. A. Vogler (ed.), TwentiethCenturyInterpretations of WutheringHeights
(Englewood Cliffs, 1968).
15 Vol.
I, ch. v, p. 40. One example of what looks like over-charitablenesstowards Catherine is
offered by a critic who has observed that 'insanity is not so far away' from her; P. W. Martin says
that Edgar would 'make a poor analyst, for he will not allow Cathy consciously to reconcile herself
to her love for Heathcliff in the context of her idealized love for him' (a tough order for a devoted
husband, one would have thought); see his Mad Womenin RomanticWriting(Brighton, 1987), 111-
12.
16 A
spot-on diagnosis in M. Spark and D. Stanford, EmilyBronte:HerLife and Work(London,
1953; reissued 1985), p. 252 in the 1985 edition.
17 It is a little unkind to
lay this misfortune at Catherine's door; but she does catch her illness
through sheer negligence, and she seems to have been an extremely demanding patient-maybe
one reason why the neighbourly Lintons offer to take her in.
18 C. P. Sanger's classic 'Chronology of Wuthering Heights'in his 'The Structure of Wuthering
Heights'is reprinted, with the ground-breaking essay itself, in the Norton Critical Edition of the
novel (pp. 296-8). A similar chronology is prefixed to U. C. Knoepflmacher, Wuthering Heights:A
Study(Athens, Oh., 1994), by arrangement with Cambridge University Press.
19 Vol. I, ch. XIII, p. 134.
188 THORMAHLEN

Grange again and has another passionatequarrelwith her-the 'lovers"

last farewell. But there are indications that her mental instability goes
furtherback. One is suppliedby Nelly's comment to the effectthat during
the firstrow, '[t]hespiritwhich served[Catherine]was growingintractable:
she could neitherlay nor controlit'.20This observationparallelsa phrasein
Jane Eyre,where Mr Rochesterrefersto his mad wife's 'familiar'(as the
agent which prompts her to bur people in their beds, and so on).21
Another is the repeatedadmonitionsof the rough but apparentlycapable
Dr/Mr Kenneth,who warnsfirstCatherine'sfamilyand then her husband
not to let anythingvex or annoy her afterthe dangerousfevershe catches
duringthe night of Heathcliff'sdeparture.This amountsto sayingthat her
mental constitutionhas been weakened by her illness, and the warningis
not lost on EdgarLinton. He takes greatcare that nothing should provoke
his bride into a tantrum-not, as has sometimesbeen suggested,because
he is afraid of her, but because he fears for her sanity, and with good
reason.
There are grounds for suspecting that Catherine'smental health has
always been more pregnable than, for instance, that of a 'cant lass' like
Nelly. Her father'slast illness is a bad omen: it is accompaniedby the very
symptoms that will in due course afflict Catherine herself. '[H]e grew
grievouslyirritable',and 'suspected slights of his authoritynearly threw
him into fits'.22It is noteworthythat his daughter,who a few years later
regards anyone who contradicts her as a potential murderer,23has no
qualms about tormenting her visibly ailing father: on the contrary,she
takes 'a naughty delight' in provokinghim.24This behaviour is by no
means deliberatelywicked; it is simply an early indicationof her lifelong
inabilityto step outside the boundariesof her self.
The physical sturdiness of the Earnshaws is hence not generally
matched by soundness of mind. Both old Mr Earnshaw'schildren testify
to the fact:Hindley'swilfulself-destructionafterhis wife'sdeath is another
token of mental imbalancein the family.At one point, Isabellathinksthat
he is 'on the verge of madness'25-though it has to be admitted that
Hindley's life-styleover the past five years or so could have reduced the
most strong-mindedman to that state,and Isabellais of courseno medical
authority. But the contrast-noted by several commentators-between
Edgar Linton's spiritual resilience following the loss of his wife and
Hindley's moral collapsemakesit clearthat, while the Lintonsare inferior

