Wuthering Heights Character Analysis

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In the winter of 1801, a man named Lockwood pays a visit to his landlord Mr. Heathcliff, who lives at Wuthering Heights. Lockwood finds Mr. Heathcliff strange and wants to learn more about him. When he gets back to his home at Thrushcross Grange, he asks his house keeper, Nelly, to tell the story of Heathcliff, which he writes in his diary.

She narrates his history and that of the estates through the present, and then Lockwood leaves and returns to the complete the novel.

Nelly starts her story with her childhood working as a servant in Wuthering Heights. Mr. Earns haw, the owner of the Heights, goes to Liverpool, and returns with an orphan boy, Heathcliff. The Earns haw children, Hindley and Catherine, do not like Heathcliff, but Catherine quickly comes to love him. Three years later, Mr. Earns haw dies and Hindly inherits the Heights. Hindly still dislikes Heathcliff, and puts him to work as a laborer. Catherine and Heathcliff sneak off one night to the Grange to make fun of Edgar and Isabella Linton, the snobbish children who live there. Catherine gets bitten by a dog, and is forced to stay at the Grange until she gets better. By the time Catherine comes back, she is a proper young lady and Edgar proposes to her. She loves Heathcliff, but she wants to be with Edgar because he is rich. Heathcliff, hearing this, runs away and does not come back for three years.

When he returns, he immediately sets about seeking revenge on all who have wronged him. Handily has a drinking problem and has no money. Heathcliff pays for the Heights and soon after Handily dies, and Heathcliff inherits the manor. He finds out Isabella Linton likes him so he marries her and treats her very cruelly, so he can inherit the Grange. Catherine becomes ...

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...t the beginning of the novel. It was the quote that started it all. Mr. Lockwood was curious about Catherine and goes to find out abut her. Most of the story is about Catherine. “The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled in the 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 of small-Catherine Earnshaw here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton [. . .] I lent my head against the window, and continued over spelling over Catherine Earnshaw Heathcliff-Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes, when a glare of white letters started from the dark” (19).

Works Cited

“Emily Brontë.” Answers.com. Who2 Biography.1998-2009. 27 August 2009

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