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Analysis of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on March 25, 2019 • ( 3 )

Wuthering Heights is constructed around a series of dialectic motifs that interconnect and unify the elements of setting, character, and plot. An examination of these motifs will give the reader the clearest insight into the central meaning of the novel. Although Wuthering Heights is a “classic,” as Frank Kermode has noted, precisely because it is open to many different critical methods and conducive to many levels of interpretation, the novel grows from a coherent imaginative vision that underlies all the motifs. That vision demonstrates that all human perception is limited and failed. The fullest approach to Emily Brontë’s novel is through the basic patterns that support this vision.

Wuthering Heights concerns the interactions of two families, the Earnshaws and Lintons, over three generations. The novel is set in the desolate moors of Yorkshire and covers the years from 1771 to 1803. The Earnshaws and Lintons are in harmony with their environment, but their lives are disrupted by an outsider and catalyst of change, the orphan Heathcliff. Heathcliff is, first of all, an emblem of the social problems of a nation entering the age of industrial expansion and urban growth. Although Brontë sets the action of the novel entirely within the locale familiar to her, she reminds the reader continually of the contrast between that world and the larger world outside.

Aside from Heathcliff’s background as a child of the streets and the description of urban Liverpool, from which he is brought, the novel contains other reminders that Yorkshire, long insulated from change and susceptible only to the forces of nature, is no longer as remote as it once was. The servant Joseph’s religious cant, the class distinctions obvious in the treatment of Nelly Dean as well as of Heathcliff, and Lockwood’s pseudosophisticated urban values are all reminders that Wuthering Heights cannot remain as it has been, that religious, social, and economic change is rampant. Brontë clearly signifies in the courtship and marriage of young Cathy and Hareton that progress and enlightenment will come and the wilderness will be tamed. Heathcliff is both an embodiment of the force of this change and its victim. He brings about a change but cannot change himself. What he leaves behind, as Lockwood attests and the relationship of Cathy and Hareton verifies, is a new society, at peace with itself and its environment.

It is not necessary, however, to examine in depth the Victorian context of Wuthering Height s to sense the dialectic contrast of environments. Within the limited setting that the novel itself describes, society is divided between two opposing worlds: Wuthering Heights, ancestral home of the Earnshaws, and Thrushcross Grange, the Linton estate. Wuthering Heights is rustic and wild; it is open to the elements of nature and takes its name from “atmospheric tumult.” The house is strong, built with narrow windows and jutting cornerstones, fortified to withstand the battering of external forces. It is identified with the outdoors and nature and with strong, “masculine” values. Its appearance, both inside and out, is wild, untamed, disordered, and hard. The Grange expresses a more civilized, controlled atmosphere. The house is neat and orderly, and there is always an abundance of light—to Brontë’s mind, “feminine” values. It is not surprising that Lockwood is more comfortable at the Grange, since he takes pleasure in “feminine” behavior (gossip, vanity of appearance, adherence to social decorum, romantic self-delusion), while Heathcliff, entirely “masculine,” is always out of place there.

Even Cathy’s passionate cry for Heathcliff, “Nelly, I am Heathcliff,” is less love for him as an individual than the deepest form of self-love. Cathy cannot exist without him, but a meaningful relationship is not possible because Cathy sees Heathcliff only as a reflection of herself. Heathcliff, too, has denied an important aspect of his personality. Archetypally masculine, Heathcliff acts out only the aggressive, violent parts of himself.

The settings and the characters are patterned against each other, and explosions are the only possible results. Only Hareton and young Cathy, each of whom embodies the psychological characteristics of both Heights and Grange, can successfully sustain a mutual relationship.

