Wuthering Heights

For other uses, see Wuthering Heights (disambiguation).

Wuthering Heights

Title page of the first edition
Author	Emily Brontë
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Thomas Cautley Newby
Publication date	1847
Media type	Print (Hardback)
ISBN	9781932535143

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, and a posthumous second edition was edited by her sister Charlotte.

The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centres (as an adjective, wuthering is a Yorkshire word referring to turbulent weather). The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them.

Now considered a classic of English literature, Wuthering Heights met with mixed reviews by critics when it first appeared, with many horrified by the stark depictions of mental and physical cruelty. Though Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre was originally considered the best of the Brontë sisters' works, many subsequent critics of Wuthering Heights argued that its originality and achievement made it superior. Wuthering Heights has also given rise to many adaptations and inspired works, including films, radio, television dramatisations, a musical by Bernard J. Taylor and songs (notably the hit "Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush), ballet and opera.

Plot summary

The narrative is non-linear, involving several flashbacks, and two narrators — Mr. Lockwood and Ellen "Nelly" Dean. The novel opens in 1801, with Lockwood arriving at Thrushcross Grange, a grand house on the Yorkshire moors he is renting from the surly Heathcliff, who lives at nearby Wuthering Heights. Lockwood is treated rudely and coldly by the brooding, unsociable Heathcliff, and is forced to stay at Wuthering Heights for a night when one of the savage dogs of the Heights attacks him and the weather turns against him. The housekeeper cautiously takes him to a chamber to sleep through the night and warns him to not speak to Heathcliff about where he is sleeping.

During the night, Lockwood finds a book of the experiences of a girl named Catherine Earnshaw, in which he discovers that she and Heathcliff were extremely close as children. As he dozes off, Lockwood has a terrifying dream of Catherine's ghost coming in through the window, deathly pale and frightening, begging him to let her in to the home. Heathcliff, awakened as Lockwood shouts in fear, comes running. Heathcliff's mood changes dramatically when Lockwood tells him of Catherine's ghost. Heathcliff asks Mr. Lockwood to leave the room and Lockwood hears him sobbing outside the door saying, "Oh Cathy, please come in." The following morning, Lockwood sets off to Thrushcross Grange where he asks the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell the story of Heathcliff, Catherine, and Wuthering Heights as he recovers from a cold.

Nelly takes over the narration and begins her story thirty years earlier, when Heathcliff, a foundling living on the streets of Liverpool, is brought to Wuthering Heights by the then-owner, the kind Mr. Earnshaw, and raised as his own. Ellen comments that Heathcliff perhaps might have been descended from American origins. He is often described as "dark" or "gypsy". Earnshaw's daughter Catherine becomes Heathcliff's inseparable friend. Her brother Hindley, however, resents Heathcliff, seeing him as an interloper and rival. When Mr. Earnshaw dies three years later, Hindley (who has married a woman named Frances) takes over the estate. He brutalises Heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. Catherine becomes friends with a neighbouring family, the Lintons of Thrushcross Grange, who mellow her initially wild personality. She is especially attached to the refined and mild young Edgar Linton, whom Heathcliff instantly dislikes.

A year later, Hindley's wife dies, apparently of consumption, shortly after giving birth to a son, Hareton. Hindley takes to drinking. Some two years after that, Catherine agrees to marry Edgar. Nelly knows that this will crush Heathcliff, and Heathcliff overhears Catherine's explanation that it would be "degrading" to marry him. Heathcliff storms out and leaves Wuthering Heights, not hearing Catherine's continuing declarations that "she is Heathcliff" and that her love for him is immovable like the rocks. After realizing that Heathcliff has left her, Catherine becomes desperate and is struck down by a fever. Edgar's attentions slowly return Catherine back to health, and some years later she marries him. She lives in apparent happiness for a few months, until Heathcliff returns, intent on destroying those who prevent him from being with Catherine. He has, mysteriously, become very wealthy. Through loans he has made to the drunken and dissipated Hindley that Hindley cannot repay, Heathcliff takes ownership of Wuthering Heights upon Hindley's death. Intent on ruining Edgar, Heathcliff elopes with Edgar's sister Isabella, which places him in a position to inherit Thrushcross Grange upon Edgar's death.

