Wuthering Heights Flashcards
(38 cards)
Heathcliff
Orphan brought to wuthering heights by Mr.Earnshaw, falls in love with his daughter Catherine. Spends life getting revenge on Hindley, Catherine’s brother. A powerful, fierce, and often cruel man.
Catherine Earnshaw
In love with heathcliff, claims they are the same person. Her desire for social advancement leads her to marry Edgar Linton instead. Free spirited, beautiful, spoiled, & often arrogant. Torn between wild passion for heathcliff & her social ambition. Brings misery to both the men who love her.
Edgar linton
Spoiled boy, grows into a tender, constant, but cowardly man. Almost the ideal gentleman: Catherine accurately describes him as handsome, pleasant to be with, cheerful, and rich.
Lockwood
Narration forms a frame around nelly: he serves as an intermediary between nelly & the reader. Comes from a more domesticated region of England & finds himself at a loss when he witnesses the strange household’s disregard for the social conversations that have always strictest his world. As a narrator, his vanity & unfamiliarity with the story occasionally lead him to misunderstand events.
Nelly dean
Chief narrator of wuthering heights. A sensible, intelligent, & compassionate woman, she grew up essentially alongside Hadley & Catherine Earnshaw & is deeply involved in the story she tells. Has strong feelings for the characters in her story, & these feelings complicate her narration.
Isabella linton
Edgars sister, falls in love with HC and marries him, ruins her life by falling in love with him. He never loved her, was just getting revenge on Edgar. Experiences HC brutality. Flees to London to give birth to HC’s son & tried to keep son from HC.
Young Catherine (Cathy)
Daughter of Edgar & Catherine linton. Headstrong behvaiour, arrogance. Gentler & more compassionate than her mother. Mother died while giving birth to Cathy. Forced to marry linton, in love with hareton & eventually ends up with him.
Hareton Earnshaw
Son of hindley & frances Earnshaw (Catherine’s nephew) after hindleys death, HC gets custody & raises him as an uneducated field worker, just as Hindly had done to HC. HC uses hareton to seek revenge on Hidnley. He’s quick tempered, easily humiliated, but shows a good heart & a deep desire to improve himself. Maries young Catherine, only one to mourn HC’s death.
Linton Heathcliff
Isabella & HC’s son, demanding * constantly ill, he is raised in London by Isabella & doesn’t meet father till he is 14 when he goes to live with him after his mothers death. HC despises hum, forces him to marry young Catherine, uses him to cement his control over Thrushcross Grange after Edgar linton s death. Linton dies not long after this marriage.
Hindley Earnshaw
Catherines brother & Mr. Earnshaw’s son. Resents it when HC is brought to live at WH. After his father dies & he inherits the estate, Hindley begins to abuse HC, terminating his education & forcing him to work in the fields. Wife Frances dies giving birth to hareton, Hindley becomes alcoholic & abandons his son.
Mr.Earnshaw
Catherine & hindleys father, finds HC in Liverpool & brings him home to live at WH, he like HC better than his son Hindley, but gives the estates to Hindley when he dies.
Mrs. Earnshaw
Mother of Catherine & Hindley, she neither likes nor trusts the orphan HC when he is brought to live with them. She dies shortly after HC’s arrival. Favours Hindley over HC
Joseph
A long-winded, frantically religious, elderly servant at WH. He is strange, stubborn, & unkind, & he speaks with a think Yorkshire accent. He is a hypocrite.
Frances Earnshaw
Hindleys wife, who treats HC cruelly. Sick & dies shortly after giving birthto Hareton
Mr. Linton
Edgar & Isabella’s father & the proprietor of Thrushcross Grange when HC & Catherine are children. An established member of the gentry, he raises his sons & daughter to be well-mannered young people.
Mrs. Linton
Eager & isabellas mother, somewhat a snobbish wife who doesn’t like HC to be allowed near her children. She teaches Catherine to act like a gentle-women, thereby instilling her with social ambitions. Welcomes Catherine in her home, introducing her to upper society
Zillow
The housekeeper at WH during the later stages of the narrative. Saves Lockwood from the dogs, serves as Nelly’s source of info at WH.
