Plot summary

1.The action takes place in 1801. A man named Lockwood rents a manor house called Thrushcross
Grange in the isolated moor country of England. His dour landlord is Heathclif, he is a wealthy man and
lives at Wuthering Heights. Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell him the story of
Heathcliff. Nelly tells him the story and Lockwood writes het tell in his diary. these written recollections
form the main part of Wuthering Heights.
2.Nelly tells him about her childhood. As a young girl, she works as a servant at Wuthering Heights
for the owner of the manor, Mr. Earnshaw, and his family. Mr. Earnshaw returns one day from Liverpool
with an orphan boy. He will raise him with his children, Hindley and Catherine. Hindley detests him but
Catherine quickly comes to love him, and the two soon grow inseparable, spending their days playing on
the moors.
3.Mr. Earnshaw prefers Heathcliff to his son. Hindley is very cruel with Heathcliff and his father
sends him away to school.
4.When Mr. Earnshaw dies Hindley returns with his wife. He inherits Wuthering Heights and seeks
revenge on Heathcliff. He treates Heathcliff as a common laborer and forces him to work in the fields.
5.Heathcliff and Catherine are very close and one night they want to tease Edgar and Isabela Linton
at Thruscroos Grange. Catherine is bitten by a dog and is forced to stay at the Grange to recuperate for
five weeks, during which time Mrs. Linton works to make her a proper young lady. When she comes back
to Wuthering Heights her relationship with Heathcliff is more complicated.
6.Hindley’s wife dies after she gives birth to a boy, Hareton and Hindley descends into the depths of
alcoholism and behaves even more cruelly and abusively toward Heathcliff. Even if Catherine loves
Heathcliff very much she becomes engaged to Edgar Linton because of her desire for social advancement.
Destroyed by this Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights for three years and returns after Catherine
and Edgar’s wedding.
7.After his return he seeks revenge on the ones who hurted him. He lends money to Hindley
knowing that Hindley will increase his depts because he is drunken all the time and he has a bad health
condition. After Hindley’s death Heathcliff inherits the manor. He wants to inherit Thrushcross Grange by
marrying Isabella Linton.

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 8.Catherine becomes ill, she gives birth to a girl and dies. After her death Heathcliff begs her spirit
to stay on earth, she may hunt him and drive him mad but not leave him. Isabella flees to London where
she gives birth to a boy.
9.After thirteen years Nelly is still serving as young Catherine’s nurse at Thrusccross Grange.Young
Catherine is beautiful and headstrong like her mother, but her temperament is modified by her father’s
gentler influence.She grows up at Thrusccross Grange but one day wandering through the moors she ends
up at Wuthering Heights where she meets Hareton. When Isabella dies Linton comes to live with his
father Heathcliff but Heathcliff treats his ill son even worse than he treated her mother.
10.Three years later young Catherine meets Heathcliff on the moors and goes with him to visit
Wuthering Heights and there she meets Linton. The two begin a secret romance and communicate through
leeters. Nelly finds Catherine’s letter and burns them. Catherine sneaks out at night to meet her lover but
Linton acts like this only because he is forced by his father. Heathcliff hopes that if Catherine marries
Linton, his legal claim upon Thrushcross Grange—and his revenge upon Edgar Linton—will be complete.
11.When Edgar Linton becomes ill Heathcliff lures Nelly and Catherine at Wuthering Heights and
holds them prisoner until Catherine marries Linton. Soon after the marriage, Edgar dies, and his death is
quickly followed by the death of the sickly Linton. Heathcliff now controls both Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Grange. He rents Thrushcross Grange to Lockwood and forces Catherine to live at Wuthering
Heights.
12.In present Lockwood leaves Thrushcross Grange and goes to London. Six months later he pays a
visit to Nelly and finds out that even if at first Catherine doesn’t like Hareton she will grow to love him as
they live togheter at Wuthering.
13.Heathcliff becomes more and more obsessed with the memory of the elder Catherine, to the
extent that he begins speaking to her ghost. He dies after a walk through the moors. Hareton and young
Catherine inherit Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, and they plan to be married on the next
New Year’s Day. Lockwood goes to visit the grave of Heathcliff and Catherine.

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Who’s who in Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff -  He is an orphan brought to live at Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw.