20 Vol. i, ch. xi, p. 113.

21 Vol.
in, ch. I, p. 305 in the World's Classics edition of Jane Eyreby Margaret Smith (Oxford,
1980).
22 Vol. ch. 23 Vol. ch. 24 Vol. i, ch. v, p. 41.
I, v, p. 39. I, ix, p. 88.
25 Vol. I, ch.
xiII, p. 141. Hindley is not only addicted to alcohol; he has a 'mania for gaming',
too (vol. n, ch. In, p. 187).
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS 189

to the Earshaws where physicalhealth is concerned,the rolesare reversed

in the matterof mental and spiritualstrength.26
So far,my contentionthat CatherineEarnshawLinton has a predisposi-
tion to insanitywhich duly develops into full-scalelunacy has only relied
on the evidenceof the text itself.The questionof what the authormay have
known about mental illness must be answered,too. Afterall, some of the
indications of mental ill health that I have quoted could be held to be
coincidental circumstances,and in a book whose language is so highly
charged,words such as 'madness'need not be taken literally.
Firstof all, the earlynineteenthcenturywas a time when insanitywas a
majorissue. Great strideswere being made in the care of sufferersfollow-
ing manifestations of parliamentaryand public concern. The mental
illness of King George III had contributedto makinginsanityand its treat-
ment a matterof nationalinterest.Bookswith such titles as CausesandCure
of Insanity, A GeneralViewof the PresentState of Lunaticsand LunaticAsylums,
A Treatiseon Insanity, and Outlinesof Lectureson Insanity kept pouring from
the presses.27John Conolly,who became ResidentPhysicianat Hanwellin
1839, lectured at Mechanics'Institutesin the 1830sand became a national
celebrity in the 1840s. Madhouses had been places of unmitigatedhorror
and filth; by contrast, Conolly and many of his colleagues advocated
'constant superintendence, constant kindness, and firmness when
required',28transformingtheir institutionswith the aid of forward-looking
laymen.
The treatmentof the insane was a contentiousarea, however,a circum-
stance which ensured that it remained in the public eye for decades. The
medical profession insisted that mental illness was due to somatic dis-
ordersand should be remediedby medical means (includingpharmaceut-
ical preparationsas well as the perennial purging). By contrast, laymen
such as the Quaker Samuel Tuke at the York Retreat claimed that what
they called 'moral treatment' was far more effective as well as more
humane.
There can be no doubt that the contemporarydebate on the treatment
and cure of the insane was well known to the Bronte family. Charlotte's
delineationof the BerthaMason case exhibiteda number of characteristic
features in early nineteenth-century views on women and madness,

26 Isabella is
arguably a poor Linton specimen; but it might at least be said in her defence that
she, unlike her Earnshaw counterpart, Catherine, manages to break free from an intolerable situ-
ation and shows some initiative.
27 See e.g. A. Scull, TheMost Solitaryof Afflictions:
MadnessandSocietyin Britain 1700-1900 (New
Haven and London, 1993); W. F. Bynum, R. Porter, and M. Shepherd (edd.), The Anatomyof
Madness(London, 1985), vol. i; and R. Hunter and I. Macalpine (edd.), ThreeHundredrears of
Psychiatry(London, 1963).
28 See A. Scull, 'A Victorian Alienist:
John Conolly, FRCP, DCL (1794-1866)', in Bynum et al.,
TheAnatomyof Madness,121.
190 THORMAHLEN