This dialectic structure extends into the roles of the narrators as well. The story is reflected through the words of Nelly Dean—an inmate of both houses, a participant in the events of the narrative, and a confidant of the major characters—and Lockwood, an outsider who witnesses only the results of the characters’ interactions. Nelly is a companion and servant in the Earnshaw and Linton households, and she shares many of the values and perceptions of the families. Lockwood, an urban sophisticate on retreat, misunderstands his own character as well as the characters of others. His brief romantic “adventure” in Bath and his awkwardness when he arrives at the Heights (he thinks Cathy will fall in love with him; he mistakes the dead rabbits for puppies) exemplify his obtuseness. His perceptions are always to be questioned. Occasionally, however, even a denizen of the conventional world may gain a glimpse of the forces at work beneath the surface of reality. Lockwood’s dream of the dead Cathy, which sets off his curiosity and Heathcliff’s final plans, is a reminder that even the placid, normal world may be disrupted by the psychic violence of a willful personality.

The presentation of two family units and parallel brother-sister, husband-wife relationships in each also emphasizes the dialectic. That two such opposing modes of behavior could arise in the same environment prevents the reader from easy condemnation of either pair. The use of flashback for the major part of the narration—it begins in medias res—reminds the reader that he or she is seeing events out of their natural order, recounted by two individuals whose reliability must be questioned. The working out of the plot over three generations further suggests that no one group, much less one individual, can perceive the complexity of the human personality.

Taken together, the setting, plot, characters, and structure combine into a whole when they are seen as parts of the dialectic nature of existence. In a world where opposing forces are continually arrayed against each other in the environment, in society, in families, and in relationships, as well as within the individual, there can be no easy route to perception of another human soul. Wuthering Heights convincingly demonstrates the complexity of this dialectic and portrays the limitations of human perception.

Bibliography Barnard, Robert. Emily Brontë. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Benvenuto, Richard. Emily Brontë. Boston: Twayne, 1982. Berg, Maggie. “Wuthering Heights”: The Writing in the Margin. New York: Twayne, 1996. Davies, Stevie. Emily Brontë: Heretic. London: Women’s Press, 1994. Frank, Katherine. A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. Glen, Heather, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Brontës. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Liddell, Robert. Twin Spirits: The Novels of Emily and Anne Brontë. London: Peter Owen, 1990. Miller, Lucasta. The Brontë Myth. London: Jonathan Cape, 2001. Pykett, Lyn. Emily Brontë. Savage, Md.: Barnes & Noble, 1989. Rollyson, Carl, and Lisa Paddock. The Brontës A to Z: The Essential Reference to Their Lives and Work. New York: Facts On File, 2003. Vine, Steve. Emily Brontë. New York: Twayne, 1998. Winnifrith, Tom, ed. Critical Essays on Emily Brontë. NewYork: G. K. Hall, 1997.

Major works Poetry: Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, 1846 (with Charlotte Brontë and Anne Brontë); The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë, 1941 (C. W. Hatfield, editor); Gondal’s Queen: A Novel in Verse by Emily Jane Brontë, 1955 (Fannie E. Ratchford, editor). Nonfiction : Five Essays Written in French, 1948 (Lorine White Nagel, translator); The Brontë Letters, 1954 (Muriel Spark, editor).

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I found it very informative. Representation of the two worlds is amazing. Thanks a lot.

VERY NICE;I LIKED THE WAY OF ANALYSIS OF WHOLE NOVEL AND DESCRIBE EVERY THING,

• Wuthering Heights: A Journey from the Novel to the Movie - Different Truths

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Student Essay: Fate and Choice in Wuthering Heights

By Anastasia Leffas

Though often hailed as a story of love spoilt by circumstance, brontë's novel is in truth a story of self-inflicted tragedy..

Heathcliff and Catherine, two figures in Emily Brontë’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights,  share a bewitching and devastating relationship. Both characters, as well as their relationship, serve as a tribute to the notion that circumstances, while powerful, do not–and cannot–take away the power of one’s will. Wuthering Heights poses, by these two wildly different characters, the question, “Can one be a product of one’s environment?” Emily Brontë strives to answer this age-old problem of human nature through Catherine and Heathcliff’s tumultuous relationship, a relationship that spans through generations, and is explored in the moors and estates found in Yorkshire. Through their mutual desire and destruction, Brontë proves that humanity can choose courageous love, or its opposite, beyond what one’s circumstances provide.

