Book+Synopsis

//Wuthering Heights// is a gothic love story spanning across two generations of the inhabitants of a remote manor in the gusty Yorkshire moors of England. The story revolves around the love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an orphan raised with Catherine and her cruel brother Hindley. Though Catherine and Heathcliff love each other from an early age as they wild around the moors as children, they are separated when Catherine is forced to live with the posh Linton family at Thrushcross Grange for a month. Upon her arrival back at Wuthering Heights, Catherine and Heathcliff find themselves on awkward terms: Catherine has become refined and lady-like while Heathcliff is still a dirty heathen. Matters are made worse when Edward Linton, a much more elegant man than Heathcliff, begins courting Catherine. Heathcliff is dismayed at Catherine’s apparent love for Edgar. When Heathcliff hears Catherine tell the manor’s housekeeper, Nelly, that she considers Heathcliff much too lowly to bestow her love upon, Heathcliff flees Wuthering Heights. In doing so, he does not hear Catherine also tell Nelly that she deeply loves him. When Heathcliff returns years later, he is a new man: “//His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton’s; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half-civilized ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows, and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified, quite divested of roughness though too stern for grace.”// P 96
 * Plot Synopsis**

Heathcliff is intent on taking his revenge against Hindley for treating him poorly during their youth. Catherine is overjoyed at the sight of Heathcliff but Edgar is immediately threatened. He soon tells Catherine that she must choose between him and Heathcliff, throwing her into illness and depression. Catherine does not recover from her plight and soon dies giving birth to Edgar’s daughter, whom he names Catherine. Heathcliff is thrown into a deep melancholy, praying that Catherine haunt him every day so he can still see her: “//And I pray one prayer – I repeat it till my tongue stiffens – Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you – haunt me, then!” P 169//

Heathcliff and Isabella Linton also interlope and Isabella soon has a child named Linton whom Heathcliff bitterly rejects. Soon, Heathcliff comes into possession of Wuthering Heights by continually beating the hated Hindley in cards. When Hindley dies, Heathcliff is left to care for Hareton, Hindley’s son. Linton, who was living with his mother in London, also moves back to Yorkshire after his mother’s death. Heathcliff adopts him at Wuthering Heights but forces him to work for his keep. Though Catherine is forbidden to leave Thrushcross Grange by her father, Edgar, she disobeys and meets Hareton. The two play together on the moors, drawing uncanny resemblance to Heathcliff and Catherine together as children. Several months after young Catherine meets Hareton, Catherine ominously receives an invitation from Heathcliff to visit Wuthering Heights. When Catherine visits Wuthering Heights she is slightly impressed with sickly young Linton and it is revealed that Heathcliff’s treacherous plan is to lure her into marrying Linton so that when the weak and frail Edgar dies, Heathcliff will possess Thrushcross Grange thus exacting his revenge against his hated half-brother Hindley by possessing what was once his. Heathcliff also takes in Catherine but is inhospitable and miserly to her also. Heathcliff’s plan works and Thrushcross Grange comes into his hands. However, he is angered when Catherine, who had first been quite condescending towards the uneducated Hareton, begins teaching him how to read. Heathcliff disproves of their love and nearly physically strikes Catherine for her insolence when a vision of his own beloved Catherine overtakes him:

//“In every cloud, in every tree – filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object, by day I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women – my own features – mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her.”// P 324

Heathcliff suddenly becomes subdued and peaceful, allowing the love between young Catherine and Hareton to develop like the love between himself and his Catherine never could:

“//I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”// P 337