including the component of lewdness.29 Elaine Showalter does not hesitate

to refer to the explanations of Bertha's insanity offered in Jane Eyre as
being 'taken from the discourse of Victorian psychiatry'.30Similarly, I am
sure that the mental illness of Catherine Earnshaw Linton owes a good
deal to her creator's knowledge of the subject.
It was, for example, accepted wisdom among medical writers on mad-
ness that violent passions-especially, among women, 'amativeness'-
could cause insanity.31 Doctors also agreed that insanity was a hereditary
disease.32 A tendency to mental illness in a woman was apt to be activated
by pregnancy and childbirth.33 Fevers, especially in the young, were par-
ticularly dangerous in that they could cause a permanent weakness in the
brain 'which continues when the other parts of the body have recovered
their healthy tone'.34'Sleep is often disturbed in Insanity', and 'there is the
greatest analogy between dreams and various symptoms' of madness.35All
these circumstances are relevant to Catherine's case, as is Spurzheim's
connection between extreme selfishness and insanity.36
Disturbances in the self's relation to others are central to insanity and
were always regarded as such. Catherine's inability to recognize the
reality, even existence, of human needs and wishes outside her own is itself
a sign of mental disturbance, and her self-identification with Heathcliff is
another. In more modern parlance, both Catherine and Heathcliff might
be called schizoid.37 Catherine does not survive the realization that she
29 See the
chapter on Jane Eyre in S. Gilbert and S. Gubar, The Madwomanin the Attic: The
Woman Writerand the Nineteenth-Century Imagination(New Haven, 1979), and J. M. Ussher,
Women'sMadness:MisogynyorMentalIllness?(London and New York, 1991), 86.
30 E. Showalter, The FemaleMalady: Women,Madness,and EnglishCulture,1830-1980 (London,
1987), 67. For a fascinating analysis of mental affliction in Villette,discussed against the back-
ground of early 19th-century psychology, see S. Shuttleworth, "'The Surveillance of a Sleepless
Eye": The Constitution of Neurosis in "Villette"', in G. Levine (ed.), OneCulture:Essaysin Science
and Literature(Madison, Wisc. 1987), 313-35 (repr. in P. Nestor (ed.), CharlotteBronteVillette:A
New Casebook(Basingstoke, 1992), 141-62).
31 See e.g. the phrenologist DrJ. G. Spurzheim's Observations on theDerangedManifestations of the
Mind, orInsanity(London, 1817), 152. Phrenology was very influential among 'mad-doctors' in the
early 19th century, and the Brontes were thoroughly familiar with this branch of contemporary
'science'.
32
See e.g. Sir W. C. Ellis, A Treatiseon theNature,Symptoms,Causes,and Treatmentof Insanity
(London, 1838), 42. In the Haworth bible on illness, John Graham's ModemDomesticMedicine,
Patrick Bronte underlined the words 'hereditary disposition' in the description of the causes of
insanity.
33 Ellis, Treatise,89; Spurzheim, Observations, 171.
34
Ellis, Treatise,94. 35 112-13.
Spurzheim, Observations,
36 Ibid. 167.
Spurzheim will literally have alienated some of his readersby arguing that the high
incidence of insanity in England was connected with the rampant selfishness (manifest, among
other things, in the English preoccupation with commerce) of her people (p. 167). Catherine's
madness may be regarded as a factor in hastening her death; Spurzheim points to the connection
between madness and mortality (p. 207).
37 The term has been
applied to Catherine by B. L. Knapp in TheBrontes:Branwell,Anne,Emily,
Charlotte(New York, 1992), 122. (A detail in Knapp's chronology might be corrected here;
Catherine dies at the age of 19, not 22.)
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS 191

