Revenge is a major theme of the novel. Early in the novel Heathcliff is described as plotting revenge, and the second half of the novel is dominated by Heathcliff's revenge against Hindley and his descendants for his mistreatment of him and against Edgar and his descendants for Catherine's death. Heathcliff's revenge affects everyone in the novel, and he seems to think that if he can revenge Catherine's death, he can be with her. He has been looking for her since her death, as he has been sensing her near him. However, it is only at the end of the novel, when he has given up his plans for revenge, that he is able to see Catherine and that he is reunited with her. He uses Linton as a tool for him to do his bidding, which is to capture Thrushcross Grange for himself. He mirrors what he did to Isabella to get revenge on Edgar by badly mistreating Linton showing the cruelty that Heathcliff possesses, Heathcliff is cruel to Linton for a number of reasons: to obtain revenge from the way he was initially treated when he first came to the house, as he makes Linton suffer the way he did, his general hatred for the Linton’s and to make Linton his ‘slave’ to fulfil his wishes which is shown when Heathcliff exclames ‘his [Linton] life is not worth a farthing’ – the effect on Linton is also shown by the quote ‘Faint hearted creature’ representing how low his self esteem and strength is. Hareton gets given a similar treatment to Linton, except it doesn’t seem to be as sever; Heathcliff picks on the weaker characters (Hareton cannot read, write and his little social skills and Linton is naturally weak willed). The quote ‘I swear, on my salvation he’s going to his grave’ shows how Heathcliff possesses a seemingly superhuman ability of hatred to maintain the same attitude and grudges over many years – this hatred may ironically be spawned from his love for Catherine.
There is a reoccurring theme of nature throughout the novel, this is shown in the semantic fields in the text with phrases such as ‘bank of heath’, ‘bright sun shining’, ‘waves to the breeze’ and ‘bees humming’ which are all shown on page 248. Wuthering heights is shown as a more naturalistic environment than Thrushcross - Wuthering Heights and the Earnshaws comes to symbolize a wilderness, while on the other hand, Thrushcross Grange and the Linton family represent a more culturist approach – this may show the conflict between nature and culture. The moors are another significant place in the novel which are often descried as bleak, but the second generation do not seem to love the moors as Catherine and Heathcliff once did. The moors don’t just represent the wilderness of nature and the background of the novel, but also has many associations to the love affairs in the book
In the last few chapters there are many references to death, especially with Heathcliff dieing. Cathy says ‘You have left me so long alone to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death! This is mentioned after Linton dies showing how she has been affected by struggling for him alone. Not long after Linton dies, Heathcliff deteriorated and becomes physically weaker, this is seen after he digs up Catherine’s grave and is reunited with her – this grave digging may have influenced Heathcliff to give up on life so that he can be with Catherine again. There is also a supernatural theme that appears when Heathcliff digs up Catherine, Heathcliff says ‘I have a strong faith in ghosts; I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us’ meaning that Heathcliff has a certain sense that Catherine’s spirit is there when he digs up the body – Victorian society believed that there may be spiritual presences which shows the time that the book was written influenced the play. Hareton is the only person who grieves for Heathcliff causing readers to feel sympathy for him ‘He sat by the corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest’, showing that he respected Heathcliff and loved him almost like a father.