Catherine is initially very happy at seeing Heathcliff again, but then becomes very ill after a harsh argument with Heathcliff regarding Isabella. They reconcile a few hours before her death, however, reaffirming their feelings for one another for the last time. Catherine dies after giving birth to a daughter also named Catherine, or Cathy. Heathcliff becomes only more bitter and vengeful towards everybody around him. Isabella flees her abusive marriage a month later and subsequently gives birth to a boy, Linton. At around the same time, Hindley dies. Heathcliff takes ownership of Wuthering Heights and vows to raise Hindley's son Hareton with as much neglect as he had suffered at Hindley's hands years earlier. Later on, Heathcliff tells Nelly that he despises his own son, Linton, who reminds him of Edgar and Isabella, and favours Hareton as a son, recognising an element of Catherine in him (it having already been established that both Catherine and Heathcliff considered themselves one and the same person), and therefore himself. Yet, Heathcliff chooses to ignore these paternal emotions so that he might continue to degrade Hareton as Hindley degraded Heathcliff: thereby achieving his revenge on his hated foster-brother.

Twelve years later, the dying Isabella asks Edgar to raise her and Heathcliff's son, Linton. However, Heathcliff finds out about this and takes the sickly, spoiled child to Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff has nothing but contempt for his son, but delights in the idea of him ruling the property of his enemies. To that end, a few years later, Heathcliff attempts to persuade young Cathy to marry Linton. With Linton's health diminishing swiftly, Heathcliff kidnaps Cathy and forces the two to marry. Soon after, Edgar Linton dies, followed shortly by Linton Heathcliff. This leaves Cathy a widow and a virtual prisoner at Wuthering Heights, as Heathcliff has gained complete control of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. It is at this point in the narrative that Lockwood arrives, renting Thrushcross Grange from Heathcliff, and hearing Nelly Dean's story. Shocked, Lockwood leaves for London.

During his absence from the area, however, events reach a climax that Nelly describes when he returns a year later. Cathy gradually softens toward her rough, uneducated cousin Hareton, just as her mother was tender towards Heathcliff. When Heathcliff is confronted by Cathy and Hareton's love, notably Hareton's determination to protect the defiant Cathy from Heathcliff's attacks, he seems to suffer a mental break from reality and begins to see Catherine's ghost. He abandons his life-long vendetta and soon dies, smiling at having achieved his life-long dream of joining Catherine in the afterlife. Nelly describes Heathcliff's corpse. It is lying on the bed stiff. The window is open and rain is pouring in through it soaking Heathcliff's body. His hand is outstretched as if reaching for somebody's hand (possibly the ghost of Catherine as seen by Lockwood). He is buried next to Catherine, and several villagers swear that they have seen their ghosts wandering together through the moors. The story concludes with Lockwood visiting their graves, noting how restful the spot seems.

Characters

• Heathcliff
• Catherine Earnshaw
• Edgar Linton
• Isabella Linton
• Hindley Earnshaw
• Ellen (Nelly) Dean
• Linton Heathcliff
• Catherine Linton
• Hareton Earnshaw
• Joseph
• Lockwood
• Frances Earnshaw
• Mr. Kenneth
• Zillah
• Milo
• Iqra Tariq
• Sonu Qadeer