cannot haveboth Heathcliffand Edgar,and that she has, in effect,brought

the 'fate of Milo'38on herself.
Most analyses of Wuthering Heightsassign the part of prime mover to
Heathcliff, and his actions certainlydominatemost of the book. In a sense,
though, they are undertaken as parts of projects formed in response to
actions by others on himself.The boy Heathclifflives reasonablycomfort-
ably under old Mr Earshaw's rule and miserablyunder Hindley's; but
closeness to Catherine is enough to keep him, however morose, at the
Heights: when he leaves, it is because Catherine,unwittingly,driveshim
away. His returnthree years later is dictated by two interrelatedmotives:
his desire to see Catherine, however briefly; and his yearning to be
avengedon Hindley.
In orderto be able to achievehis dual purpose,Heathcliffmust rid him-
self of the handicaps which he has heard Catherine describe as the
impedimentsto a union with her: his poverty,his ignorance,and his low
social status. His thirst for revengeis partlymotivatedby the fact that all
these handicaps are of Hindley's making, a fact which Catherineherself
acknowledgesin the last sentenceshe hearsher utter('ifthe wickedman in
there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of
[marryingEdgarLinton]').39
When Heathcliff comes back, he has the manners and bearing of a
gentleman, and he is rich. The transformationfrom slouching, dirty
ploughboy to educated man of substanceis a cause forwonder among all
who knew him before and for rapture on Catherine's part. Various
possible causes of it are mentioned by charactersin the book, none very
seriously-a sizar'splace at university(PatrickBronti's passportto English
respectability),40highway robbery-but it is hard to imagine that such an
all-comprehensivechange could have taken place in a mere three years
without supernaturalintervention.
The novel does indicate a source of such assistance.Throughoutit, but
especially after Heathcliff's return as a wealthy and powerfulman, he is
attendedby such wordsas 'hell, devil,demon, goblin, Satan,imp, infernal,
diabolical,fiend'.41A pact with the devil along Faustianlines would have
held no terror for the young man who regards his 'soul', the girl who
38 Vol. ch.
I, ix, p. 81. 'When Milo attempted to pull a tree up by the roots and rend it the tree
closed on his hands and held him fast. He was devoured by wild beasts' (Jack's note in the
World's Classics edition of WutheringHeights, p. 347). In her talk with Nelly just before Heath-
cliff's departure, Catherine avers that this fate will befall anyone who tries to separate her and
Heathcliff.
39 Vol. i, ch. ix, p. 80.
40 Three years at university certainly work considerable change in Hindley Earnshaw; but the
total transformationof Heathcliff is different in kind and extent from the civilizing (temporary, as
it turns out) of Hindley.
41 This usage has not, of course, gone unnoticed among Bronte critics; see e.g. W. A. Craik, The
BronteNovels(London, 1968), 33.
192 THORMAHLEN

rejectedhim for someone else, as lost already,and whose sole purposein

life is to be avenged on the person that brought about her rejection,
therebyadding the final and most shatteringblow to years of persecution
which (accordingto Nelly) were 'enough to make a fiend of a saint'.42
But there was never anything saintly about the child who was 'as dark
almost as if it came fromthe devil',43or about the boy who repudiatedthe
idea of leavingthe punishmentof the wickedto God-'God won't havethe
satisfactionthat I shall'.44Under the Hindley terror,'it appeared[to Nelly]
as if the lad werepossessed of something diabolical'.The child Heathcliff
brings disorderinto a previouslywell-organizedfamily,disruptingfamily
ties and forminga focusof extremeemotion. His duskyskin and blackeyes
and hair strike everyone who sees him as his most distinctiveoutward
features. In both respects, he is a plausible emissary from the prince of
darknessand of chaos. Like other agents of evil, he has to rely on well-
intentioned people for admission to Christianhomes: old Mr Earnshaw
carriesthe small boy inside WutheringHeights wrappedin his greatcoat;
and the man Heathcliff,uncharacteristically,'darednot enter'the Grange
on his returnto the neighbourhood.45
Pactswith the devilare usually formedfor one of severalpurposes,all of
which are relevant to Heathcliff's situation and requirements:riches;
knowledge/learning;worldlypower-and revenge,with or without a love
interestattached.Around 1800,all these factorsfeaturedin Britishas well
as in continentalfictionaltales. In M. G. Lewis's TheMonk(1796), C. R.
Maturin's The Fatal Revenge,or Melmoththe Wanderer(1820), and E. T. A.
Hoffmann'sDie Elixieredes Teufels(1816, English translationin 1824),to
mention just a few specimens in an abundant flora, men sell themselves
and their souls forlove, wealth, and power.46The Brontis will have known
of, if not read, these works. Their favouriteauthors were interested in
demoniac possession, too: Sir Walter Scott wrote a lengthy (400 pages)
42
Vol. I, ch. VIII, p. 65. The idea of a Faustian pact has been mentioned in passing by a few
previous Bronte scholars; see e.g. P. Drew's excellent article, 'Charlotte Bronte as a Critic of
WutheringHeights',in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 18 (Mar. 1964), 365-81 (repr. in e.g. Allott (ed.),
Casebook, where the relevantpassages occur on pp. 255 and 258). However, I have not seen a com-
prehensive enquiry into the reasons for this notion elsewhere.
43 Old Mr Eamshaw's
description; vol. i, ch. iv, p. 34.
44 Vol. i, ch. vni, p. 60.
45 Vol. I, ch. x, p. 92; see also p. 95, where Heathcliff-even after being rapturously greeted by
Catherine-waits under the porch until expressly guided into the house by Nelly on Edgar's
orders. Cf. Coleridge's 'Christabel', where the evil creature Geraldine has to be helped across the
threshold by the innocent girl whom she then sets out to destroy.
46 See H. R.
Brittnacher, 'Der Leibhaftige: Motive und Bilder des Satanismus', in A. Schuller
and W. von Rahden (edd.), Die andereKraft:Zur Renaissancedes Bosen (Berlin, 1993), 187. For
general background, see also J. B. Russell, Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modem World(Ithaca
and London, 1986), 168-213 on 'The Romantic Devil'. The issue of Emily Bronte's debts, if
any, to Hoffmann has been raised now and then over the past century; it merits a separate
discussion.
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS 193

