"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë

I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am (86).

Catherine admits to Ellen that she loves Heathcliff but cannot think of marrying him because he has been degraded by Hindley.

Heathcliff hears this speech, and he leaves Wuthering Heights, not to return for three years. ) Nelly, I see now, you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power? (87). Catherine tells Ellen what she believes will happen with her marriage and her relationship to Heathcliff.

She really believes that her marriage to Linton will end up helping Heathcliff, which of course it does not. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods; time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees.

My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath–a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind–not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being (88).

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The extent of the love between Catherine and Heathcliff is shown here. Heathcliff says similar things throughout the novel.

I’d as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter’s day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him!… He’s not a rough diamond a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man (109). Although she loves Heathcliff, Catherine realizes the man he has become and strongly advises Isabella against getting involved with him. Isabella thinks Catherine is only jealous, and does not heed her advice.

You teach me how cruel you’ve been – cruel and false. Why do you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, nd cry, and wring out my kisses and tears; they’ll blight you – they’ll damn you. You loved me–then what right had you to leave me? What right answer me for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart–you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine (170).

As Catherine is ill and dying she blames Heathcliff for her suffering, but he tells her that it was she that left him and that all blame for their sorrow is hers. ) … Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe–I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always take any form drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul! (176). Heathcliff passionately pleads for Catherine not to leave him after she has died.

I recovered from my first desire to be killed by him-I’d rather he’d kill himself! He has extinguished my love effectually, and so I’m at my ease (182). Isabella has finally escaped from Heathcliff and from her love for him. She says this to Ellen as she is about to leave for another part of England.

The task was done, not free from further blunders, but the pupil claimed a reward, and received at least five kisses which, however, he generously returned. Then, they came to the door, and from their conversation, I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on the moors (321). In the end of the novel Catherine has given up on being an enemy of Hareton, and instead teaches him to read. The two are friends and are engaged to be married.

My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the precise time to revenge myself on their representatives-I could do it, and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don’t care for striking, I can’t take the trouble to raise my hand. (336) Heathcliff has given up on revenge, as no longer has the will for it. It is only because of this that he is able to see Catherine again.

But the country folks, if you asked them, would swear on their Bible that he walks. There are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house. Idle tales, you’ll say, and so say I. Yet that old man by the kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on ’em looking out of his chamber window, on every rainy night since his death. (349). Ellen tells Lockwood about the how the country people and Joseph have seen the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine walking on the moors.