Discuss the nature of love between Heathcliff and Catherine

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Wuthering Heights: Discuss the nature of love between Catherine and Heathcliff.

Discuss the nature of love between Catherine and Heathcliff.

The love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff is one of its kinds. It is not the romantic love we know nowadays, but deeply, and passionate. As we know that Heathcliff and Catherine love each other very much, they usually show their by sarcasm and criticizing for each other. Heathcliff and Catherine grow up as brother and sister, although Heathcliff was adopted by Mr. Earnshaw from Liverpool. They grew to be very close to each other because both of them shared the love of the moors and the freedom of being wild outside.

Their love exists on a higher or spiritual plane; they are soul mates, two people who have an attraction for each other which draw them together irresistibly. Heathcliff repeatedly calls Catherine his soul, and when Catherine was explaining her choice of marrying Edgar to Nelly Dean she says that “I am Heathcliff!” show emphasizes how much their souls are bonded together. This is further proven when Catherine dies, and Heathcliff tells Nelly, “I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” referring to the dead Catherine. This is then fulfilled later beyond the grave when they are reunited in death, and some inhabitants of the village claim that they saw the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine together.

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Their relationship is presented as something enduring, hard and unchangeable. Catherine describes to Nelly their love as “eternal rocks beneath”, which is the opposite of Catherine to Edgar relationship, which could be seen as more romantic in our view. Catherine describes this as “is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the tress.” We have to note, that the extreme closeness of their relationship is no source of happiness to both of them, as Catherine tells “a source of little visible delight, but necessary.” This is frequent source of great torment ...

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