WUTHERING HEIGHTS

PLOT AND POINT OF VIEW

She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having placed
the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find me so companionable.

In the winter months of 1801, a man named Lockwood rents a house called Thrushcross
Grange in the isolated moor country of England. Here, he meets his landlord, Heathcliff, a
wealthy man who lives in the ancient manor of Wuthering Heights, four miles away from the
Grange. In this wild, stormy countryside, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell
him the story of Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights. Nelly consents, and Lockwood writes down
his recollections of her tale in his diary; these written recollections form the main part of
Wuthering Heights. The plot becomes, thus, a bit confusing. The novel is told by someone who
never lived the events he is going to tell us. In fact, the narrator himself receives the story from
another character that never plays a decisive role in the book.

-Give a general plot overview

-Explain why the author has chosen that peculiar point of view

THEMES

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!

Love. Catherine and Heathcliff's passion for one another seems to be the central theme of
Wuthering Heights, since it is the source of most of the major conflicts that structure the novel's
plot.

-Is this the only love story in the book? If not, explain in which way the other(s) love
story(ies) contrast(s) with it.

Social Class. Considerations of class status often crucially inform the characters'
motivations in Wuthering Heights. Catherine's decision to marry Edgar is one of the most
obvious example. She wants to be "the greatest woman of the neighborhood"

Are characters in this book just victims of the class they belong to?

SETTING

Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling. “Wuthering” being a

significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is
exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there all times,
indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive
slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all
stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had
foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners
defended with large jutting stones.

When, in Chapter VI, Catherine is bitten by the Lintons' dog and brought into Thrushcross
Grange, the two houses are brought onto the collision that structures the majority of the novel's
plot. Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights and the persons who live in them seem to
become symbols of different behaviours and attitudes towards life.

What do the two houses represent? What do the different characters stand for?

GOTHIC

Ghosts appear throughout Wuthering Heights, as they do in most other works of Gothic
fiction, yet Brontë always presents them in such a way that whether they really exist remains
ambiguous.

Do ghosts exist in the novel?

Which are them main gothic elements you can trace in the book?