Wuthering Heights
Inseparable Within, Impossible Without

This is not love.

This is an animal.

Everyone talks about the passion between Heathcliff and Catherine.

But beneath it, dangerous waters run.

Muddy.

Cold.

Deep.

Two people recognize themselves in one another.

Not light -

but a familiar shadow.

And they follow it.

Heathcliff is an abandoned child, caressed by a stranger’s hand.

Catherine - passed over by her father’s.

Each becomes a home for the other.

Then Catherine becomes mistress.

In someone else’s house.

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Heathcliff is a tornado.

And at the very center of him, it is quiet.

A barely audible melody can be heard.

And only Catherine knows the words.

Catherine is something more dangerous than Heathcliff.

A child taught to comfort herself.

Who no one chooses first.

He wounds the world.

She wounds herself.

Heathcliff believes she is ashamed of him.

But Catherine is ashamed of herself.

Edgar touches her skin.

Heathcliff - the scar.

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They recognize each other there,

where no one else can reach.

Every nearness cuts.

Every distance cuts even deeper.

They pass through love

the way one passes through a storm.

With blows.

With stillness.

With flights and returns.

Inside it, there is home.

And ruin.

At once.

Author

Emily Brontë (1818–1848) was an English novelist and poet best known for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. She was the fifth of six Brontë children and one of the four siblings who survived into adulthood.

She wrote under the pen name Ellis Bell. Brontë was a solitary and reclusive figure, rarely leaving home, and very little is known about her life. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 30.

Book

Wuthering Heights is an 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, initially published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell. It concerns two families of the landed gentry living on the West Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaws and the Lintons, and their turbulent relationships with Earnshaw's adopted son, Heathcliff. At its core is the bond between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, where attachment, class anxiety, and revenge become inseparable. The novel was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction.

It is now considered a classic of English literature, although it received mixed reviews when first published, and was considered controversial because of its depiction of mental and physical cruelty.

Plot

Mr. Earnshaw, a Yorkshire farmer and owner of Wuthering Heights, brings home an orphan from Liverpool named Heathcliff. Heathcliff is raised with the Earnshaw children, Hindley and Catherine. Catherine becomes close with Heathcliff, but Hindley hates him.

After Mr. Earnshaw's death, Hindley degrades Heathcliff to the status of a servant. Catherine is injured by a dog while spying on the Lintons and stays at Thrushcross Grange to recover. She returns as a refined lady, and social expectations drive a wedge between them.

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Catherine decides to marry Edgar Linton, a wealthy neighbor, despite her intense love for Heathcliff. Overhearing Catherine say it would "degrade" her to marry him, Heathcliff runs away. He returns years later as a wealthy gentleman, seeking revenge on both families.

He marries Isabella Linton to spite Edgar and eventually gains control of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Catherine dies giving birth to a daughter, also named Catherine. Heathcliff is haunted by her ghost for the rest of his life, until he dies and is buried next to her.