Brontë first introduces the reader to Heathcliff as the villainous (yet, some claim, misunderstood) anti-hero of Wuthering Heights . Heathcliff, taken in by the Earnshaw family as  an orphaned child, is often scorned and abused for his wayward nature and lack of known heritage. Of the few who show him kindness in his new home, Catherine stands out as an ideal playmate and eventual lover. In return for Catherine’s acceptance, Heathcliff endeavors to better himself for her sake, dressing with dignity and presenting himself with manners. This action of Heathcliff, while he was still a young teen, shows a glimpse at what his future could have been if he would have chosen beyond himself for the sake of his love. Yet this is not to be the courageous path that he chooses: in a fit of anger following a tragic misunderstanding, Heathcliff abandons his newfound purpose, and resigns himself to a deviously twisted temper and a lifetime of revenge and aggressive resentment.

While some may argue that Heathcliff comes to approach life in such a manner because of the abuse he experiences, and the rejection with which he is met, Brontë clearly denies this claim—as the masterful storyteller that she is, she provides the reader with the glimmer of hope that is Heathcliff’s brief yet powerful transformation. However, this ideal world is not to be in the tempestuous and brooding setting of Wuthering Heights ; Heathcliff is quickly shown to descend into a hellish state of hideous evil that he will remain in for the rest of the book. He is not merely a victim, but rather chooses to abandon that which provided him hope. This is the start of the demise of his love story with Catherine. It is doomed from this moment onward, and it is doomed through his freely-made choice.

Turning now towards Catherine, Brontë provides an alternate example of this treacherous choice that her characters are afforded. Catherine is initially depicted as a sort of carefree nymph, a symbol of civilized love that provides an opposite to the abuse and resentment that is occurring around her. Yet is this idealized image of Catherine a true one? Once again, Brontë dives into ugly realities by proving that she is not. Catherine is conceited and selfish more often than not; although she truly cares for Heathcliff, first as a companion and then as something more, she too lacks the courage to go beyond herself. Her own ego, fed by her status as a somewhat upper-class, pampered girl, begins to be what she loves more. She teases Heathcliff to her nurse, busying herself with her newfound “rich” friends. In fact, it is this unfortunate habit of discussing what she wants, and the shortcomings of others like Heathcliff, that leads to a misunderstanding catastrophic enough to end their love. Catherine, shaped by her status and ego, eventually chooses to love another man and let Heathcliff go. 

Brontë here provides an example that is opposite, and yet in a way identical, to Heathcliff’s situation. In contrast to Heathcliff’s scornful environment, Catherine lives in one of acceptance and freedom. She is not met with a hateful home, and yet what is her choice? The same as Heathcliff’s. It is one of selfish pettiness and hatred, not one of courageous love. She cannot, or perhaps more accurately does not, choose to love Heathcliff despite his lower-class status. While it was Heathcliff’s lack of character that led to his downfall, it was Catherine’s seemingly overfull one that destroys her. She fixates on her own desires, driving those whom she truly loves away and leaving her empty and broken. While it is Heathcliff’s choice to leave Catherine’s love, it is also Catherine’s choice to leave Heathcliff’s. 

Both Heathcliff and Catherine are the epitome and example of reckless, selfish, and destructive choices. While they claim to love each other, neither one is able to fully choose the other, not due to circumstances, but their own broken attitudes. Brontë, through her shadowy, haunting novel, tells this tale of doomed and miserable desire so beautifully, touching on the exact root of the problem. Circumstances and tendencies do not predestine the outcome; people have the power to choose to love with extreme and sacrificial courage—or not. Catherine and Heathcliff’s love could have been a great love, a love for the ages, if they chose in such a manner. Yet Brontë allows them to choose the opposite; to choose themselves, in such a primal and devious manner that their so-called “love” is doomed from the start.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Anastasia Leffas is a seventeen-year-old senior at her Catholic high school in northern VA. She loves pursuing beauty by means of her academic studies, Irish dance, and music, and is considering collegiate study of psychology or history.

