Wuthering Heights

In the gothic novel, Wuthering Heights, a man named Lockwood rents a manor house called Thrushcross Grange in the moor country of England in the winter of 1801. Here, he meets his landlord, Heathcliff, a very wealthy man who lives 4 miles away in the manor called Wuthering Heights. Nelly Dean is Lockwood’s housekeeper, who worked as a servant in Wuthering Heights when she was a child. Lockwood asks her to tell him about Heathcliff, she agrees, while she tells the story Lockwood writes it all down in his diary.

Nelly worked at Wuthering Heights for the owner, Mr. Earnshaw, and his family. One day Mr. Earnshaw leaves for Liverpool and comes back with an orphaned boy. Catherine and Hindley – the two Earnshaw children, can not stand Heathcliff. But Catherine and Heathcliff quickly become friends and fall in love, which makes them inseparable. Mr. Earnshaw begins to favor Heathcliff over his own son. Hindley becomes very cruel to Heathcliff and is sent away to college by his father.

Mr. Earnshaw dies, three years later, and Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights. He comes home married to a woman named Frances. Hindley becomes very cruel to Heathcliff and makes him become a servant in the manor. Catherine and Heathcliff remain close until one night they went to sneak over to Thrushcross Grange, where Catherine is bitten by a dog and forced to stay there for 5 weeks. When Catherine returns she has been taught how to be real lady and has become infatuated with Edgar.

Catherine is still in love with Heathcliff but for her need to have a social advancement she gets engaged with Edgar instead. Hindley’s wife, Frances, dies while giving birth to their son, Haerton, which pushes Hindley into alcoholism. Then Heathcliff runs away from Wuthe...

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...the characters in Wuthering Heights, and they reach the same conclusions. Both William Crimsworth (in The Professor) and Jane Eyre reject the master-slave relationship as static and stultifying and come to the teacher-pupil relationship as the one that allows for growth and the fulfillment of human potential. Similarly, Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw see the futility of Heathcliff’s desire for revenge and domination (his seeing the world solely in terms of the master-slave relationship when love fails him) and affirm civilization and civilized values in terms of the teacher-pupil relationship. (Knoepflmacher)

Works Cited

Knoepflmacher, U. C. Laughter & Despair; Readings in Ten Novels of the Victorian Era. Berkeley: University of California, 1971. Print.

Bronte, Emily Wuthering heights; Needham, Massachusetts, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: 1847. Print.