In 1801 Mr. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, comes to pay his respects to his landlord, Mr. Heathcliff. Lockwood is forced to spend the night at Wuthering Heights during a snowstorm. That night, a little voice pleads to be let in at the window; it is the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw.
Lockwood returns to the Grange and asks his housekeeper, Ellen Dean, to tell him the tragic
story of the Earnshaw and Linton families. She relates a story of almost unrelenting passion and hatred, which began when Mr. Earnshaw brought home a starving waif from the slums of Liverpool. The child was given only one name: Heathcliff.
The
novel traces Heathcliff’s rise to master of Wuthering Heights and the elegant neighboring estate, Thrushcross Grange. After the death of his father, Hindley Earnshaw treats Heathcliff worse than a servant, but Heathcliff stays because of his love for Catherine. She, however, finds the life-style of Edgar Linton and his sister, Isabella, very attractive. Heathcliff believes Catherine despises him, and leaves Yorkshire.
Hindley marries the consumptive Frances, who gives him a son, Hareton. Hindley’s decline into drunkenness is accelerated by his wife’s death. Catherine marries Edgar and takes Ellen Dean with her to Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff reappears, but his behavior is more refined. He has acquired an education and wealth. He secretly buys up Hindley’s debts. He moves into the Heights. Edgar grows jealous of Heathcliff, who continues to meet Catherine. Isabella Linton falls madly in love with Heathcliff and finally elopes with him. She becomes pregnant and dies soon after giving birth to a sickly boy, Linton Heathcliff.
Hindley dies, and the rightful heir of Wuthering Heights, his son Hareton, is badly treated by Heathcliff. The cuckoo in the nest has dispossessed the legitimate heir. Heathcliff’s revenge is almost complete. His next step is to engineer a marriage between his son and Cathy, thus adding Thrushcross Grange to his usurped properties. When Edgar Linton dies without changing his will, the plan succeeds.
The date is now 1801—Lockwood knows all the events prior to his fateful visit. He leaves soon after, but returns the following year. Heathcliff is dead, having starved himself to death so he could be reunited with his beloved Catherine. The plot has almost come full circle. Young Cathy is educating Hareton, and the future may well see a marriage restoring the two houses to their rightful families.
Themes and Meanings Few books have been scrutinized as closely as
Wuthering Heights. It has been analyzed from every psychological perspective; it has been described as a spiritual or religious novel. Broadly speaking, it is the story of an antihero, Heathcliff, and his attempt to steal Wuthering Heights from its rightful owners, Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw. Thus, in this complex story of fierce passions, Heathcliff is portrayed as a cuckoo, who succeeds in dispossessing the legitimate heirs to Wuthering Heights. His revenge is the driving force behind the plot, though he betrays occasional glimpses of affection for Hareton, the young man whom he has ruined.
"Wuthering" is a dialect word descriptive of the fierceness of the Yorkshire climate, with its "atmospheric tumult." The title of the novel refers not only to the farm house and its inhabitants but also to the effect that Heathcliff’s desire for Cathy has on him and those around him. As the story progresses, his nature becomes successively warped, and he loses Cathy. After Heathcliff returns from a self-imposed exile—educated and wealthy—the meetings with Cathy further lacerate his soul and bring ruin to all those around him. Heathcliff’s ultimate revenge is to make Hareton, Hindley’s son, suffer as he did. "Wuthering," "tumult," and "stunted growth" apply equally to nature and humans in this novel. Yet no hatred as powerful as Heathcliff’s can sustain itself; it burns too fiercely. When his desire for vengeance has run its course, Heathcliff achieves his greatest wish—to be united with his beloved Catherine. This reunion can take place only in the grave and the spirit world beyond it.
During Heathcliff’s life, Wuthering Heights was a hell; it will never become a heaven, but as the second generation of Earnshaw and Linton children grow up free of Heathcliff’s corrupting influence, Emily Brontë suggests, a spiritual rebirth is possible. Optimism peeps through her dark vision.
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