Timeline

1757	Hindley born (Summer); Nelly born
1762	Edgar Linton born
1764	Heathcliff born
1765	Catherine Earnshaw born (Summer); Isabella Linton born (late 1765)
1771	Heathcliff is brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr Earnshaw (late summer)
1773	Mrs Earnshaw dies (Spring)
1774	Hindley is sent off to college
1777	Hindley marries Frances; Mr Earnshaw dies (October); Hindley comes back (October); Heathcliff and Catherine visit Thrushcross Grange, Catherine remains behind (November), then returns to Wuthering Heights (Christmas Eve).
1778	Hareton is born (June); Frances dies
1780	Heathcliff runs away from Wuthering Heights; Mr and Mrs Linton both die
1783	Catherine marries Edgar (March); Heathcliff comes back (September)
1784	Heathcliff marries Isabella (February); Catherine dies and Cathy is born (20 March); Hindley dies; Linton is born (September)
1797	Isabella dies; Cathy visits Wuthering Heights and meets Hareton; Linton is brought to Thrushcross Grange and is then taken to Wuthering Heights
1800	Cathy meets Heathcliff and sees Linton again (20 March)
1803	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)

Local background

Though tourists are often told that Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse, near the Haworth Parsonage (Brontë Parsonage Museum), is the model for Wuthering Heights, it seems more likely that the now demolished High Sunderland Hall, near Halifax was the partial model for the building. This Gothic edifice, near Law Hill, where Emily worked briefly as a schoolmistress in 1838, had grotesque embellishments of griffins and misshapen nude men similar to those described by Lockwood of Wuthering Heights in chapter one of the novel:

"Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door, above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date "1500"".

The originals of Thrushcross Grange have been traditionally connected to Ponden Hall near Haworth (although it is far too small) and, more likely, Shibden Hall, near Halifax. A feud centred around Walterclough Hall is also said to have been one inspiration for the story along with the story of Emily's grandfather, Hugh Brunty.

Literary allusions

Traditionally, this novel has been seen as a unique piece of work written by a woman confined to the lonesome heath, detached from the literary movements of the time. However, Emily Brontë received literary training at the Pensionnat Héger in Brussels by imitating and analyzing the styles of classic writers. She also learned German and was able to read the German Romantics in the original. The work of Lord Byron was also admired by all three Brontë sisters. The brother-sister relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy is reminiscent of the brother-sister couples in Byron's epics. The character of Heathcliff is reminiscent of the Byronic hero.

Gothic and supernatural elements

The novel contains many Gothic and supernatural elements. The mystery of Heathcliff's parentage is never solved. Film interpretations fail in accurately depicting Heathcliff's appearance. He is described as "a dark skinned gypsy in appearance," with black hair and black eyes. It is assumed that he is a gypsy; there were, from what M. Earnshaw said, no people in the town who knew him or claimed him; he belonged to no one. In literature, the smoky, threatening, miserable factory-towns were often represented in religious terms and compared to hell. The poet William Blake, writing near the turn of the nineteenth century, speaks of England’s "dark Satanic Mills." Heathcliff is described by Hindley as an "imp of Satan" in chapter four. Near the end of the novel, Nelly Dean wonders if Heathcliff is a ghoul or vampire, but then remembers how they grew up together and dismisses the thought. The awesome but unseen presence of Satan is also alluded to at several points in the novel, and it is noted in chapter three that "no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor" at the local chapel, which has fallen into dereliction. Heathcliff is constantly described as a devil or demon by many different characters throughout the course of the book. His wife, Isabella Linton, asks Nelly if Heathcliff is a man at all, after she marries him and is exposed to his true nature.

An important theory is often overlooked and never truly conveyed in any film adaptation: Cathy and Heathcliff are two halves of the same soul, and are good and evil, angel and devil. Catherine and Heathcliff’s love is based on their shared perception that they are identical. Their love denies difference and is strangely asexual. The two do not kiss in dark corners or arrange secret trysts, as adulterers do. Cathy famously proclaims "I am Heathcliff!" In that same conversation with Nelly, she talks about a dream she had, where she was in heaven, but was very unhappy and wanted to be back on earth. The angels grew so angry with her that they cast her onto the heath and onto Wuthering Heights, and when she woke, she wept for joy.