The top forty students from every CLT are invited to contribute an essay to the Journal. Congratulations to Miss Leffas on her high score! If you’d like to read more from our top students, try these posts on the double-edged influence of social media and the productive paradox of mercy and justice ; or you might enjoy this author profile of Henrik Ibsen . And be sure to check out our weekly podcast on education, policy, and culture, hosted by our founder Jeremy Tate.

Page image of High Cup in the Yorkshire Pennines, taken by John Clive Nicholson ( source ).

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Wuthering Heights

Emily brontë, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

Gothic Literature and the Supernatural

From beginning to end, Wuthering Heights is a novel full of ghosts and spirits. Dead characters refuse to leave the living alone, and the living accept that the deceased find ways of coming back to haunt them. In a departure from traditional Gothic tales, these hauntings are sometimes welcome. Heathcliff , for instance, repeatedly seeks out visitations from the ghost of his beloved Catherine . He even digs up her grave in order to be…

Nature and Civilization

Pitting nature against civilization, Emily Brontë promotes the Romantic idea that the sublime—the awe-inspiring, almost frightening, beauty of nature—is superior to man-made culture. She makes this point by correlating many of the characters with one side or the other and then squaring them off against each other. For instance, Heathcliff , whose origins are unknown and who roams the moors, is definitely on the nature side, while his rival, the studious Edgar Linton , is…

Love and Passion

Wuthering Heights explores a variety of kinds of love. Loves on display in the novel include Heathcliff and Catherine's all-consuming passion for each other, which while noble in its purity is also terribly destructive. In contract, the love between Catherine and Edgar is proper and civilized rather than passionate. Theirs is a love of peace and comfort, a socially acceptable love, but it can't stand in the way of Heathcliff and Catherine's more profound (and…

Masculinity and Femininity

Written when gender roles were far more rigid and defined than they are now, Wuthering Heights examines stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Emily Brontë constantly contrasts masculinity and femininity, but not all of the comparisons are simple; sometimes boys act like girls and girls act like boys. Edgar Linton and Linton Heathcliff , for instance, are men, but Brontë frequently describes them as having the looks and attributes of women. Likewise, Catherine Earnshaw has many…

Understanding the importance of class in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain is essential to understanding Wuthering Heights . Generally, at the time, people were born into a class and stayed there: if your parents were rich and respected (like Edgar's ), you would be, too; if your parents were servants (like Nelly Dean's ), you probably would be too. Social mobility—the idea that you can change your class status (usually for the better)—was not commonplace.

Revenge and Repetition

Nearly all of the action in Wuthering Heights results from one or another character's desire for revenge. The result are cycles of revenge that seem to endlessly repeat. Hindley takes revenge on Heathcliff for taking his place at Wuthering Heights by denying him an education, and in the process separates Heathcliff and Catherine . Heathcliff then takes revenge upon Hindley by, first, dispossessing Hindley of Wuthering Heights and by denying an education to Hareton …

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Bronte

• Wuthering Heights Summary

Wuthering Heights is related as a series of narratives which are themselves told to the narrator, a gentleman named Lockwood . Lockwood rents a fine house and park called Thrushcross Grange in Yorkshire, and gradually learns more and more about the histories of two local families. This is what he learns from a housekeeper, Ellen Dean , who had been with one of the two families for all of her life:

In around 1760, a gentleman-farmer named Earnshaw went from his farm, Wuthering Heights, to Liverpool on a business trip. He found there a little boy who looked like a gypsy who had apparently been abandoned on the streets, and brought the child home with him, to join his own family of his wife, his son Hindley, his daughter Catherine, a manservant named Joseph , and Ellen, who was very young at the time and working as a maid. Earnshaw named the boy Heathcliff after a son of his who had died. All the other members of the household were opposed to the introduction of a strange boy, except for Catherine, who was a little younger than Heathcliff and became fast friends with him. Hindley in particular felt as though Heathcliff had supplanted him, although he was several years older and the true son and heir. Hindley bullied Heathcliff when he could, and Heathcliff used his influence over Earnshaw to get his way. Heathcliff was a strange, silent boy, who appeared not to mind the blows he received from Hindley, although he was in fact very vindictive. Earnshaw's wife died. Hindley was sent away to college in a last attempt to turn him into a worthy son, and to ease pressures at home.

