Wuthering Heights Summary & Analysis

Wuthering Heights
Emily Bront
Top Withens, possible inspiration for the Earnshaw family house.
The foundling Heathcliff is brought to
Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw.

Oppression and exploitation of
Heathcliff by Hindley, Mr Earnshaws
son.

Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff become
twin souls.
The bill for the 1992 film version
Emily Bront
Only Connect ... New Directions
1. Key events
Part One: First generation
Emily Bront
Cathy Earnshaws transformation from
savage to proper lady during her stay
at Thrushcross Grange.

Cathys betrayal of her soul mate
Heathcliff.

Heathcliffs departure (splitting of the
oak).

Cathys marriage to Edgar Linton.
1. Key events
The bill for the 1992 film version
1. Key events
Heathcliffs return as a gentleman intent
on revenge.

Cathys attempts to have both Heathcliff
and Edgar.

Cathys derangement and illness.

Top Withens
Emily Bront
Birth of Cathy II, Catherines and Edgars
daughter.

Cathys death and Heathcliffs despair.
1. Key events
Emily Bront
Top Withens
1. Key events
Heathcliffs revenge: property, gained
by marriage to Isabella Linton and
expropriation.

Degradation of Hareton, Heathcliffs
and Isabellas son.

Heathcliff loses interest in revenge.

Near Top Withens
Emily Bront
Part Two: Second generation
1. Key events
Emily Bront
Heathcliff and Cathy together in death.

Marriage of Cathy II and Hareton:
property restored to rightful owner.
Part Two: Second generation
Near Top Withens
2. Narrative structure
Non-linear narrative structure
Use of flashback Beginning in medias res Binary structure
Elicits curiosity in the
reader
Invites
comparison
between the two
stories
Implies an active reader
Emily Bront
Bront Parsonage in Haworth, where the
Bront family lived
Two frame narrators: Lockwood
(as external narrator) and Nelly
Dean (as internal narrator).

Chinese box structure: stories
within stories.

Two interpreters; two auditors
(reader and Lockwood closely
identified).

3. Narrative point of view
Lockwoods dream in an etching by Rosalind
Whitman
Emily Bront
Nelly Deans perspective
Emily Bront
Conventional based on morality, religion and superstition.

She thinks Cathy is wayward, ill-tempered.

I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance (Part I,
Ch. VIII).

She was too much fond of Heathcliff (Part I Ch. V).

Lockwoods perspective
Emily Bront
The voice of conventional society.

An unreliable narrator because he does not know all the details of the
story.

Implications of the
multiple narrators
Emily Bront
Strangeness and otherness preserved.

Multiple interpretations: no single truth.

Unique Interpretation becomes impossible modern aspect of the novel.

4. Main characters
Catherine
Wayward, difficult, rebellious,
spirited & unfeminine.

her spirits were always at high water-mark, her
tongue always going... A wild, wick slip she was but
she had the bonniest eye, and sweetest smile and
lightest foot in the parish (Part I, Ch. V)

heaven did not seem to be my home (Part I, Ch. IX)
Charlotte Riley as Catherine and Tom Hardy as
Heathcliff in Coky Giedroycs 2009 film version
Emily Bront
Persistent ambiguity: man or
beast?

Unknown origins, absence of
social connection.

Absence of emotion, insensible.

4. Main characters
Heathcliff
Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuests 1970 film
version
Emily Bront
4. Main characters
Heathcliff
Timothy Dalton in Robert Fuests 1970 film
version
Emily Bront
Deteriorates into brute state.

Violent and extreme language.

A Byronic hero.
Vindictive, violent and possessive

They may bury me twelve feet deep and throw the church down over me;
but I wont rest till you are with me I never will! (Part I, Ch. XII)

Merged identities

If all else perished and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if
all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a
mighty stranger.Nelly, I am Heathcliff! (Part I, Ch. IX)

Heathcliff / Catherine relationship
Emily Bront
4. Main characters
Vitality, authenticity, freedom.

Rejection of class values.

Heathcliff and Cathy symbolise the
instinctual, unconscious forces.

Contrasted with civilised characters:
Edgar, Lockwood, Nelly Dean.
Heathcliff / Catherine relationship
Emily Bront
Robert Brook, Heathcliff and Cathy, from the
novel Wuthering Heights, 20th century,
Private Collection.
4. Main characters
5. The Moors as symbol
Attempt to escape
The Moors represent the
Romantic rejection of
society and the desire to
transcend its rules
Emily Bront
English Moors
English Moors
5. The Moors as symbol
Escape is
impossible
Cathy reconciles self & class
society through her marriage
to Edgar and her relationship
with Heathcliff
Emily Bront
English Moors
English Moors
Heathcliff as a Gothic villain in his inhuman treatment
of his wife and his son.

The sinister atmosphere of Wuthering Heights
surrounded by the wilderness.

Catherines ghost.

6. Gothic elements
Emily Bront
6. Gothic elements
Emily Bront
The dreams and superstitions often mentioned.
These are not used to frighten the reader, but to convey
the struggle between the two opposed principles of love
and hate, of order and chaos.
The home of the Earnshaws.

Severe, gloomy, brutal in aspect
and atmosphere.

Firmly rooted in local tradition and
custom.

The background for the life of
primitive passion led by its owner.
The home of the Lintons.

Reflects a Victorian conception
of life.

Symbolises stability, kindness
and respectability.
7. Opposite principles
Thrushcross Grange Wuthering Heights
principle of storm and energy
principle of calm
Emily Bront

Wuthering Heights Summary & Analysis

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