While Heathcliff grows up he falls into an unbreakable love with Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter
Catherine. After Mr. Earnshaw dies, his resentful son Hindley treats him as a servant. Because of her
desire for social prominence, Catherine marries Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff. Heathcliff’s
humiliation and misery make him to spend most of the rest of his life seeking revenge on Hindley, his
beloved Catherine, and their respective children (Hareton and young Catherine). 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. He is an orphan who succeedes to
become a powerful and rich man, he obtains Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange as well but loses
the most important person to him, Catherine. He will love her all his life and even after she dies he begs
her spirit to stay with him. He is a good man, he has a good soul but becomes cruel due to the way he is
maltreated by Hindley and because Catherine gives up on him in favour of Edgar Linton.
Catherine -  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. She marryies Edgar because she wants to help Heathcliff using Edgar’s
money. 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. Even if she is married with Edgar her mind and soul stil belong to Heathcliff.
Edgar Linton -  He is 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. He truly loves Catherine even if she belittles him.
Nelly Dean -  Nelly 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.

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Lockwood -  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.
Young Catherine -  The first Catherine begins her life as Catherine Earnshaw and ends it as Catherine
Linton; her daughter begins as Catherine Linton and, assuming that she marries Hareton after the end of
the story, goes on to become Catherine Earnshaw. She doesn’t only share the same name with her mother,
but also a tendency toward headstrong behavior, impetuousness, and occasional arrogance. However,
Edgar’s influence seems to have tempered young Catherine’s character, and she is a gentler and more
compassionate creature than her mother.
Hareton Earnshaw -  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 young Catherine. He seems to love Heathcliff and
founds in him a father.
Linton Heathcliff -  Heathcliff’s son by Isabella. He is weak, 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. He doesn’t have a father-son relation with Heathcliff. Heathcliff
despises Linton, treats him contemptuously, doesn’t show any love to him as if he wouldn’t be his son
and, by forcing him to marry the young Catherine, uses him to cement his control over Thrushcross
Grange after Edgar Linton’s death. Linton himself dies not long after this marriage.
Hindley Earnshaw – The son of Mr. Earnshaw and Catherine’s brother. 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. He becomes a victim of Heathcliff’s revenge and pays for the
way he mistreated him.
Isabella Linton – She is the sister of Edgar Linton. She 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

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love with him. He never returns her feelings and treats her as a mere tool in his quest for revenge on the
Linton family. Heathcliff is very cruel to her and tells her from the beginning that he hates her blue eyes
because they are so resembling to Edgar’s eyes.
Mr. Earnshaw -  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.
Mrs. Earnshaw -  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.
Joseph -  He is a servant at Wuthering Heights. A long-winded, fanatically religious old man. Joseph is
strange, stubborn, and unkind, and he speaks with a thick Yorkshire accent.
Frances Earnshaw -  Hindley’s simpering, silly wife, who treats Heathcliff cruelly. She dies shortly after
giving birth to Hareton.
Mr. Linton -  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.
Mrs. Linton -  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.

Conflict is the basic foundation for Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Much of this conflict results
from a distinct division of classes and is portrayed through personal relationships, for example the
unfriendly relationship between the higher-class Lintons and the lower-class Heathcliff. Conflict is also
portrayed by the appearance of characters the setting. The division of classes is based on cultural,
economic, and social differences, and it greatly affects the general behaviour and actions of each
character. The setting of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange provides a clear example of social
contrast. While the Heights is depicted as simply typical and "domestic," the Grange is described as a
"scene of unprecedented richness". Each house is associated with behaviour fitting the description. For
example, when Catherine is taken into the Grange, she experiences drastic changes, thus going from a
"savage" to a "lady". While at this house, she rises in status, learns manners, and receives great privileges
such as not having to work. Heathcliff, on the other hand, learns to classify himself as a member of the
lower class.Catherine's decision to marry Edgar Linton rather than Heathcliff widens the gap between

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social classes because Edgar Linton is a wealthy man of high status, and Heathcliff is poor and possesses
noassets,society.
The story concludes in "resolution and reconciliation". After Heathcliff's death, the classes seem to
converge and accept one another which is shown by the union of the ‘high-class’ young Cathy and ‘lower-
class’ Hareton. Initially Thrushcross Grange is symbolic of Catherine in that it is refined and ‘high-class.
Wuthering Heights is symbolic of Heathcliff in the opposite manner. After conflict between the two
properties during Heathcliff’s range the properties are eventually restored to being peaceful. This
symbolises a resolve within the setting.Wuthering Heights is a Gothic novel (designed to both horrify and
fascinate readers with scenes of passion and cruelty; supernatural elements; and a dark, foreboding
atmosphere); also realist fiction (incorporates vivid circumstantial detail into a consistently and minutely
thought-out plot, dealing mostly with the relationships of the characters to one another).In 1846–1847,
Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights in the parsonage of the isolated village of Haworth, in Yorkshire.
The narrator is  Lockwood, a newcomer to the locale of Wuthering Heights, narrates the entire novel as an
entry in his diary. The story that Lockwood records is told to him by Nelly, a servant, and Lockwood
writes most of the narrative in her voice, describing how she told it to him. Some parts of Nelly’s story are
narrated by other characters, such as when Nelly receives a letter from Isabella and recites its contents
verbatim. 
 Most of the events of the novel are narrated in Nelly’s voice, from Nelly’s point of view, focusing
only on what Nelly can see and hear, or what she can find out about indirectly. Nelly frequently comments
on what the other characters think and feel, and on what their motivations are, but these comments are all
based on her own interpretations of the other characters—she is not an omniscient narrator. It is not easy
to infer the author’s attitude toward the events of the novel. The melodramatic quality of the first half of
the novel suggests that Brontë views Catherine and Heathcliff’s doomed love as a tragedy of lost potential
and wasted passion. However, the outcome of the second half of the novel suggests that Brontë is more
interested in celebrating the renewal and rebirth brought about by the passage of time, and the rise of a
new generation, than she is in mourning Heathcliff and Catherine. All the action of Wuthering
Heights takes place in or around two neighboring houses on the Yorkshire moors—Wuthering Heights
and Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff’s great natural abilities, strength of character, and love for Catherine
Earnshaw all enable him to raise himself from humble beginnings to the status of a wealthy gentleman,
but his need to revenge himself for Hindley’s abuse and Catherine’s betrayal leads him into a twisted life
of cruelty and hatred; Catherine is torn between her love for Heathcliff and her desire to be a

