FREE ESSAY ON HEATHCLIFF AND CATHY OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS

HEATHCLIFF AND CATHY OF WUTHERING HEIGHTS

Heathcliff and Cathy of Wuthering Heights
The setting and descriptions of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange that Emily
Bronte uses throughout her novel, Wuthering Heights, helps to set the mood for describing
Heathcliff and Cathy. The cold, muddy, and barren moors separate the two households. Each
house stands alone, in the midst of the dreary land, but the atmospheres of the two
estates are quite different. This difference helps explain the personalities and bond of
Cathy and Heathcliff. 
Wuthering Heights, which represents Hell, is always in a state of storminess. The Heights
and its surroundings depict the coldness, darkness, and evil associated with Hell. This
parallels Heathcliff. He symbolizes the cold, dark, and dismal house. The author uses
parallel personifications to depict specific parts of the house as analogues to
Heathcliff's face. Bronte describes the windows of the Heights as deeply set in the wall.
Similarly, Heathcliff has deep-set dark eyes. Alongside with this association, Bronte's
title of her book holds definite meaning. The very definition of "wuthering" is "to dry
up, shrivel, or wilt as from decay" ("Wuthering," WordSmyth Collaboration). The
inhabitants, especially Heathcliff and Cathy, cause the decay of themselves and bring
"storminess" to the house.
On the other hand, the Grange; with all its richness; depicts wonderful Heaven.
Thrushcross Grange, in contrast to the bleak exposed farmhouse, stands in the valley and
has none of the grim features of the Earnshaw's home. Light and warmth fills the Grange;
it is the appropriate home of the children of the calm. Wuthering Heights, however, is
always full of activity, sometimes to the point of chaos. Brave Cathy, a child of the
storm, tries to tie these two worlds of storm and calm together. Despite the fact that
she occupies a position midway between the two worlds, Catherine is a product of the
moors. She belongs in a sense to both worlds and is torn between Heathcliff and Linton.
Catherine does not "like" Heathcliff, yet loves him with all of the strength of her
being. For he, like her, is a child of the storm; this makes a bond between them, and
interweaves itself with the very nature of their existence. In a sublime passage, she
tells Nelly that she loves Heathcliff:
…not because he's handsome Nelly, but because he's more myself then I am. Whatever
or souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a
moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire…. My great miseries in this world have
been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great
thought in living is himself. 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: I should not seem a part of it. 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."
(Bronte 86, 87.) 
Despite the fact that she loves only Heathcliff, she marries Edgar Linton to try to place
Heathcliff "out of [his] brother's power" (Bronte 87). Cathy's "duty" toward Heathcliff
forms in their bond when they grew up together. Their bond ties them to each other, and
to the shared love of nature; the rocks, stones, trees, the heavy skies and eclipsed sun,
which encompasses them. This "binding" makes Heathcliff inseparable from Cathy. This is
shown when he runs off after hearing Cathy's degrading comments about why she will not
marry him. Heathcliff symbolizes the raging storm he disappears into. Catherine, upon
hearing that Heathcliff heard her comments, goes out to the road in search of him
"where…the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to splash around her,
she remained calling, at intervals, and then listening, and then crying outright" (Bronte
89). This symbolism proves that the relationship and the internal bond that Cathy and
Heathcliff have ties in closely with nature. 
The contrast of these two houses adds much to the meaning of the novel, and without it,
the story would not be the interesting, complex novel that it is without the contrast
between the two estates. The contrast between them is more than physical, rather these
two houses represent opposing forces that embody the inhabitants. This contrast is what
brings about the presentation of this story altogether, and is what draws itself to a
human being by the richness of the surrounding landscape.
Works Cited
Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Ed. Linda H. Peterson. Boston: Bedford Books, 1992. 
Peterson, Linda H. Introduction. Wuthering Heights. By Emily Bronte. Boston: Bedford
Books, 1992. 3-13.
"Wuthering." WordSymth: The Educational Dictionary-Thesaurus. WordSymth Collaboration, 
1999. 21 March 2000. *http://wordsymth.net