After some years, Earnshaw's health declined and he grew increasingly alienated from his family: in his peevish old age he worried that everyone disliked Heathcliff simply because Earnshaw liked him. He did not like his daughter Catherine's charming and mischievous ways. Finally he died, and Catherine and Heathcliff were very grieved, but consoled each other with thoughts of heaven.

Hindley returned, now around twenty years old. Heathcliff was about twelve and Catherine was eleven. Hindley was married to a young woman named Frances, to the surprise of everyone at Wuthering Heights. Hindley used his new power as the head of the household to reduce Heathcliff to the level of a servant, although Heathcliff and Catherine continued their intimacy. Catherine taught Heathcliff her lessons and would join him in the fields, or they would run away to the moors all day to play, never minding their punishments afterward.

One day they ran down to the Grange, a more civilized house where the Lintons lived with their children Edgar, thirteen, and Isabella, eleven. Catherine and Heathcliff despised the spoiled, delicate Linton children, and made faces and yelled at them through the window. The Lintons called for help and the wilder children fled, but Catherine was caught by a bulldog and they were brought inside. When the Lintons found out that the girl was Miss Earnshaw, they took good care of her and threw Heathcliff out.

Catherine stayed at the Grange for five weeks, and came home dressed and acting like a proper young lady, to the delight of Hindley and his wife, and to Heathcliff's sorrow––he felt as though she had moved beyond him. Over the next few years, Catherine struggled to both maintain her relationship with Heathcliff, and socialize with the elegant Linton children.

Frances gave birth to a son, Hareton, and died soon after of tuberculosis. Hindley gave in to wild despair and alcoholism, and the household fell into chaos. Heathcliff was harshly treated, and came to hate Hindley more and more. Edgar Linton fell in love with Catherine, who was attracted by his wealth and genteel manners, although she loved Heathcliff much more seriously. Edgar and Catherine became engaged, and Heathcliff ran away. Catherine fell ill after looking for Heathcliff all night in a storm, and went to the Grange to get better. The Linton parents caught her fever and died of it. Edgar and Catherine were married when she was 18 or 19.

They lived fairly harmoniously together for almost a year––then Heathcliff returned. He had mysteriously acquired gentlemanly manners, education, and some money. Catherine was overjoyed to see him, Edgar considerably less so. Heathcliff stayed at Wuthering Heights, where he gradually gained financial control by paying Hindley's gambling debts. Heathcliff's relationship with the Linton household became more and more strained as Edgar grew extremely unhappy with Heathcliff's relationship with Catherine. Finally there was a violent quarrel: Heathcliff left the Grange to avoid being thrown out by Edgar's servants, Catherine was angry at both of the men, and Edgar was furious at Heathcliff and displeased by his wife's behavior. Catherine shut herself in her room for several days. In the meantime, Heathcliff eloped with Isabella (who was struck by his romantic appearance) by way of revenge on Edgar. Edgar could not forgive Isabella's betrayal of him, and did not try to stop the marriage. Catherine became extremely ill, feverish and delirious, and nearly died ­ though she was carefully tended by Edgar once he discovered her condition.

A few months later, Catherine was still very delicate and looked as though she would probably die. She was pregnant. Heathcliff and Isabella returned to Wuthering Heights, and Isabella wrote to Ellen describing how brutally she was mistreated by her savage husband, and how much she regretted her marriage. Ellen went to visit them to see if she could improve Isabella's situation. She told them about Catherine's condition, and Heathcliff asked to see her.