Cathy goes through a transformation in the book. During an argument with Edgar Linton she starts going crazy, biting and ripping the pillows and then lying still as though dead. She is ill for a period of time and never fully recovers. She asks Nelly "Why am I so changed?" Her angelic nature, previously frustrated, surfaces, but she will not live long afterward. Nelly wonders often if she will get into heaven, because of her less-than-saintly life, but when she watches Cathy on her death-bed, she is filled with a wonderful feeling of calm and release and is assured that she has entered heaven.

Whereas Cathy's soul is angelic, Heathcliff's seems demonic. Heathcliff's long-lasting malevolence and gratuitous violence might be explained by his being a demon incarnate. Moreover, Heathcliff, upon Catherine’s death, wails that he cannot live without his "soul," meaning Catherine.

However, it could also be argued that Catherine is anything but angelic. At the age of six, she asks for a whip from her father and constantly vexes him. She slaps Nelly, abandons Heathcliff for Linton, and is generally extremely self-centred. She is strong and wild until imprisoned by society and its idea of femininity, and even then she is not a model housewife. To call her angelic and to call Heathcliff her antithesis is to misunderstand both their natures.

Ghosts also play a role in the novel. Lockwood has a horrible vision of Catherine (the elder) as a child, appearing at the window of her old chamber at Wuthering Heights and begging to be allowed in. Heathcliff believes this story of Catherine's ghostly return and late in the novel behaves as though he has seen her ghost himself. When Heathcliff dies, he is found in the bedroom with the window open, raising the possibility that Catherine's ghost entered Wuthering Heights as Lockwood visualized in his dream. At the end of the novel, Nelly Dean reports that various superstitious locals claimed to see Catherine and Heathcliff's ghosts roaming the moors. Lockwood, however, discounts the idea of "unquiet slumbers for those sleepers in that quiet earth."

Allusions/references in literature

• In Albert Camus' essay "The Rebel", Heathcliff is compared to a leader of the rebel forces. Both are driven by a sort of madness: one by misguided love, the other by oppression. Camus juxtaposes the concept of Heathcliff's reaction to Cathy with the reaction of a disenchanted rebel to the ideal he once held.
• Maryse Condé's novel Windward Heights adapted Wuthering Heights to be set in Guadaloupe and Cuba.
• In the novel Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer, several direct quotes from Wuthering Heights are used to compare the main character Bella Swan's relationship with Edward Cullen and Jacob Black with Cathy's situation with Heathcliff and Edgar.
• Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes both have poems titled Wuthering Heights.
• Anne Carson wrote a poem titled "The Glass Essay" in which are woven multiple references to Wuthering Heights and the life of Emily Brontë.
• James Stoddard's novel The False House contains numerous references to Wuthering Heights.
• In the novel H: The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights' by Lin Haire-Sargeant tells the story of how Heathcliff discovers he is the son and heir of Edward Fairfax Rochester and Bertha Mason (Jane Eyre).
• Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels often mention Heathcliff as the most tragic romantic hero. In Fforde's book The Well of Lost Plots, it is revealed that all the characters of Wuthering Heights are required to attend group anger management sessions.
• In Heathcliff and the Great Hunger (1995), Terry Eagleton proposes that Heathcliff was actually a refugee from the great Irish potato famine.
• In the preface of his novel Le bleu du ciel, the French writer Georges Bataille states that, in his view, Wuthering Heights belongs to those rare works in literature written from an inner necessity.
• Alice Hoffman's "Here On Earth" is a modern version of Wuthering Heights.
• The novel Glennkill by German writer Leonie Swann, published in 2005, is in some way centred around Emily Brontë's novel, and is perhaps the main reason why said novel is set in Ireland. The book, as is revealed in the last pages, is being read to the sheep by the shepherd's daughter, and in a strange and dreamy way helps the main character of the novel, a sheep-detective called Miss Maple, to guess the identity of the murderer.
• In Diane Setterfield's novel The Thirteenth Tale, Wuthering Heights is also frequently mentioned. The relationship between Charlie and Isabelle Angelfield parallels that of Heathcliff and Catherine in many ways.
• Michel Houellebecq's debut novel Extension du domaine de la lutte briefly mentions Wuthering Heights - "We're a long way from Wuthering Heights." -, arguing that as human relations are progressively fading away, then such tales of stormy passion are no longer possible.
• Cara Lockwood's Wuthering High, is centred around a boarding school that is haunted by dead classic writers, Emily Brontë being one of them. Her novel is mentioned several times, and even her characters make some special appearances.
• Mizuki Nomura's second book in the Bungaku shoujo series, "Bungaku shoujo" to Uekawaku Ghost (published in 2006) refers to and draws from Wuthering Heights heavily.
• The Japanese novelist Minae Mizumura's third and most recent work, A Real Novel, 2002, is a retelling of Wuthering Heights in post war Japan, featuring a half-Chinese, half-Japanese Heathcliff and an even more problematic Nelly. It re-enacts the history of modern Japanese literature by absorbing and transforming the Western classic into the Japanese literary context.
• In, The Kite Runner it is mentioned when Amir is talking to Soraya and wondering to what she is reading.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

