Wuthering Heights
Synopsis
Starting with the framing device of the novel, Mr. Lockwood goes to visit Heathcliff, hoping to rent Heathcliff's property Thrushcross Grange, and ends up talking to Nelly Dean who tells him the 30 year story that encompasses almost the entire novel. Nelly recalls growing up and working as a servant at Wuthering Heights alongside Mr. Earnshaw’s two children, Hindley and Catherine. One day, Mr. Earnshaw returns from a trip to Liverpool with a dark featured orphaned boy named Heathcliff. Cathy and Heathcliff become inseparable. After Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley gains control of Wuthering Heights and forces Heathcliff to work as a laborer in the fields.
When Cathy and Heathcliff venture through the moors, Cathy gets bitten by a dog belonging to Edgar and Isabella Linton who live at Thrushcross Grange and is forced to stay at their house to recover for five weeks. Cathy returns to Wuthering Heights a proper and grown up lady. Although Cathy loves Heathcliff, she says to Nelly that to marry him would be beneath her now, and Heathcliff overhears. He leaves Wuthering Heights, and doesn’t return for three years, soon after Cathy and Edgar are married.
Heathcliff returns mysteriously rich, sophisticated, and hellbent on vengeance. Hindley, in contrast, has become an alcoholic and gambler since the simultaneous birth of his son Hareton and death of his wife Frances. He eventually dies, and Heathcliff inherits Wuthering Heights (and Hareton). In this time, Heathcliff also marries Isabella, Edgar’s sister, to hopefully inherit Thrushcross Grange. Cathy becomes ill and dies giving birth to a daughter named after her. Heathcliff is devastated and driven to further madness. To escape Heathcliff's abuse, Isabella flees to London before giving birth to Heathcliff’s son named Linton.
Thirteen years later, Nelly is young Cathy’s nanny at Thrushcross Grange, helping Edgar take care of her. One day, young Cathy wanders the moors and meets Hareton, Hindley and Frances’s son, and they become friends. Soon after, Isabella dies and Heathcliff takes in Linton and treats him just as cruelly as he did Isabella.
Three years later, young Cathy meets Heathcliff on the moors by chance, and visits Wuthering Heights to meet Linton, who is shy and sickly. She begin a secret romance through letters and sneaking out, but Linton is only pursuing Cathy because Heathcliff is forcing him. Heathcliff then traps Nelly and Cathy in Wuthering Heights until they agree for Cathy to marry Linton. Edgar and Linton die soon after, so Heathcliff gains control of Thrushcross Grange, where Lockwood would eventually live.
Hearing all of this, Lockwood ends his rental and returns to London. Six months later, he comes back to see how things have progressed. Young Cathy and Hareton have fallen in love and Heathcliff constantly talks to elder Cathy’s ghost. Heathcliff ultimately dies, so Hareton and young Cathy inherit Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange and plan to get married. The novel ends with Lockwood going to visit Cathy and Heathcliff’s graves.
This video summary includes even more details (and might be easier to follow).
Characters
Catherine "Cathy" Earnshaw*: passionate, free-spirited, spoiled, conceited
Heathcliff*: taken in as an orphan by Mr. Earnshaw, falls in love with Cathy, becomes wealthy and
marries Isabella, fierce, cruel, vengeful
Edgar Linton*: petty and coddled as a child, he grows up to be the ultimate gentleman, rich,
cheerful, tender, and Heathcliff's foil
Nelly Dean*: grew up with Hindley and Cathy but always as a subordinate, cares for the house,
intelligent, sensible, caring, matronly
Joseph*: a servant at Wuthering Heights, religious, stubborn, gruff, has a thick Yorkshire accent
Hindley Earnshaw: Cathy's brother, resentful, abusive towards Heathcliff after Mr. Earnshaw
passes away, becomes an alcoholic and gambler following his wife's death
Isabella Linton: Edgar's sister, falls in love with Heathcliff, eventually marrying him, bright
sensitive, shallow
Young Catherine "Cathy" Linton: Cathy and Edgar's daughter, headstrong, impulsive, loves and
marries Linton Heathcliff before he dies, implied that she marries Hareton in the end
Hareton Earnshaw: Hindley and Frances's son, Cathy's nephew, raised by Heathcliff after
Hindley dies, forced to do farm work, illiterate, angry, implied that he marries Young Catherine
Linton Heathcliff: Heathcliff and Isabella's son, shy, frequently ill, discontent, raised in London by
Isabella until she dies, marries young Catherine at Heathcliff's command
Mr. Earnshaw: Catherine and Hindley's father, adopts and loves Heathcliff, charitable, kind
Mr. Lockwood: newly renting Thrushcross Grange from Heathcliff, sophisticated, vain, curious
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*appears in You on the Moors Now
Symbols / Themes
Moors: freedom, wildness, nature vs culture
Ghosts: death, vengeance, lack of closure
Doubles: appearance vs reality, legacy, cyclicality
Dogs: violence, cruelty, recklessness
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Hatred and love are not opposites, rather similar feelings intertwined by passion.
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Emotions often overpower logic.
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Revenge may be momentarily satisfying, but never conclusive.
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Social power imbalances aggravate human tendency toward brutality.