A few days later, Heathcliff came to the Grange while Edgar was at church. He had a passionate reunion with Catherine, in which they forgave each other as much as possible for their mutual betrayals. Catherine fainted, Edgar returned, and Heathcliff left. Catherine died that night after giving birth to a daughter. Edgar was terribly grieved and Heathcliff wildly so––he begged Catherine's ghost to haunt him. A few days later, Hindley tried to murder Heathcliff, but Heathcliff almost murdered him instead. Isabella escaped from Wuthering Heights and went to live close to London, where she gave birth to a son, Linton. Hindley died a few months after his sister Catherine.

Catherine and Edgar's daughter, Cathy, grew to be a beloved and charming child. She was brought up entirely within the confines of the Grange, and was entirely unaware of the existence of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff, or her cousin Hareton there. Once she found the farmhouse while exploring the moors, and was upset to think that such an ignorant rustic as Hareton could be related to her. Ellen ordered her not to return there and explained about Heathcliff's feud with Cathy's father, Edgar.

Isabella died when Linton was about twelve years old, and Edgar went to fetch him to the Grange. Linton was a peevish and effeminate boy, but Cathy was pleased to have a playmate. That very day, however, Heathcliff sent Joseph to fetch his son to Wuthering Heights, and when Cathy woke up the next morning her cousin was gone. Though sad at first, she soon got over it, and continued her happy childhood.

On her sixteenth birthday, Cathy and Ellen strayed onto Heathcliff's lands, and he invited them into Wuthering Heights to see Linton. Cathy was pleased to renew her acquaintance, and Heathcliff was eager to promote a romance between the two cousins, so as to ensure himself of Edgar's land when he died. When they returned home, Edgar forbade Cathy to continue visiting there, and said that Heathcliff was an evil man. Cathy then began a secret correspondence with Linton, which became an exchange of love letters. Ellen found out and put an end to it.

Edgar became ill. Heathcliff asked Cathy to return to Wuthering Heights because Linton was breaking his heart for her. She did so, and found Linton to be a bullying invalid, but not without charm. Ellen fell ill as well and was unable to prevent Cathy from visiting Wuthering Heights every day. Cathy felt obliged to help Linton, and despised Hareton for being clumsy and illiterate. Ellen told Edgar about the visits when she found out, and he forbade Cathy to go any more.

Edgar was in poor health and didn't know about Linton's equally bad health and bad character, so he thought it would be good for Cathy to marry him––since Linton and not Cathy would most likely inherit the Grange. A system was fixed up in which Linton and Cathy met outside. Linton was increasingly ill, and seemed to be terrified of something––as it turned out, his father was forcing him to court Cathy. Heathcliff feared Linton would die before Edgar did, so eventually he all but kidnapped Cathy and Ellen, and told them Cathy couldn't go home to see her dying father until she married Linton. Cathy did marry Linton, and escaped in time to see Edgar before he died.

After Edgar's funeral (he was buried next to his wife) Heathcliff fetched Cathy to Wuthering Heights to take care of Linton, who was dying, and to free up the Grange so he could rent it out (to Lockwood, in fact). Heathcliff told Ellen that he was still obsessed by his beloved Catherine, and had gone to gaze at her long-dead body when her coffin was uncovered by the digging of Edgar's grave.

Cathy had to care for Linton alone, and when he died, she maintained an unfriendly attitude to the household: Heathcliff, Hareton (who was in love with her), Joseph, and Zillah , the housekeeper. As time passed, however, she became lonely enough to seek Hareton's company, and began teaching him to read.

This is around the time of Lockwood's time at the Grange. He leaves the area for several months, and when he returns, he learns that while he was gone:

Heathcliff began to act more and more strangely, and became incapable of concentrating on the world around him, as though Catherine's ghost wouldn't let him. He all but stopped eating and sleeping, and Ellen found him dead one morning, with a savage smile on his face. He was buried next to Catherine, as he had wished. Hareton grieved for him, but was too happy with the younger Cathy to be inconsolable. When the novel ends, Hareton and Cathy plan to marry and move to the Grange.

Wuthering Heights Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Wuthering Heights is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Why does Cathy have a hybrid character in Wuthering heights?

