Heathcliff

Question 1

Lockwood’s initial impression of Heathcliff (1)

Answer 1

A capital fellow!

Question 2

Lockwood’s comments about Heathcliff’s guardedness (2)

Answer 2

1) Black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows

2) fingers sheltered themselves

Question 3

Heathcliff’s physical appearance (2)

Answer 3

1) A dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman
2) an erect and handsome figure

Question 4

Heathcliff’s emotions after Cathy’s ghost, including his words to Cathy (3)

Answer 4

1) his face as white as the wall behind him
2) he struggled to vanquish an excess of emotions
3) ‘Come in, come in! Oh! My heart’s darling, hear me this time’

Question 5

Heathcliff as a child (3)

Answer 5

1) ‘imp of Satan’ - Hindley
2) dirty, ragged black-haired child!
3) gypsy brat

Question 6

Heathcliff talks to Nelly - Chapter 7 (2)

Answer 6

1) ‘Nelly, make me decent. I’m going to be good.’

2) ‘you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders’

Question 7

Nelly alludes to Heathcliff’s possible background and spurs on his revenge (1)

Answer 7

‘You’re fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, in one week’s income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together?’

Question 8

The fire as Heathcliff leaves during the storm (1)

Answer 8

sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen-fire

Question 9

Heathcliff’s appearance described when he returns (2)

Answer 9

1) Tall, athletic, well-formed
2) No marks of former degradation
3) A half-civilized ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows, and eyes full of black fire

Question 10

Wolf imagery to describe Heathcliff (2)

Answer 10

1) ‘He’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man’

2) an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting for his time to spring and destroy [the stray sheep]

Question 11

Edgar describes Heathcliff’s presence (1)

Answer 11

‘Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous’

Question 12

Isabella’s letter, she does not think Heathcliff is a man (2)

Answer 12

1) ‘Is Mr Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he the devil?’
2) ‘I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married’

Question 13

Hindley’s angry comments about Heathcliff to Isabella (2)

Answer 13

1) ‘Hell shall have his soul! It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before’
2) ‘Damn the hellish villain!’

Question 14

Heathcliff’s villainous, melodramatic, sadistic ‘worm’ comments (2)

Answer 14

1) ‘I have no pity! I have no pity! The more worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails!
2) ‘I grind with greater energy, in proportion to the increase of pain.’

Question 15

Animal imagery - Heathcliff is portrayed as a mad dog (1)

Answer 15

he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog

Question 16

Animal imagery - Heathcliff howling (1)

Answer 16

howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears

Question 17

Isabella questions Heathcliff being a human (not in the letter) (3)

Answer 17

1) ‘the brute beast’
2) ‘He’s not a human being’
3) ‘He’s only half man: not so much, and the rest fiend’

Question 18

Heathcliff portrayed as a cannibal or vampire (1)

Answer 18

sharp cannibal teeth…gleamed through the dark

Question 19

The violence between Heathcliff and Hindley (1)

Answer 19

the ruffian kicked and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly against the flags

Question 20

Heathcliff’s eyes as hell (1)

Answer 20

the clouded windows of hell flashed a moment

Question 21

The title of Mrs. Heathcliff as degrading (1)

Answer 21

‘the ridiculous, contemptible, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff’

Question 22

Heathcliff wants the union of Linton and Cathy (1)

Answer 22

‘I desire their union and am resolved to bring it about’

Question 23

Nelly suspects Heathcliff is writing Linton’s loveletters to Cathy (1)

Answer 23

touches here and there which I thought were borrowed from a more experienced source

Question 24

Nelly is shocked by Heathcliff’s treatment of Linton (1)

Answer 24

I could not picture a father treating a dying child as tyrannically and wickedly as I later learnt Heathcliff had treated him

Question 25

Heathcliff steps up his revenge as he worries that Edgar or Linton will die first (1)

Answer 25

his efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling plans were threatened by death

Question 26

Heathcliff shows his sadism (1)

Answer 26

‘I should treat myself to a slow vivisection of these two – as an evening’s amusement’

Question 27

Heathcliff is violent towards Cathy (1)

Answer 27

a shower of terrific slaps on both sides of the head

Question 28

Cathy sees some good in Heathcliff (1)

Answer 28

‘Mr. Heathcliff, you’re a cruel man, but you’re not a fiend’

Question 29

No one loves Heathcliff (1)

Answer 29

‘Nobody loves you - nobody will cry for you, when you die’

Question 30

Heathcliff digs up Cathy’s grave (1)

Answer 30

‘I struck one side of the coffin loose - and covered it up - not Linton’s side, damn him!’

Question 31

Heathcliff feels better after seeing Cathy’s dead body (1)

Answer 31

‘A sudden sense of relief flowed, from my heart’

Question 32

Heathcliff undergoes a change and barely needs earthly sustenance, nor cares about his revenge (3)

Answer 32

1) ‘Nelly, there is a strange change occurring…. I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly remember to eat and drink’
2) ‘I have to remind myself to breathe - almost to remind my heart to beat’
3) ‘I have lost the faculty of enjoying in their destruction’

Question 33

Heathcliff is happier as he comes closer to his heaven (2)

Answer 33

1) unnatural appearance of joy under his black brows

2) ‘Last night I was on the threshold of hell. Today I am in sight of my heaven.’

Question 34

The fire goes out as Heathcliff deteriorates (1)

Answer 34

The fire had smouldered to ashes

Question 35

Nelly questions Heathcliff’s humanity and creates a sense of mystery about his past (2)

Answer 35

1) Is he a ghoul or a vampire?

2) But where did he come from, the little dark thing…

Question 36

Heathcliff stares as if he sees Catherine’s ghost in the final chapter (1)

Answer 36

‘Don’t, for God’s sake, stare as if you saw an unearthly vision’

Question 37

Heathcliff no longer cares about his property (1)

Answer 37

I wish I could annihilate it from the face of the earth

Question 38

Heathcliff’s smile as he is dead (2)

Answer 38

1) he seemed to smile

2) sharp white teeth sneered too

Question 39

Heathcliff’s ghost (1)

Answer 39

The country folks, if you ask them, would swear on the Bible that he walks