Unit Four: Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)

Question 1

Heathcliff

Answer 1

An orphan brought to live at Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff falls into an intense, unbreakable love with Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine. After Mr. Earnshaw dies, his resentful son Hindley abuses Heathcliff and treats him as a servant. Because of her desire for social prominence, Catherine marries Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff. Heathcliff’s humiliation and misery prompt him to spend most of the rest of his life seeking revenge on Hindley, his beloved Catherine, and their respective children (Hareton and young Cathy). A powerful, fierce, and often cruel man, Heathcliff acquires a fortune and uses his extraordinary powers of will to acquire both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, the estate of Edgar Linton.

Question 1

Who wrote Wuthering heights and when

Answer 1

Emily Bronte in 1847

Question 2

Catherine Earnshaw

Answer 2

The daughter of Mr. Earnshaw and his wife, Catherine falls powerfully in love with Heathcliff, the orphan Mr. Earnshaw brings home from Liverpool. Catherine loves Heathcliff so intensely that she claims they are the same person. However, her desire for social advancement motivates her to marry Edgar Linton instead. Catherine is free-spirited, beautiful, spoiled, and often arrogant. She is given to fits of temper, and she is torn between her wild passion for Heathcliff and her social ambition. She brings misery to both of the men who love her.

Question 3

Edgar Linton

Answer 3

Well-bred but rather spoiled as a boy, Edgar Linton grows into a tender, constant, but cowardly man. He is almost the ideal gentleman: Catherine accurately describes him as “handsome,” “pleasant to be with,” “cheerful,” and “rich.” However, this full assortment of gentlemanly characteristics, along with his civilized virtues, proves useless in Edgar’s clashes with his foil, Heathcliff, who gains power over his wife, sister, and daughter.

Question 4

Lockwood

Answer 4

Lockwood’s narration forms a frame around Nelly’s; he serves as an intermediary between Nelly and the reader. A somewhat vain and presumptuous gentleman, he deals very clumsily with the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights. Lockwood comes from a more domesticated region of England, and he finds himself at a loss when he witnesses the strange household’s disregard for the social conventions that have always structured his world. As a narrator, his vanity and unfamiliarity with the story occasionally lead him to misunderstand events.

Question 5

Nelly Dean

Answer 5

Nelly Dean (known formally as Ellen Dean) serves as the chief narrator of Wuthering Heights. A sensible, intelligent, and compassionate woman, she grew up essentially alongside Hindley and Catherine Earnshaw and is deeply involved in the story she tells. She has strong feelings for the characters in her story, and these feelings complicate her narration.

Question 6

Isabella Linton

Answer 6

Edgar Linton’s sister, who falls in love with Heathcliff and marries him. She sees Heathcliff as a romantic figure, like a character in a novel. Ultimately, she ruins her life by falling in love with him. He never returns her feelings and treats her as a mere tool in his quest for revenge on the Linton family.

Question 7

Cathy Linton

Answer 7

The daughter of Edgar Linton and the first Catherine. The first Catherine begins her life as an Earnshaw and ends it as a Linton; her daughter, referred to for clarity’s sake in this SparkNote as Cathy, begins as a Linton and, assuming that she marries Hareton after the end of the story, goes on to become an Earnshaw. The mother and the daughter share not only a name, but also a tendency toward headstrong behavior, impetuousness, and occasional arrogance. However, Edgar’s influence seems to have tempered young Cathy’s character, and she is a gentler and more compassionate creature than her mother.

Question 8

Hareton Earnshaw

Answer 8

The son of Hindley and Frances Earnshaw, Hareton is Catherine’s nephew. After Hindley’s death, Heathcliff assumes custody of Hareton, and raises him as an uneducated field worker, just as Hindley had done to Heathcliff himself. Thus Heathcliff uses Hareton to seek revenge on Hindley. Illiterate and quick-tempered, Hareton is easily humiliated, but shows a good heart and a deep desire to improve himself. At the end of the novel, he marries Cathy.

Question 9

Linton Heathcliff

Answer 9

Heathcliff’s son by Isabella. Weak, sniveling, demanding, and constantly ill, Linton is raised in London by his mother and does not meet his father until he is thirteen years old, when he goes to live with him after his mother’s death. Heathcliff despises Linton, treats him contemptuously, and, by forcing him to marry Cathy, uses him to cement his control over Thrushcross Grange after Edgar Linton’s death. Linton himself dies not long after this marriage

Question 10

Hindley Earnshaw

Answer 10

Catherine’s brother, and Mr. Earnshaw’s son. Hindley resents it when Heathcliff is brought to live at Wuthering Heights. After his father dies and he inherits the estate, Hindley begins to abuse the young Heathcliff, terminating his education and forcing him to work in the fields. When Hindley’s wife Frances dies shortly after giving birth to their son Hareton, he lapses into alcoholism and dissipation.

Question 11

Mr. Earnshaw

Answer 11

Catherine and Hindley’s father. Mr. Earnshaw adopts Heathcliff and brings him to live at Wuthering Heights. Mr. Earnshaw prefers Heathcliff to Hindley but nevertheless bequeaths Wuthering Heights to Hindley when he dies.