Historical Context
Novel Setting
Time Period
Present (Nelly, Lockwood): 1801 – 1802
Past (Cathy, Edgar, Hindley, etc.): 1770s – 1801
Government + Politics
Georgian era (1714-1837)
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Covers the reigns of George I, George II, George III, George IV, and William IV
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Monarchs built a worldwide trade network that was founded on colonization, especially in the eastern shore of North America and the South Asian subcontinent
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Enlightenment era (1715-1789)
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Characterized by favoring reason as well as ideals of liberty and fraternity
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Associated with the scientific revolution
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These ideas would encourage revolutions in France, America, and Haiti
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England was almost constantly at war, especially with regards to the revolutions in France and America as a result of the enlightenment ideal of popular sovereignty (government by the people for the people.)
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The abolition of the transatlantic slave trade was being argued for decades before being legally ended in 1807.
Novel Writing and Publication
Published December 1847
Victorian era (1837-1901)
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Due to the mechanization of farming, the population of England almost doubled, even as many British citizens immigrated to the United States.
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Educational reforms lead to a much larger percentage of the population being literate
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Partially due to the Industrial Revolution's popularization of science, enrollment in Sunday schools included more than half of five to eight-year-olds by 1851​
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While much of the population could not afford to buy many books, libraries were increasingly common
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England continued to colonize much of the world
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The Crimean War (as well as a series of proxy wars known as the Great Game) was primarily driven by conflict between Russia and the United Kingdom
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The Labour Party developed as a separate entity in British politics (in contrast to the two longstanding groups of Whigs and Tories), they represented social democrats and trade unionists
Economy + Class
In England, the Industrial Revolution (see Science and Technology section below) dramatically increased the wealth of the upper class, but also led to the creation of a new middle class that possessed technical skills working in factories.
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The development of more specific laws also increased the number of ways the upper class could prosecute those of the middle and lower classes.
Privacy became a key feature of the Middle Class due to the self-contained nature of the nuclear family and the compartmentalization of work and home lives.
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Poverty was a large issue in urban areas, where workers of all ages were paid very little to work in extremely dangerous conditions.
Gender + Family
Women were expected to have high standards of etiquette, most importantly being demure and subservient.
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Women were treated as the property of the men closest to them, most likely being their father and then transferred to a husband in marriage.
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Wealthy women did not take jobs, a lot of lower class women were forced to work in factories or on farms to support their family.
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Wealthy women were educated by governesses in subjects like proper etiquette, religion, modern languages, music, drawing, dancing, and domestic arts (embroidery, sewing, knitting).
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Marriage was most women's only hope of upward social mobility, so a high importance was placed on keeping up appearances to win the favor of rich men.
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Religion (i.e. Protestantism and its practices) was often seen as an extension of a woman's domesticity.
Religion + Beliefs
The Enlightenment era (see Government and Politics section above) overall favored reason and led to a decline in church attendance, but the relationship between rationality and faith was never static.
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The Evangelical Revival (also known as the First Great Awakening in the US) lasted through the 1730s and 1740s. It marked a renewed faith in salvation, particularly in favor of Protestantism and the Church of England. John Wesley preached the importance of forming a personal relationship with God by reading the Bible and praying individually.
The Victorian Era was more focused on the incorporeal and unexplainable than the Georgian Era (although there continued to be great advances in the sciences during both periods).
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There was a great importance placed on reform and improvement during this time period, politically, spiritually, scientifically, etc.
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Nonconformists, those who opposed the Church of England, included Baptists, Congregationalists, Quakers, Unitarians, Presbyterians, and Methodists, all of which had their own unique practices. They protested to be able to run for office and gain other rights that they previously were not afforded.
Culture + Art
The Georgian era coincided with the ideas of the Romantic literary and artistic movement, including popular poets Wordsworth and Lord Byron, and composers Handel, Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven.
Popular forms of entertainment included sports, brass bands, theatre, opera, circuses, and paranormal events such as seances, mesmerism, and mediumship.
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The Gothic revival was seen across art and literature as a subset of Romantic culture.
Science + Technology
The Industrial Revolution started in the 1760s. This included technological advancements in textiles, metallurgy, steam and water power, and factory mechanization. It was largely centralized in Great Britain due to its political power as well as its wealth of resources from colonization. The mechanization of farming caused many rural families to move to newly growing urban centers, hoping to find work in factories.
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This time also saw major developments in mapping the periodic table of elements, finding a vaccine for smallpox, and excavating the past with archaeology.
Railways and telegraphs were increasingly common in both war and domestic applications.
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The lightbulb, typewriter, calculator, telephone, camera, and internal combustion engine were all invented during this time.
Emily Brontë
July 30, 1818 — December 19, 1848
Born in Yorkshire, England, Emily was the second youngest of the Brontë siblings. As a child, she briefly attended the Clergy Daughters' School in Lancashire with her older sisters. She then went on to briefly study at Roe Head, where her sister Charlotte was a teacher. She and Charlotte also studied the writing of French and German romantics during their time in Brussels. It was Charlotte who discovered Emily's poetry, which she kept to herself because she was a very private and solitary person. Eventually, the sisters shifted their focus toward writing, all using male pseudonyms with the last name Bell. Only a year after the publication of Wuthering Heights, Emily died of tuberculosis, never knowing how influential the novel would become. The story scandalized the Victorian public and caused a lot of speculation about its author. Most information about Emily actually comes from Charlotte who described her very shy and prone to spending more time on the moors than in the company of others. She has also been characterized as a firm, although unorthodox Christian.