Cathy is a hybrid, embodying the virtues of both households, genuinely caring for the sick, but also capable of exercising her own will and judgement and going out onto the moors unsupervised.

Catherine Earnshaw is Mr. Earnshaw's daughter and Hindley's sister. She is also Heathcliff's foster sister and love interest. She marries Edgar Linton and has a daughter, also named Catherine. Catherine is beautiful and charming, but she is never...

Spending the night at Wuthering Heights, Lockwood... Select one: a. has to be rescued from the dogs by Zillah the housekeeper. b. sleeps in Catherine Earnshaw’s room and reads her journal. c. sees a ghostly apparition and refuses its plea to “let me in!”

I would say "E". Lockwood experiences a nightmare that feels like an apparition.

Study Guide for Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights study guide contains a biography of Emily Bronte, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Wuthering Heights
• Wuthering Heights Video
• Character List

Essays for Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

• Heathcliff's Obsessions
• The Setting in Wuthering Heights
• Mirrors, Windows, and Glass in Wuthering Heights
• The Problem of Split Personalities in Wuthering Heights
• The Main Characters in Wuthering Heights and Their Resemblance To Children

Lesson Plan for Wuthering Heights

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Wuthering Heights
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Wuthering Heights Bibliography

E-Text of Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights e-text contains the full text of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.

• Chapters 1-5
• Chapters 6-10
• Chapters 11-15
• Chapters 16-20
• Chapters 21-25

Wikipedia Entries for Wuthering Heights

• Introduction

Wuthering Heights

94 pages • 3 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-9

Chapters 10-13

Chapters 14-17

Chapters 18-22

Chapters 23-27

Chapters 28-31

Chapters 32-34

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

The Dark Side of Enduring Love

In many works of literature past and present, the notion of enduring love is idealized as the hope and dream of many a worthy protagonist . Wuthering Heights , however, is the novel that overturns those romantic visions of passionate and faithful love, presenting the truth of Heathcliff’s obsession with Catherine and Catherine’s love for Heathcliff in all of its violent and sometimes ugly intensity. At the start of the novel, Catherine’s generosity towards Heathcliff and his devotion to her are sweet and admirable. Their childhood companionship grows into a more mature friendship that at first, seems pure and genuine enough, but their personality characteristics eventually get in the way of their genuine attachment to each other. Heathcliff’s uncontrollable bad temper and Catherine’s sense of entitlement merge into a mutual sense of rageful frustration, so unhappiness ensues, for them and for the rest of their immediate society.

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'Wuthering Heights' Themes, Symbols, Literary Devices

A Novel About Love, Hate, Class, and Revenge

Hate and Revenge

Social class, literary device: multiple narrators within a frame story, literary device: doubles and opposites, literary device: using nature to describe a character, symbols: the ragged wuthering heights vs. the pristine thrushcross grange.

• M.A., Classics, Catholic University of Milan
• M.A., Journalism, New York University.
• B.A., Classics, Catholic University of Milan

While love seems to be the prevailing theme of Wuthering Heights, the novel is much more than a romantic love story. Intertwined with the (non-consummated) passion of Heathcliff and Cathy are hatred, revenge, and social class, the ever-prevailing issue in Victorian literature.

A meditation on the nature of love permeates the entirety of Wuthering Heights. Of course, the most important relationship is the one between Cathy and Heathcliff, which is all-consuming and brings Cathy to fully identify with Heathcliff, to the point that she says “I am Heathcliff.” Their love is everything but simple, though. They betray one another and themselves in order to marry a person for whom they feel a tamer—but convenient—kind of love. Interestingly, despite its intensity, the love between Cathy and Heathcliff is never consummated. Even when Heathcliff and Cathy are reunited in their afterlife, they do not rest peacefully. Instead, they haunt the moorland as ghosts.

The love that develops between young Catherine and Hindley’s son, Hareton, is a paler and gentler version of the love between Cathy and Heathcliff, and it’s poised for a happy ending.