Question 12

Mrs. Earnshaw

Answer 12

Catherine and Hindley’s mother, who neither likes nor trusts the orphan Heathcliff when he is brought to live at her house. She dies shortly after Heathcliff’s arrival at Wuthering Heights.

Question 13

Joseph

Answer 13

A long-winded, fanatically religious, elderly servant at Wuthering Heights. Joseph is strange, stubborn, and unkind, and he speaks with a thick Yorkshire accent.

Question 14

Frances Earnshaw

Answer 14

Hindley’s simpering, silly wife, who treats Heathcliff cruelly. She dies shortly after giving birth to Hareton.

Question 15

Mr. Linton

Answer 15

Edgar and Isabella’s father and the proprietor of Thrushcross Grange when Heathcliff and Catherine are children. An established member of the gentry, he raises his son and daughter to be well-mannered young people.

Question 16

Mrs. Linton

Answer 16

Mr. Linton’s somewhat snobbish wife, who does not like Heathcliff to be allowed near her children, Edgar and Isabella. She teaches Catherine to act like a gentle-woman, thereby instilling her with social ambitions.

Question 17

Zillah

Answer 17

The housekeeper at Wuthering Heights during the latter stages of the narrative.

Question 18

Mr. Green

Answer 18

Edgar Linton’s lawyer, who arrives too late to hear Edgar’s final instruction to change his will, which would have prevented Heathcliff from obtaining control over Thrushcross Grange.

Question 19

Theme: The Precariousness of Social Class

Answer 19

The novel “Wuthering Heights” explores the precarious social position of the gentry, represented by the Earnshaws and the Lintons, in late 18th and early 19th-century British society. Unlike the aristocracy, the gentry lacked official titles, leading to uncertainty about their status. Factors such as landownership, servants, speech, and source of wealth determined one’s classification as a gentleman. Social status greatly influences characters’ actions, notably Catherine’s marriage to Edgar to elevate her social standing. While the Lintons maintain their gentry status, the Earnshaws struggle due to their lack of material possessions and refined behavior. Heathcliff’s journey reflects the fluidity of social status, as he shifts from poverty to gentility and back, illustrating the complex dynamics of class in the novel.

Question 20

Theme: The Futility of Revenge

Answer 20

Revenge consumes Heathcliff’s life in “Wuthering Heights,” leading to his relentless pursuit of vengeance against those who wronged him. Despite causing pain to others, he finds no personal happiness and is left empty. Tormented by Hindley in his youth, Heathcliff becomes fixated on revenge, seizing control of Wuthering Heights after Hindley’s demise. He further seeks retribution by mistreating Hindley’s son, Hareton, mirroring the treatment he endured. Despite his cruelty, Heathcliff takes pleasure in Hareton’s affection. Ultimately, he achieves his revenge by gaining control of the Grange through marrying Cathy and Linton. However, his death finds him alone and desperate, highlighting the futility of his quest for vengeance and his enduring desire for reunion with Catherine, which remains unfulfilled in life.

Question 21

Symbol: Moors

Answer 21

The constant emphasis on landscape within the text of Wuthering Heights endows the setting with symbolic importance. This landscape is comprised primarily of moors: wide, wild expanses, high but somewhat soggy, and thus infertile. Moorland cannot be cultivated, and its uniformity makes navigation difficult. It features particularly waterlogged patches in which people could potentially drown. (This possibility is mentioned several times in Wuthering Heights.) Thus, the moors serve very well as symbols of the wild threat posed by nature. As the setting for the beginnings of Catherine and Heathcliff’s bond (the two play on the moors during childhood), the moorland transfers its symbolic associations onto the love affair.

Question 22

Symbol: Ghosts

Answer 22

Ghosts appear throughout Wuthering Heights, as they do in most other works of Gothic fiction, yet Brontë always presents them in such a way that whether they really exist remains ambiguous. Thus the world of the novel can always be interpreted as a realistic one. Certain ghosts—such as Catherine’s spirit when it appears to Lockwood in Chapter III—may be explained as nightmares. The villagers’ alleged sightings of Heathcliff’s ghost in Chapter XXXIV could be dismissed as unverified superstition. Whether or not the ghosts are “real,” they symbolize the manifestation of the past within the present, and the way memory stays with people, permeating their day-to-day lives.

Question 23

Motif: Doubles

Answer 23

In “Wuthering Heights,” Emily Brontë employs a structure based on pairs, organizing characters, places, and themes accordingly. Catherine and Heathcliff are depicted as closely matched and often see themselves as identical. Catherine’s character is torn between her desire for Edgar and her connection to Heathcliff. Similarly, Catherine and her daughter Cathy share similarities but also exhibit notable differences. The two principal houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, symbolize contrasting worlds and values. The narrative unfolds through two distinct narrators, Nelly and Mr. Lockwood. Relationships between paired elements are complex, with members neither identical nor diametrically opposed. For instance, while the Lintons and the Earnshaws initially appear to embody opposing values, intermarriages blur these distinctions by the novel’s end.