Lockwood returns to the Grange and inquires about the strange and far from peaceful atmosphere at Wuthering Heights. He asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean about Heathcliff and she relays the whole history and saga of the two families and houses.
Heathcliff was rescued from the Liverpool slums by Mr Earnshaw and adopted. He was hated by Mr Earnshaw’s son, Hindley, but became very close to Mr Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine. When Mr Earnshaw died, Hindley treated Heathcliff like a servant. Catherine, whilst having strong feelings for Heathcliff, married Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange, to raise her social status. By marrying Edgar, Catherine would become ‘the lady of Thrushcross Grange’. Heathcliff, passionately unhappy, left the area. He became successful and wealthy and on his return, three years later, married Edgar Linton’s sister, Isabella, whom he did not love, but because she was Edgar Linton’s heir. Catherine, deeply unhappy, died whilst giving birth to her daughter Cathy. Isabella, growing to hate Heathcliff, escaped from the Heights and gave birth to Linton. Heathcliff meanwhile became master of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange on Hindley’s death from gambling and drinking, and took charge of Hindley’s son Hareton. Heathcliff in revenge, unleashed onto Hareton, the type of abuse he had suffered under Hindley’s control,
Returning to the Heights Lockwood makes many wrong assumptions, due to the confusion in personnel inside the house. He finds the inhabitants “repulsive” and the surroundings crude. He believes there to be a group of cats lying on the floor, which he is told is a pile of dead rabbits. This shows the lack of hygiene and morals within the house. We also are reminded of the severe weather conditions as the house is battered with rain and snow which forces Lockwood to endure a troublesome night at the stormy house. The atmosphere inside the house is disturbed and frightening due
to Heathcliff’s imprisonment of young Cathy and his irrational, intimidating behaviour.
Conversely, Thrushcross Grange is sophisticated, civilised, orderly and full of calm. There is the implication that the inhabitants are perhaps more Christian because of the use of the word ‘cross’ in its name. The first time we see the Grange is through the eyes of Heathcliff and Catherine who spy through the windows to see how the Lintons pass their Sunday evenings. They describe ‘a splendid place carpeted, with crimson, and crimson-covered tables and chairs, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops hanging in silver chains from the centre’. When they look through the windows they think ‘we should have thought ourselves in heaven’. They wonder if the family spends its Sunday evenings ‘reading sermons’ and are ‘set to learn a column of Scripture names if they don’t answer properly’. When they are caught, Catherine is taken into the house away from Heathcliff who is described as ‘wicked’ and ‘quite unfit for a decent house’. Thrushcross Grange is ‘provided with a large library’ which symbolises education and culture. Mr Lockwood is dismayed that there are no books at Wuthering Heights. ‘How do you live without them’. Cathy tells us Heathcliff ‘never reads’ and he burns her books.
As the story and the characters develop, we see that the difference between the two houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, encapsulates the differences between the characters who live in them. The residents of Wuthering Heights represent storm. Nelly Dean admits she ‘could not half tell what an infernal house we had’. Hindley is a violent and vengeful person who hates Heathcliff and treats him like an animal, degrading him and making him sleep in the barn. Catherine is a headstrong, wilful character who can be violent. On first seeing Heathcliff she ‘showed her humour by grinning and spitting at him’ but soon becomes passionately fond of him and shares his love of the wild, bleak moors. ‘It was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day’. The residents of Thrushcross Grange on the other hand are more civilised and calmer. Edgar Linton is a gentle person with light hair, large eyes and ‘almost too graceful a figure’. He is rich and sophisticated but lacks passion which is exactly the opposite of both Heathcliff and Catherine who are full of passion. When Heathcliff returns to Thrushcross Grange following his travels, Catherine runs in to tell Edgar ‘Oh Edgar, Edgar! She panted flinging her arms round his neck. Oh Edgar, darling’ And she tightened her embrace to a squeeze’ Edgar responds ‘Well, well, cried her husband crossly ‘don’t strangle me for that!’ He disapproves of Catherine ‘welcoming a runaway servant as a brother’. Isabella Linton is quite the opposite of Catherine. She is ‘a charming young lady ……. infantile in manners, though possessed of a keen wit’. By marrying Heathcliff, she shows her choice of passion over status, which is the exact opposite of Catherine who chooses status over passion by marrying Edgar.
The ‘beggarly interloper’ into this situation is Heathcliff. He is violent and passionate and is likened to an animal in many instances. He is seen in two different lights. Mr Earnshaw believed he was a gift of “god” yet he is dark and mysterious, much like something from the devil.
As the story unfolds the webs become more and more tangled. The civilised nature of Thrushcross Grange becomes disturbed by the intrusion of the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights. The conjoining of members of the two houses in marriage alters the atmosphere in both and the contrast between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, and storm and calm, becomes blurred.
Hareton, Hindley’s son is the victim of Heathcliff’s revenge. Heathcliff’s only intention is to degrade Hareton as Hindley had degraded him. He is a captive at Wuthering Heights and Heathcliff turns him into an uncouth uneducated, uncultivated character who stares at Nelly through the ‘bars’ of a gate and throws a stone at her, stammering and cursing that his master is ‘Devil daddy’. The influence of Heathcliff and the uncouth and ungodly atmosphere at Wuthering Heights are turning him into an uncivilised animal whose ‘curses……..distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity’. However, we can see that underneath this uncouth character, he is sensitive and generous. When Cathy gets lost on the moors he offers to take her home, as he does with Lockwood when he offers to take him home ‘as far as the gate’.
Whilst Heathcliff and Catherine were both fiercely passionate, wild characters, Hareton and Cathy are more tender and forgiving. Cathy is like her mother in the fact that she is high spirited and strong willed but she also has a softer side, more forgiving and calmer. After her mother’s death, she brings ‘sunshine to a desolate house’. The positive calmer aspects of their characters are dominating the passionate destructive aspects.
At the end of the novel Hareton and Cathy marry and plant the flowers from Thrushcross Grange in their garden at Wuthering Heights and finally move to the Grange. ‘We were in April then: the weather was sweet and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it, and the two dwarf apple trees near the southern wall in full bloom”. They get married on New Years Day and it appears as though they are breaking away from the stormy chaos and hatred that filled the previous generation’s lives, to make a new and fresh start. The choice of New Years Day represents News Years resolutiosn, positive thought and new beginnings and growth/
In my opinion, it appears that the disorder and chaos created because of the complete differences between the two houses and families and Heathcliff’s influence on them both has now been resolved and a sense of calm has been achieved. The death of Heathcliff removed all sense of anger, revenge and ravages which surrounded the houses for much of the book. The two houses are combined in this calmer, happier, more natural atmosphere.