MR. GREEN
Edgar lintons lawyer, who arrives too late to hear Edgar’s final instruction to change his will, which would have prevented HC from obtaining control over Thrushcross Grange.
‘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!’
Catherine describes to Nelly the different types of love that she has for Heathcliff and Edgar Linton. While her love for Edgar will change over time, Catherine sees her love for Heathcliff as solid and eternal, as if she and Heathcliff inhabit the same body. Catherine refuses to give up either relationship: Edgar brings her the comfort and status she’s always desired, but Heathcliff satisfies her passion and completes her soul. This love triangle and conflict becomes the intertwining theme of love throughout the novel.
‘You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me! . . . If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolized by him…It is not in him to be loved like me . . . ’
Here, Heathcliff passionately speaks with Nelly about how his capacity to love Catherine far exceeds Edgar’s ability to experience love. This discussion comes as Nelly tries to convince Heathcliff to leave Catherine alone in order to save her from physical and mental distress. Heathcliff’s declaration echoes Catherine’s passionate description of her love for him at the beginning of the novel. Their passion consumes them, depicting a detrimental and destructive aspect of love.
The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly; though it encountered temporary interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish, and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their minds tending to the same point—one loving and desiring to esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed—they contrived in the end to reach it.
Nelly describes to Mr. Lockwood how young Catherine and Hareton Earnshaw fell in love. She depicts a thoughtful, mutual relationship, where both young Catherine and Hareton Earnshaw accept each other’s weaknesses while giving to one another what they need. The balance in their relationship contrasts with the destructive love of Catherine and Heathcliff. Young Catherine and Hareton Earnshaw represent the theme of healthy true love in this novel as their newfound love ends a decades-long conflict between the Linton and Earnshaw families.
He pulled me under the chandelier, and Mrs. Linton placed her spectacles on her nose and raised her hands in horror…‘Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He’s exactly like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant’ . . . ‘A wicked boy, at all events,’ remarked the old lady, ‘and quite unfit for a decent house! Did you notice his language, Linton?’
Nelly Dean recounts what Heathcliff told her about how the Lintons treated him when he and Catherine were caught trespassing. The Lintons immediately looked down on Heathcliff because he was not of their social class. Without even giving Heathcliff a chance, they judged him and cast him aside. Meanwhile, they recognized their neighbor Catherine and welcomed and cared for her despite her complicity in the crime. This event explains the beginnings of Heathcliff’s hatred towards the Lintons and highlights his sudden awareness of his social class separation from Catherine.
Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons . . . and she had no temptation to show her rough side in their company, and had the sense to be ashamed of being rude where she experienced such invariable courtesy, she imposed unwittingly on the old lady and gentlemen . . . gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother: acquisitions that flattered her from the first—she was full of ambition—and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one.
Nelly explains to Mr. Lockwood how Catherine conformed to the Lintons’ higher class expectations while living with them for five weeks. Nelly describes how Catherine developed something of a split personality in order to gain the admiration of the Lintons while also fitting in with Heathcliff and her family at Wuthering Heights. Catherine has ambition and knows that moving into a higher social class will improve her life.
Nelly explains to Mr. Lockwood how Catherine conformed to the Lintons’ higher class expectations while living with them for five weeks. Nelly describes how Catherine developed something of a split personality in order to gain the admiration of the Lintons while also fitting in with Heathcliff and her family at Wuthering Heights. Catherine has ambition and knows that moving into a higher social class will improve her life.
Heathcliff describes to Nelly his control over Hareton and Linton’s social class. Heathcliff explains how he has taught Hareton, who was born a gentleman, to act lower in class. Whereas he plans to bring Linton, his son, to a higher class by forcing a marriage with young Catherine. Heathcliff manipulates the social standings of Hareton and Linton as part of his plans for revenge. Heathcliff resents the poor treatment he received as an orphan without social connections and recognizes the power of social class.