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gentlewoman, and her decision to marry the genteel Edgar Linton drags almost all of the novel’s
characters into conflict with Heathcliff. Heathcliff’s arrival at Wuthering Heights, Hindley’s abusive
treatment of Heathcliff, and Catherine’s first visit to Thrushcross Grange set the major conflicts in motion;
once Heathcliff hears Catherine say it would “degrade” her to marry him, the conversation between Nelly
and Catherine, which he secretly overhears, drives him to run away and pursue his vengeance.Themes:
The destructiveness of a love that never changes; the precariousness of social class. An essential element
of Wuthering Heights is the exploration and extension of the meaning of romance. By contrasting the
passionate, natural love of Catherine and Heathcliff with the socially constructed forms of courtship and
marriage, Emily Brontë makes an argument in favor of individual choice. Catherine and Heathcliff both
assert that they know the other as themselves, that they are an integral part of each other, and that one’s
death will diminish the other immeasurably. This communion, however, is doomed to failure while they
live because of social constraints. Heathcliff’s unknown parentage, his poverty, and his lack of education
make him an unsuitable partner for a gentlewoman, no matter how liberated her expressions of
independence. Brontë suggests the possibility of reunion after death when local residents believe they see
the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine together, but this notion is explicitly denied by Lockwood’s last
assertion in the novel, that the dead slumber quietly.

The profound influence of Romantic poetry on Brontë’s literary imagination is evident in her
development of Heathcliff as a Byronic hero. This characterization contributes to the impossibility of any
happy union of Catherine and Heathcliff while they live. Heathcliff looms larger than life, subject to
violent extremes of emotion, amenable to neither education nor nurturing. Like Frankenstein’s monster, he
craves love and considers revenge the only fit justice when he is rejected by others. Catherine, self-
involved and prone to emotional storms, has just enough sense of self-preservation to recognize
Heathcliff’s faults, including his amorality. Choosing to marry Edgar Linton is to choose psychic
fragmentation and separation from her other self, but she sees no way to reconcile her psychological need
for wholeness with the physical support and emotional stability that she requires. Unable to earn a living,
dependent on a brother who is squandering the family fortune, she is impelled to accept the social
privileges and luxuries that Edgar offers.Yet conventional forms of romance provide no clear guide to
successful marriage either; both Edgar and his sister, Isabella, suffer by acting on stereotypical notions of
love. Edgar does not know Catherine in any true sense, and his attempts to control her force her
subversive self-destruction. Isabella, fascinated by the Byronic qualities with which Heathcliff is so richly

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endowed, believes that she really loves him and becomes a willing victim in his scheme of revenge. What
remains is a paradoxical statement about the nature and value of love and a question about whether any
love can transcend social and natural barriers. Another theme that Brontë examines is the effect of abuse
and brutality on human nature. The novel contains minimal examples of nurturing, and most instruction to
children is of the negative kind that Joseph provides with his lectures threatening damnation. Children
demonstrably suffer from a lack of love from their parents, whose attention alternates between total
neglect and physical threats. The novel is full of violence, exemplified by the dreams that Lockwood has
when he stays in Wuthering Heights. After being weakened by a nosebleed which occurs when
Heathcliff’s dogs attack him, Lockwood spends the night in Catherine Earnshaw’s old room. He dreams
first of being accused of an unpardonable sin and being beaten by a congregation in church, then of a
small girl, presumably Catherine, who is trying to enter the chamber’s window. Terrified, he rubs her
wrist back and forth on a broken windowpane until he is covered in blood. These dreams anticipate further
violence: Hindley’s drunken assaults on his son and animals, Catherine’s bloody capture by the Lintons’
bulldog, Edgar’s blow to Heathcliff’s neck, and Heathcliff’s mad head-banging when he learns of
Catherine’s death. Heathcliff never recovers from the neglect and abuse that he has experienced as a child;
all that motivates him in adulthood is revenge and a philosophy that the weak deserve to be crushed.

