Wuthering Heights

1. Wuthering Heights 1757:Hindley born (summer); Nelly born 1762:Edgar Linton born 1764:Heathcliff born[dubious ] 1765:Catherine Earnshaw born (summer); Isabella Linton born (late 1765) 1771:Heathcliff brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw (late summer) 1773:Mrs Earnshaw dies (spring) 1774:Hindley sent off to college 1777:Hindley marries Frances; Mr Earnshaw dies and Hindley comes back (October); Heathcliff and Cathy visit Thrushcross Grange for the first time; Cathy remains behind (November), and then returns to Wuthering Heights (Christmas Eve) 1778:Hareton born (June); Frances dies

2. 1780:Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights; Mr and Mrs Linton both die • 1783:Catherine has married Edgar (March); Heathcliff comes back (September) • 1784:Heathcliff marries Isabella (February); Catherine dies and Cathy born (20 March); Hindley dies; Linton born (September) • 1797:Isabella dies; Cathy visits Wuthering Heights and meets Hareton; Linton brought to Thrushcross Grange and then taken to Wuthering Heights • 1800:Cathy meets Heathcliff and sees Linton again (20 March) • 1801:Cathy and Linton are married (August); Edgar dies (August); Linton dies (September); Mr Lockwood goes to Thrushcross Grange and visits Wuthering Heights, beginning his narrative • 1802:Mr Lockwood goes back to London (January); Heathcliff dies (April); Mr Lockwood comes back to Thrushcross Grange (September) • 1803:Cathy plans to marry Hareton (1 January)

3. Setting • The story begins in 1801, then flashes back to the 1770's and eventually returns to the early 1800's. The locale is the Yorkshire moors in northern England. A moor is tract of mostly treeless wasteland where heather thrives and water saturates the earth. The action takes place at two estates, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, about four miles apart.  

4. Genre • Wuthering Heights is a novel of romance, revenge, and tragedy. It exhibits many characteristics of the so-called Gothic novel, which focuses on dark, mysterious events. The typical Gothic novel unfolds at one or more creepy sites, such as a dimly lit castle, an old mansion on a hilltop, a misty cemetery, a forlorn countryside, or the laboratory of a scientist conducting frightful experiments. In some Gothic novels, characters imagine that they see ghosts and monsters. In others, the ghosts and monsters are real. The weather in a Gothic novel is often dreary or foul: There may be high winds that rattle windowpanes, electrical storms with lightning strikes, and gray skies that brood over landscapes. (The word wuthering refers to violent wind.) The Gothic novel derives its name from the Gothic architectural style popular in Europe between the 12th and 16th centuries. Gothic structures–such as cathedrals–featured cavernous interiors with deep shadows, stone walls that echoed the footsteps of worshippers, gargoyles looming on exterior ledges, and soaring spires suggestive of a supernatural presence. 

5. Themes • Theme 1: Love gone wrong. Relationships in Wuthering Heights are like the moors: dark, stormy, twisted. Cathy loves Heathcliff but marries Edgar Linton. Heathcliff loves Cathy but marries Isabella Linton. Mr. Earnshaw loves his adopted son, Heathcliff, better than his biological son, Hindley, causing Hindley to despise Heathcliff. Linton and young Cathy are forced to marry.  Theme 2: Cruelty begets cruelty. Hindley’s maltreatment of Heathcliff helps turn the latter into a vengeful monster. In developing this theme, Emily Bronte is ahead of her time, demonstrating that suffering abuse as a child can lead to inflicting abuse as an adult.  Theme 3: Revenge. Heathcliff’s desire to get even against all who wronged him is at times so strong that it subverts his other emotions, including love.  Theme 4: Lure of Success and Social Standing. Cathy marries Edgar after becoming infatuated with his image as a cultured gentleman with wealth enough to meet her every need. Isabella marries Heathcliff after becoming infatuated with an idealized, romantic image of him. 

6. Themes • Theme 5: Class distinctions. Heathcliff’s fury erupts after Cathy decides to marry “up” into the world of the Lintons, and not down into the world of Heathcliff.  Theme 6: Fate. The entire novel depends on the forces unleashed when Mr. Earnshaw happens upon an orphan child, Heathcliff, on a street in Liverpool and returns with him to Wuthering Heights.  Theme 7: Prejudice. The upper crust, the Lintons, look down upon the lower crust, Heathcliff and his kind.  Theme 8: The moors as a reflection of life around them (or vice versa) and life beyond. The dark, stormy moors–where only low-growing plants such as heather thrive–symbolize the passionate and sometimes perverted emotional lives of the residents of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. In the gloomy wasteland, the Yorkshire folk, including Heathcliff himself, sometimes report seeing ghosts of people buried in the moors.  

7. Climax • Most analysts of Wuthering Heights maintain that the climax of the novel occurs when Cathy dies, unarguably a decisive turning point. However, one may fairly conclude that the climax comes earlier–in particular when Heathcliff overhears Cathy say she intends to marry Edgar Linton. This event deeply wounds Heathcliff, causes him to abandon Wuthering Heights, and triggers the dreadful events that follow.  

8. Plot Structure: Frame Tale .  To tell her story, Brontë uses two narrators, Mr. Lockwood and Ellen Dean, called Nelly. Lockwood, who rents Thrushcross Grange, begins the narrative; Nelly takes it over after he asks her to tell him the story of Heathcliff. Lockwood and Nelly thus combine to form a picture, Lockwood acting as the "outer narrator" who frames the picture and Nelly acting as the "inner narrator" who paints the picture.