and in
discourse on the subject called Letterson Demonologyand Witchcraft;47
addition to his explorations of men, deities, and evil in Manfredand Cain,
Lord Byron composed his own drama of a pact with Satan, the unfinished
The DeformedTransformed.48 Both Scott and Byron mention 'Monk' Lewis
in connection with their sources, and both refer to the most famous of con-
temporary Teufelspakte,Goethe's Faust.49In a typical exchange between
the about-to-be-transformed young man and the devil ('the Stranger') in
Byron's drama, the former says, ingenuously, 'Your aspect is I Dusky, but
not uncomely', to which compliment the Stranger replies (p. 28),

If I chose,
I might be whiter;but I have a penchant
For black-it is so honest, and besides
Can neitherblush with shame nor pale with fear.

Obviously, early nineteenth-century Britain did not lack writers who

would agree with Achim von Amim that '[e]s sind noch nicht genug
Fauste geschrieben' and with Heinrich Heine that 'jeder Mensch sollte
seinen Faust schreiben'.50
Literary works were not the only source of Teufelspaktlore to which the
Brontes and their contemporaries had access. There was a store of
domestic legendry on the subject, some of which found its way into print.
As late as 1769, a pamphlet was printed bearing the following title: A
Timely Warning To all Rash and Disobedient Children,being A strange and
wonderfulrelation of Thomas Williams, a young Gentlemanin the Parish of
Bridgewater,that soldhimselfto theDevilfor twelverears,5 in orderto berevenged
on his Fatherand Mother;and how his time beingexpired,the Devil in a dreadful
Stormof Thunderand Light'ning, Rain and Hail, fetch'd him away ... Accord-
ing to the title-page admonition, this work was '[v]ery useful and necessary
for Christian Families', and 'no one ought to be without' it. In true Teufels-
pakt fashion, the bargain between the devil and the young man is sealed
with blood from the latter's arm.
47 (London, 1830). Scott is interested, but not credulous; he distinguishes between witches, in
whom he does not believe, and demons, whom the Christian cannot but believe in (p. 63).
48
(London, 1824), one of several editions. With respect to Cain, it might be noted that Byron
calls Abel's wife Zillah, the name of the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights under Heathcliff's
regime. (In Genesis 4, Zillah is one of Lamech's two wives.)
49 See p. 217 in Scott's book and the preface in Byron's. Part I of Faust was first published in
1808 and Part II in 1832. For useful information about the vicissitudes of Faust in Britain, seeJ. W.
Smeed, Faust in Literature(London, 1975), 224-8, and E. M. Butler, The Fortunesof Faust (Cam-
bridge, 1952),passim.
50 See D. Borchmeyer, 'Gerettet und wieder gerichtet: Fausts Wege im 19. Jahrhundert', in
P. Boerner and S. Johnson (edd.), Faust throughFour Centuries: Retrospect andAnalysis/ Vierhundert
Jahre Faust:RuckblickundAnalyse(Tibingen, 1989), 169.
51 This was one customary period for the devil's service; another was the double time-span,
twenty-four years. See e.g. The EnglishFaust Book:A CriticalEditionBasedon the Text of 1592, ed.
J. H. Jones (Cambridge, 1994), 98 and 176-7.
194 THORMAHLEN