A third significant theme of Wuthering Heights is the power of the natural setting. Emily Brontë loved
the wildness of the moors and incorporated much of her affection into her novel. Catherine and Heathcliff
are most at one with each other when they are outdoors. The freedom that they experience is profound; not
only have they escaped Hindley’s anger, but they are free from social restraints and expectations as well.
When Catherine’s mind wanders before her death, she insists on opening the windows to breathe the wind
off the moors, and she believes herself to be under Penistone Crag with Heathcliff. Her fondest memories
are of the times on the moors; the enclosed environment of Thrushcross Grange seems a petty prison. In
contrast to Catherine and Heathcliff, other characters prefer the indoors and crave the protection that the
houses afford. Lockwood is dependent on the comforts of home and hearth, and the Lintons are portrayed
as weaklings because of their upbringing in a sheltered setting. This method of delineating character by
identifying with nature is another aspect of Emily Brontë’s inheritance from the Romantic poets.

Representative quotes:

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1.“He is more myself than I am. Whatever our two souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
Catherine

In my opinion this quote expresses how powerful Catherine’s love for Heathcliff is. She loves him so
much that she tottaly identifies herself with him, she feels as they where one person.

2. “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff”

Catherine says that a marriage with Heathcliff would degrade her even if she loves him so much.
Heathcliff has no money and no social status so they would be pour and Catherine wants to be in the upper
class society. Catherine’s speech to Nelly about her acceptance of Edgar’s proposal, in Chapter IX, forms
the turning-point of the plot. It is at this point that Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights, after he has
overheard Catherine say that it would “degrade” her to marry him. Although the action of Wuthering
Heights takes place so far from the bustle of society, where most of Brontë’s contemporaries set their
scenes, social ambition motivates many of the actions of these characters, however isolated among the
moors. Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar Linton out of a desire to be “the greatest woman of the
neighbourhood” exemplifies the effect of social considerations on the characters’ actions.

3. “I got the sexton, who was digging Linton’s grave, to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened
it. I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face again—it is hers yet—he had hard work
to stir me; but he said it would change, if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose,
and covered it up—not Linton’s side, damn him!”

When Heathcliff narrates this ghoulish scene to Nelly in Chapter XXIX, the book enters into one of
its most Gothic moments. Heathcliff, trying to recapture Catherine herself, constantly comes upon mere
reminders of her. However, far from satisfying him, these reminders only lead him to further attempts.
Heathcliff’s desire to rejoin Catherine might indeed explain the majority of Heathcliff’s actions, from his
acquisition of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, to his seizure of power over everyone
associated with Catherine.He tries to break through what reminds him of his beloved to his beloved herself
by destroying the reminder, the intermediary. Readers can see, in the language he uses here, this
difference between the objects that refer to Catherine and Catherine herself. When he opens her coffin, he

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does not say that he sees her again. Instead, he says, “I saw her face again,” showing that her corpse, like
her daughter or her portrait, is a thing she possessed, a thing that refers to her, but not the woman herself.

4. “If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn’t love you as much as I
do in a single day”

Heathcliff explains to Catherine how strong his love for her is. He tells her that Edgar couldn’t love
her in a life time as much as he loves her in a single day.

5.”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”

Catherine tells Nelly that even if she would lose everything and Heathcliff would still be there she
would still continue to exist but if Heathcliff would disappear she would feel like a stranger in this world,
she would lose her identity.

6. “The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was
covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all
kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff,
and then again to Catherine Linton. In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and
continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed”

In this passage from Chapter III, Lockwood relates the first of the troubling dreams he has in
Catherine’s old bed. The quotation testifies to Lockwood’s role as a reader within the novel, representing
the external reader—the perplexed outsider determined to discover the secrets of Wuthering Heights.
Upon Lockwood’s first arrival at the house, no one answers his knocks on the door, and he cries, “I don’t
care—I will get in!” The same blend of frustration and determination has marked the responses of many
readers and critics when facing the enigmas of Wuthering Heights.The connection between Lockwood and
readers is particularly clear in this passage. Catherine first appears to Lockwood, as she does to readers, as
a written word—her name, scratched into the paint. When Lockwood reads over the scraped letters, they
seem to take on a ghostly power.

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