Heathcliff blames Catherine’s illness on the circumstances of what he believes to be her confinement. Society and it’s trappings took Catherine away from him and it is they who have made her ill, “how the devil could it be otherwise, in her frightful isolation” he exclaims, “…And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity! He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot and expect it to thrive.” In the text duty, humanity, pity and charity are in italics, as if Heathcliff is spitting them out; These values were the pillars of Victorian society, the same society that Heathcliff believes has trapped Catherine and put her in danger, and the same principles that Edgar Linton will have been taught to hold dear and hold true in every circumstance. This is further emphasized in Heathcliff’s description of Catherine as an oak in a flower-pot. Heathcliff believes Catherine should be free to come back to the Moor and to Wuthering Heights which represents nature with no limitations and that in trying to keep her at Thrushcross grange, which symbolizes culture and refinement, they are preventing her from growing free. Edgar Linton believes Catherine should become more like the conventional Victorian Lady, thus trying to keep her within that unnatural sphere, described as a flower pot, and away from the savage Heathcliff. And so, clearly, the two characters and their ideals are at an irreversible conflict.
However, we also see this conflict in Catherine herself. Firstly in chapter nine on her return from her stay at Thrushcross grange, “she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and, then, stopped and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming ‘Why, how very black and cross you look! And how – how funny and grim! But that’s because I’m used to Edgar and Isabella Linton” First we see her initial, natural wave of emotion for Heathcliff, before remembering herself and proceeding to act in a way fitting the young lady she has been moulded into.
We see these waves of passion and closely following rational behaviour frequently in Catherine. When confiding in Nelly about her reservations in marrying Edgar Linton, she describes the obstacle as being “Here and here!” making a gesture first to her heart, then to her head. We can see that she knows the most sensible thing to do for her own future, or what would have been seen as the most sensible thing to Victorian society owing to the fact that Heathcliff is an orphan with no prospect of property or inheritance, but cannot forget her heart, which we know belongs to Heathcliff. She says that it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff, and draws Nelly’s attention to the fact that her union with Edgar Linton could ensure that she could look after Heathcliff, even if it meant she could never have any more than a plutonic relationship with him. She is fighting her heart against her reason, a conflict that we never see her resolve. The only attempt to reconcile these two parts of her is when Nelly takes the two locks of hair, one from Heathcliff, black as night against Edgar Linton’s blonde lock, contrasting, but intertwined forever with her.
Although it may be a little less apparent, we also see this self conflict in Heathcliff. Heathcliff the adult becomes a capitalist, an expropriator, and a predator, turning the ruling class’s weapons of property accumulation and acquisitive marriage against them. Society’s need to tame or civilise the unbridled capitalist is handled in the civilizing of Hareton. Hareton represents the yeoman class, which was being degraded. In adopting the behaviour of the exploiting middle classes, Heathcliff works in common with the capitalist land owner Edgar Linton to suppress the yeoman class; having been raised in the yeoman class and having acquired his fortune outside it, he joins “spiritual forces” against the Squireachy. Thus, he represents both rapacious capitalism and the rejection of capitalist society. However, because the capitalist class is no longer revolutionary, it cannot provide expression for Heathcliff’s rejection of society fir a pre-social freedom from society’s restraints. From this impossibility comes what critics tend to refer to as Heathcliff’s personal tragedy: his conflictive unity consisting of spiritual rejection and social integration. Heathcliff relentlessly pursues his goal of possessing Catherine, an obsession that is unaffected by social realities. In other words, the novel does not fully success in reconciling or finding a way to express all Heathcliff’s meanings.
With Heathcliff’s death a richer life than that of Thrushcross grange also dies; even though our sympathies lie with the hero, we know his death is necessary; the future requires a fusion of gentry and capitalist middle class, not continued conflict. Only in death can Heathcliff or Catherine’s own contradicting natures be satisfied and thus the rift between nature and culture that is a fundamental pillar of the novel can finally be put to rest.