In WutheringHeights images such as stormy, rainy weather and blood

from wrists evoke a wide range of connotations, of course; but I think their
use in such stories contributes one dimension. Thunderstorms and rain
typically accompany the appearances and disappearances of the devil in
Faustian tales; and in the night following Heathcliff's departure from
Wuthering Heights, a particularly violent storm
came rattlingover the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as
thunder,and either one or the other split a tree off at the cornerof the building;a
huge bough fell acrossthe roof, and knockeddown a portionof the east chimney-
stack, sending a clatterof stones and soot into the kitchenfire.
We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us, and Joseph swung onto his
knees, beseechingthe Lord to rememberthe PatriarchsNoah and Lot; and, as in
former times, spare the righteous, though he smote the ungodly. I felt some
sentiment that it must be a judgment on us also.52

Interestingly enough, Joseph refers to this dramatic thunderstorm as a

'visitation' and states his conviction that it 'worn't for nowt'. Other main
events in the novel are accompanied by extreme weather, too. Lockwood is
forced to remain at the Heights, and suffer his ghastly nightmare, by a
blizzard. There is a downpour on the night of Heathcliff's death, and
when Nelly finds his corpse, it is drenched with rain water. One of its
hands is grazed by the same lattice which drew blood from the waif
Catherine's arm in Lockwood's dream.
Why, one might ask, did Emily Bronti not spell out the origin of Heath-
cliff's wealth and new-found gentleman status, if she envisaged a Faustian
pact as their cause? There are several answers to this question. First of all, a
bare statement to that effect could never have been built into the novel:
how was any one of its narrators to know? Second, Emily Bronte's story
treads a fine line between realistic narrative and fantasy, allowing for a
wide variety of reactions from her readers, and I think she took care not to
compromise that freedom of response. Third, she may have registered the
impatience felt by many readers of the Gothic novel with the overly neat
explanations which writers like Ann Radcliffe provided by way of conclu-
sions to their stories.53 Leaving the matter as an open mystery while
supplying plenty of subtle indications for readers to deal with or overlook
as they see fit was a far more suggestive approach. And she did take care to
supply those indications: in addition to the many references to infernal
personages, places, and practices-most, but by no means all, connected
with Heathcliff-throughout the book, there are several allusions to
Heathcliff's likely destination. For example, in Hindley's impotent rage,
52 Vol.
i, ch. ix, pp. 84-5.
53
For instance, quite a few readers felt (and feel) let down on learning that the horrificvision in
Radcliffe's The Mysteriesof Udolphowas merely a waxen image of putrefaction. It is sometimes
easier to be persuaded to suspend disbelief than to be bludgeoned into accepting literality.
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS 195

