Wuthering Heights Essay

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is a story of love and revenge and how the hierarchy of social class can render loves meaningless and fuel the fire of hatred and passionate revenge. The themes above are mainly shown between the love triangle between Edgar Linton, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff.



The main section of the novel is based around Catherine and Heathcliff’s eternal love for one another; even when Catherine dies the love between them still influences those around them. Their love was never of the physical passion but of a love so powerful intense that their souls were part of each other.

‘My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods; time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles of the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight but necessary. Nelly I am Heathcliff! He’s always in my mind: not as pleasure more than I am to pleasure myself, but as my own being...’

Catherine says her love for Heathcliff is like “the eternal rocks beneath’, never changing but her love for Linton will. Then when Catherine declares she and Heathcliff are the same person, this shows that her love for him is even more different than that to Edgar. Her love for Edgar is mainly of her desire to be of higher social standing; where as her love for Heathcliff is of body and soul. Their love for one another is so passionate and deep that Heathcliff says after Catherine’s death:

‘...Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you- haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderer! I believe- I now that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always- take any form- drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! Unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live with my soul!’

When Catherine died; Heathcliff felt as though she had left him to live a life in a lonely abyss: without her, without love and without a soul. When Heathcliff says that he killed her he is referring to them not being together that killed her. Denying their love and being apart killed her heart.

Bronte in places makes Catherine and Heathcliff’s love seem immoral and damned, as it affects all those around them; and being the root of all cruelty, hatred and revenge. Heathcliff’s life was always filled with cruelty, even as a young boy, when Hindley would repeat bully him and after Mr. Earnshaw died, Heathcliff was treated as slave and was belittled at any chance Hindley could get. It was form this point that Heathcliff started to plot his ways of inflicting revenge against anyone who has wronged him. Edgar Linton soon became his biggest target, having married the women he loves and from childhood bullying almost constantly.

‘I was a fool to fancy that for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton’s attachment more than mine- if he loved with all of the powers of his punny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years, as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have; the sea could be as readily contained in the house trough, as her whole affection be monopolised by him – Tush! He id scarcely a degree nearer than her dog, or her horse- it is not him to be loved like me, how can she love in him what he has not.’

Heathcliff feels that Edgar can never love Catherine as much as he could and hates him for event thinking such a thing. Heathcliff also despises Edgar for it as only his higher socially standing and money that lure Catherine away from him. To take revenge against Edgar, Heathcliff uses Edgar’s own family against him by marrying him only sister and treating her as badly as he was treated. Heathcliff’s love for Catherine and hatred against Edgar creates new hatred from Isabella, Edgar’s sister. Isabella was always until this point she had been a polite and well mannered young woman, who was turned by Heathcliff’s cruelty into someone with a burning lust for revenge.

‘...I assure you, a tiger or venomous serpent could not rouse terror equal to which wakens me... I do hate him- I am wretched – I have been a fool...’

Heathcliff fooled Isabella into thinking he was a great man, who reciprocated her feelings, but the charade was all part of his revenge plan. Heathcliff’s love for Catherine has negative effects on all around him.

In the time this book as written and first published social standing and money were a very important part of life, it was this factor and only this that was the reason for Catherine and Heathcliff not being together. Although Catherine felt the same love that he had for her, it was unfortunately not enough. With Edgar Linton being of higher social status than her and Heathcliff, she only married Edgar to marry up into the world. Even though Catherine said she does love Edgar it is clear than she loves his life and not him as a person.

‘Nelly, I see now, you think me a selfish wretch; did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married we should be beggars? Whereas if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power?’

Catherine’s only doubt about ever marrying Heathcliff is that they would be poor and not of high social standing. She naively thinks that marrying Edgar will help Heathcliff to escape from Hindley’s torment. It is the issue of class and wealth that has made a potential everlasting love between Catherine and Heathcliff into a tale of torment and broken hearts.



Now after reading Wuthering heights, I can understand why this is known as one of the classics. Through Bronte’s wonderful in depth descriptions and momentous dialogues, that all her characters are so realistic and whole. My favourite character in the whole novel has to be Heathcliff, the Byronic hero. Heathcliff has all the key characteristics of this hero; revolt against society, pursuit for individual goals, romantic expression and the constant experience of strong emotion. All this features are directed at one thing: his undying love for Catherine. Even though Heathcliff does so many cruel and heartless things in this tale, that by rights he should be seen as the villain that everyone wants to get his comeuppance, I can’t help sympathising for him and whishing that in the end he would be happy.