Heathcliff hates as fiercely as he used to love Cathy, and most of his actions are motivated by a desire of vengeance. Throughout the novel, he resorts to exact some form of retribution from all those who, in his mind, had wronged him: Hindley (and his progeny) for mistreating him, and the Lintons (Edgar and Isabella) for taking Cathy away from him.

Oddly, despite his all-consuming love for Cathy, he is not particularly nice towards her daughter, Catherine. Instead, while assuming the role of the stereotypical villain, he kidnaps her, forces her to marry his sickly son, and generally mistreats her. 

Wuthering Heights is fully immersed in the class-related issues of the Victorian era, which were not just a matter of affluence. The characters show that birth, the source of income, and family connections played a relevant role in determining someone’s place in society, and people usually accepted that place.

Wuthering Heights portrays a class-structured society. The Lintons were part of the professional middle class, and the Earnshaws were a little below the Lintons. Nelly Dean was lower-middle class, as she worked non-manual labor (servants were superior to manual laborers). Heathcliff, an orphan, used to occupy the lowest rung in society in the Wuthering Heights universe, but when Mr. Earnshaw openly favored him, he went against societal norms.

Class is also why Cathy decides to marry Edgar and not Heathcliff. When Heathcliff returns to the heath a well-dressed, moneyed, and educated man, he still remains an outcast from society. Class also explains Heathcliff’s attitude towards Hindley’s son, Hareton. He debases Hareton the way Hindley had debased him, thereby enacting a reverse class-motivated revenge. 

Wuthering Heights is mainly told by two narrators, Lockwood and his own narrator, Nelly, who tells him about the events that took place in Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. However, other narrators are interspersed throughout the novel. For example, when Lockwood finds Cathy’s diary, we are able to read important details about her childhood spent with Heathcliff in the moors. In addition, Isabella’s letter to Nelly shows us firsthand the abuse she suffered at the hands of Heathcliff. All of the voices in the novel create a choral narrative by offering multiple points of view of the lives of the inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights.

It's worth noting that no storyteller is fully objective. Although Lockwood might appear removed, once he meets the masters of Wuthering Heights, he becomes involved with them and loses his objectivity. Likewise, Nelly Dean, while at first appearing to be an outsider, is actually a flawed narrator, at least morally. She often picks sides between characters and changes allegiances—sometimes she works with Cathy, other times she betrays her. 

Brontë arranges several elements of her novel into pairs that both differ and have similarities with one another. For example, Catherine and Heathcliff perceive themselves as being identical. Cathy and her daughter, Catherine, look much alike, but their personalities differ. When it comes to love, Cathy is split between her socially appropriate marriage to Edgar and her bond with Heathcliff.

Similarly, the estates Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange represent opposing forces and values, yet the two houses are bonded through marriage and tragedy in both generations. Even Nelly and Lockwood, the two narrators, embody this dualism. Background-wise, they could not be more different, yet, with Nelly being too involved in the events and Lockwood being too far removed, they are both unreliable narrators. 

Nature plays an important role in Wuthering Heights as both an empathetic participant in the setting of the novel—a moorland is prone to winds and storms—, and as a way to describe the characters’ personalities. Cathy and Heathcliff are usually associated with images of wilderness, while the Lintons are associated with pictures of cultivated land. Cathy likens Heathcliff’s soul to the arid wilderness of the moors, while Nelly describes the Lintons as honeysuckles, cultivated and fragile. When Heathcliff speaks about Edgar’s love for Cathy, he says, “He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigor in the soil of his shallow cares!” 

As an estate, Wuthering Heights is a farmhouse in the moorlands ruled by the cruel and ruthless Hindley. It symbolizes the wildness of both Cathy and Heathcliff. By contrast, Thrushcross Grange, all adorned in crimson, represents cultural and societal norms. When Cathy is bitten by the guard dogs of Thrushcross Grange and she’s brought into the Lintons’ orbit, the two realities begin to clash. The “chaos” of Wuthering Heights wreaks havoc in the Lintons’ peaceful and seemingly idyllic existence, as Cathy’s marriage to Edgar precipitates Heathcliff’s vengeful actions. 

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