Main article: List of Wuthering Heights adaptations

The earliest known adaptation of Wuthering Heights was filmed in England and directed by A.V. Bramble. It is unknown if any prints still exist.

Musical allusions and adaptations

Opera

• Bernard Herrmann wrote an opera based on the novel in 1951. The libretto was by his former wife, radio play writer Lucille Fletcher. The opera was first performed in a concert version in London in 1966, with the composer conducting the Pro Arte Orchestra. It featured the soprano Morag Beaton in the role of Cathy, and baritone Donald Bell as Heathcliff. The opera was later recorded on a Unicorn-Kanchana records. However, a fully staged version of the opera was not done until 1982 when Portland Opera premiered the production. Renée Fleming recorded the aira I have dreamt in 1998.
• Carlisle Floyd also wrote an opera based on the novel in 1958.
• Bernard J. Taylor wrote a musical Wuthering Heights, recorded in 1992 as a concept album starring Lesley Garrett, Dave Willetts, Bonnie Langford and Clive Carter, and first performed in 1994. It has been translated into German, Romanian and Polish.
• The all-female Japanese opera company, Takarazuka Revue, has their own interpretation of the story, the musical drama is first performed in the 1970s and the most recently production is in 1998, starring Yōka Wao.
• Sir Cliff Richard starred in the self commissioned "Heathcliff in the 1990s. Not well received by many older fans of the singer it portrayed the very brutal side of the character. The album of the libretto was recorded by Cliff Richard and Olivia Newton-John.
• In the fall of 2008, Mark Ryan launched a dramatic musical adaptation of the gothic love-story: "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, narrated by "Beowulf" and "Sexy Beast" star: Ray Winstone. He composed, sang and produced the tracks with Robb Vallier who also worked on Spamalot. He also directed the video for the song "Women" filmed especially for the website and featuring Jennifer Korbee, Jessical Keenan Wynn and Katie Boerk.