the true masterof WutheringHeights talks of killing Heathcliff,'and hell

shall have his soul'; Isabellarefersto the same place as 'his right abode'.54
In addition, Catherinestatesthat giving Isabellato Heathcliffin marriage
'is as bad as offering Satan a lost soul'55(thereby condemning her own
atrocious behaviour in furtheringthe alliance). Heathcliff's treacheryto
young Cathy,when he lures her awayfromher sick father,is investedwith
particularironic grimness by his swearing 'on [his] salvation' that her
cousin will die unless she comes to save him.56A less substantialthing to
swearby can hardlybe imagined in his case.
There is another reason to be glad that Emily Bronti refrainedfrom
providingan explanationwhich would haveimposed a rigideschatological
patternon her story.A pact with the devil is, by definition,followedby the
perditionof his bondsmanafterthe death of the body (Goethe'sFaustwas,
afterall, an exception to the rule exemplifiedby Marlowe'sFaustus).The
appearanceof Heathcliff's corpse and the manner of his going certainly
give Joseph good reason for believing that '[t]h' divil's harried off his
soul'."7But such a tidy courseof eventscompromisesthe complexityof the
heaven-and-hellmetaphorswhich form such a fascinatingcomponent in
the relationshipbetween Catherine and Heathcliff.Both explicitly reject
heaven.58To Catherine, heaven is being on the moors by Wuthering
Heights; and to Heathcliff, it is being with Catherine. To be separated
from the girl he calls his life and his soul is, literally,to be in hell.59No
wonder he invitesher to haunt him.
Wuthering Heightsoffersthree possible views of Catherine and Heath-
cliff's fate after death: (a) Catherine(who shows some contritionon her
death-bed, if only towardsHeathcliff)goes to heaven and Heathcliff(who
dies unrepentant)to hell. (b) Both sleep quietly together in the earth by
Gimmerton Kirk, pending the Last Trump. (c) Catherineand Heathcliff
find the joint heaven they both dreamt of-at least partly, one must
assume, by courtesyof the powersof darkness,as they are seen to 'walk'on
stormynights.60Option (a) is favouredby Nelly's certainty,as she looks on
the face of the dead Catherine('thatuntroubledimage of Divine rest'),that
'[w]hether still on earth or now in Heaven, her spirit is at home with
God!'61The marked contrastwith Heathcliff's body, 'giring at death',
54 Vol. I, ch. xmII,p. 141 and vol. II, ch. II, p. 176.
55 Vol. ch. 56 Vol. 57 Vol.
I, xi, p. 112. n, ch. vmII,p. 233. n, ch. xx, p. 335.
58 See vol. ch.
i, ix, p. 80 and vol. ii, ch. xx, p. 334.
'9 See vol. i, ch. x, p. 93 ('I'm in hell till you do!') and vol. i, ch. xiv, p. 149 ('existence, after
losing her, would be hell'). Charlotte Bronte, a shrewd Wuthering Heightscritic (as Philip Drew has
demonstrated), said that Heathcliff is '[doomed] ... to carry Hell with him wherever he wanders'
(p. 11 in the Norton Critical Edition's reproduction of her preface to the 1850 edition of Wuthering
Heights).
60 The shepherd boy 'saw' them on a 'dark evening threatening thunder', and 'that old man by
the fire has seen two on 'em ... on every rainy night since [Heathcliff's] death'; see vol. In, ch. xx,
p. 336. 61 Vol. n, ch. in, pp. 164-5.
196 THORMAHLEN

