Heaven and Hell, life and death, are major themes in this passage. Heathcliff tells Cathy:
‘…while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?’
These images are important to further impress upon us the severity that will occur if Cathy dies. In Cathy’s confession she tells Nelly about her not being able to be happy in heaven. Heathclif’s hell becomes apparent before his death (when Cathy dies) and Cathy denies heaven and wanders the moors. Nothing in their relationship treads the confines of normality; heaven and hell are merely obstacles in the way of their unity.
Heathcliff says that he will ‘haunt the place every night and every day until he finds an opportunity of entering,’ to see Cathy. Bronte uses this expression to be compared with the ghost we see in Chapter III and further impose on us the fact that their love is infinite, transcending the barriers of death. Heathcliff also tells Cathy that he wishes he could hold her ‘till we were both dead,’ further stressing the eternal bond of Cathy and Heathcliff. In fact, the description of Catherine’s child as ‘its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be,’ maintains a dynastic link with the situation that the orphan ‘Heathcliff’ found himself in.
This passage in the novel shows the overpowering emotion both Cathy and Heathcliff feel which leads them to forget the delicate state of Catherine and abandon niceties in their palpably passionate embrace. Heathcliff’s love for Cathy can be juxtaposed with his hatred of his wife. He says that existence without Cathy ‘would be hell’ yet for Isabella:
‘The nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her’
Cathy is the only person Heathcliff loves or could ever love. Bronte uses word such as agony and despair in this chapter to evoke the feeling of intense and boundless emotions. From this point on, Heathcliff is incapable of feeling compassion or mercy fro another human being that is showed in his treatment of Hareton and young Cathy. Cathy has been the only stabilising figure in Heathcliff’s tenuous journey towards despair and with her death, Heathcliff discards any notion of civility and determines to exact revenge on those around him.
The storm that occurs on the night of Catherine’s death is a personification of the temporal break in the unification of Cathy and Heathcliff. This, along with the ghost in Chapter III, raises the love between Cathy and Heathcliff to an insurmountable and eternal plane. Their love is ‘like the eternal rocks beneath,’ it overcomes oppression, despair and even in death, Cathy remains, waiting for the man who is so conjunctive to her life and soul.