Other

• "Wuthering Heights" is a song by Kate Bush, which appears on her 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside, and was also released as her debut single. It has been repeatedly covered by other artists, including Pat Benatar, on her 1980 album Crimes of Passion, the Brazilian power metal band Angra, on their 1993 album Angels Cry, and Hayley Westenra, on her 2003 album Pure. British punk rock band China Drum have also made a cover of the song in 1995. Josh Pyke has done a cover for No Man's Woman. The Puppini Sisters have released a swing version of the Kate Bush song, as have the Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain.
• The title and cover art of the second 1976 album Wind & Wuthering by the British progressive rock group Genesis were inspired by the novel. It also includes two instrumental pieces titled "Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers..." and "...In That Quiet Earth", respectively, which are the last words in the novel.
• Wuthering Heights is a Danish heavy metal band.
• Song writer Michael Penn makes reference to Heathcliff in his song "No Myth".
• Song Cycleversion of the novel using Emily Brontë poems as libretto.
• Wuthering Heights is produced as a play in the Japanese manga "Garasu no Kamen" by Suzue Miuchi, in which the young Cathy is played by fictional actress Maya Kitajima.
• In an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Aunt Zelda is reading Wuthering Heights. When she finds that she's missing a chapter in the book, she uses her magic to take a short-cut into the book and she says, "Where are you Heathcliff?" as she appears in a dark dream-like mist scene.
• In 2003, Japanese singer-songwriter Chihiro Onitsuka penned and released a b-side track on her maxi-single "Beautiful Fighter", which was entitled "Arashigaoka" (嵐ヶ丘), the Japanese translation of the title Wuthering Heights.
• In 2005, Japanese violinist Ikuko Kawai composed an instrumental piece of the same name. Its slightly more elaborate variation includes the subtitle, "Dear Heathcliff."
• Korean pop artist Eugene has a song entitled "Wuthering Heights" released in 2004.
• Songwriter Jim Steinman has stated that the ballad It's All Coming Back To Me Now is influenced by Wuthering Heights, he compared the song to "Heathcliffe digging up Cathy's corpse and dancing with it in the cold moonlight."Steinman's other song Total Eclipse of the Heart was also inspired by Wuthering Heights.
• A theatre marquee in the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow advertises the 1939 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights starring Laurence Olivier.
• In the 2004 film Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Lindsay Lohan's character sees her favorite singer in New York City and remarks that "except for the garbage and cars, it's like following Heathcliff on the moors."
• A goth rock band Diva Destruction also made a reference on Heathcliff and Catherine on a song called Heathcliff on their album Exposing the Sickness (2002).
• In the indie rock band The Hush Sound's song "A Dark Congregation", the final words of the novel are referenced in the line, "we are surrounded by all of the quiet sleepers inside the quiet earth".
• Paris Opera Ballet's Danseur Etoile Kader Belarbi created a ballet based on "Wuthering Heights". Its name in French is actually "Les Hauts de Hurlevent" but Belarbi decided to call it quite simply "Hurlevent", given that it aims to draw a line between the novel and the nature of French Romantic ballet showing mostly scenes of the story and not, in fact, telling it.
• In 2008, a song Wuthering Heights with the theme of Heathcliff's dream was made by Swedish musician Mikael Gökinan with Ludde Wennström (bass and backing vocals) and a rising star Helena Josefsson (vokals).
• The band Alphabeat made a reference to Wuthering Heights in their song 10,000 Nights with the lyrics "Wuthering Heights and the stormy nights"
• Gothic band ALI PROJECT has done two songs with the title 'Wuthering Heights'. A techno version released on their album "Gekka no Ichigun" and a Classical Strings version released on their album "Romance". Both versions have the same lyrics.
• Actor Heath Ledger and his sister Catherine were named after two characters (Heathcliff and Catherine) in the book.
• British Prime Minister Gordon Brown once said in an interview that those who have likened to him to Heathcliff are "absolutely correct," adding that he is more like "an older Heathcliff, a wiser Heathcliff."
• Death Cab for Cutie's song "Cath..." was inspired by "Wuthering Heights."
• In the Sex and the City Movie, Carrie mentions Wuthering Heights in her late library books calling it a tragic lovestory.
• In Stephanie Meyer's best selling book 'Twilight (novel)' the main character, Bella Swan, is found to be reading the classic 'Wuthering Heights'

External links

• Wuthering Heights at Project Gutenberg
• Wuthering Heights, online text with PDF version.
• Reader's Guide to Wuthering Heights
• Wuthering Heights voted UK's favourite love story, Guardian
• Map of Locations associated with Wuthering Heights and Emily Brontë
• Wuthering Heights free downloads in PDF, PDB and LIT formats

http://www.wutheringheightsmusic.com/