supportsit, too. The case for(b) is put, unforgettably,by the last paragraph
of the novel;here Lockwoodis the spokesman.As for(c), our acceptanceof
it is partly dependent on the reliability we assign to local rustics. None of
these people is what one would call an authoritativewitness. On 'cold
reflection',Nelly even comes to doubt her own assuranceto the extent of
asking Lockwood to dispel her doubts of a happy afterlifefor such as
CatherineEamshaw Linton.
Her question is, as the cautious Lockwood recognizes, 'something
heterodox',and he prudentlydeclines to answerit. Emily Bronti has left
her readersto answerit for themselves-another example, it seems to me,
of her consistentrefusalto provideus with a pointd'appuiat which we can
seek shelterfromthe stormsof Wuthering Heights.
There will alwaysbe those who resistthe notion that Wuthering Heightsis
a carefully wrought literary work written by an artist who brought
deliberation and detachment to her writing as well as imagination and
'native genius'. One element, with a bearing on the lunacy-cum-devilry
dimension, which implies elaborationis the way in which Bronti makes
Catherineand Heathcliffimpute their own abnormitiesto others.Cather-
ine has the bad taste-to put it mildly-to taunt the lovesickIsabellawith
being mad ('You are surelylosing your reason','Is she sane?','Nelly, help
me to convince her of her madness'62).During their last meeting, Heath-
cliffwildlyasksCatherine,'Areyou possessedwith a devil... to talkin that
manner to me, when you are dying?'63The tactlessnessof this exclamation
(like the less than chivalrous'Don't tortureme till I'm as mad as yourself')
can be ascribed to Heathcliff's heart overflowingat his mouth; but it is
hardto regardhis subsequentexhortationto EdgarLinton,who entersthe
room to find his adoredwife senseless in the arms of the man he hates, as
anything but grotesque: 'unless you be a fiend, help her first'.64It is
difficultto believe that such pointed absurditiesare not the result of an
authorialstrategy.
Recent criticismof Wuthering Heightshas reflectedgrowinguneasiness
over the reluctanceof many mid-twentieth-centuryscholarsto recognize
the fundamentalwickednessof Heathcliff.65 As the precedingreviewof his
diabolicaldimensionshas implied, that reactionseems a reasonableone to
me. I have avoidedreferringto the bond betweenCatherineand Heathcliff
62 Vol. I, ch. x, pp. 101-2. Shortly before, even more preposterously, Catherine has accused
Edgar and Isabella of being 'spoiled children' who 'fancy the world was made for their accom-
modation'-an unwittingly self-diagnosing piece of pure burlesque which Nelly loses no time in
turning the right way round (pp. 98-9).
63 Vol.
II, ch. I, p. 159.
64 Ibid. 163.
65 See
e.g. T. Reed, Demon-Loversand TheirVictimsin BritishFiction(Lexington, Ky., 1988), 70-
1, and R. D. Stock, The Flutesof Dionysus:DaemonicEnthrallmentin Literature(Lincoln, Nebr. and
London, 1989), 270-3. After a damning recapitulation of Heathcliff's crimes, Stock exclaims,
'"Primordialenergy" can do better than this!'
 WUTHERING HEIGHTS 197

as 'love', and put quotation marks around the word 'lovers' as applied to
them, because the nature of their passions fits no description of the
concepts known to me.
But this does not amount to maintaining that the mutual obsession of a
mentally unstable girl and a man with dubious priorities lacks power and
pathos. On the contrary: few scenes in classic English fiction are as harrow-
ing as the one where the delirious Catherine identifies the bird species that
contributed to the feathers in her pillow and is horror-struck by her own
image in the looking-glass.66 Here Nelly Dean's harshness ('Give over with
that baby-work!') really grates on the reader. Similarly, the anguish of
Heathcliff's outburst at the window by the box-bed at Wuthering Heights,
after Lockwood has told him of his nightmare-'Cathy, do come. Oh do-
once more! Oh! my heart's darling, hear me this time-Catherine, at
last!'67-communicates itself to any reader, as it does to Lockwood.
Towards the end of the book, a climactic moment puts an end to Heath-
cliff's Revenger's Tragedy, thereby freeing his consciousness for its grad-
ual invasion by a sense of Catherine's nearness: entering the Heights,
Heathcliff finds Cathy and Hareton together, studying. They lift their eyes,
simultaneously, and meet his-two pairs of eyes, and both hers. Here it
does not seem overly sentimental to speak of love extinguishing the
impulse to revenge. Undramatic as it is, this moving little scene is a major
turning-point in the novel.
The monstrosities of the two main protagonists of WutheringHeights
hence do not invalidate the force and genuineness of their emotions. Con-
sequently, even readers who, like Nelly, have no patience with Catherine
and little empathy with Heathcliff cannot but have time for them both.

66 Vol. 67 Vol.
I, ch. XII, pp. 122-4. I, ch. III, p. 27.