Wuthering Heights Summary and Analysis

Chapters 16-20

Chapter 16, Summary

Around midnight Catherine gave birth to a daughter (also named Catherine, the girl Lockwood saw at Wuthering Heights) and died two hours later without recovering consciousness. No one cared for the infant at first, and Ellen wished it had been a boy: as it was, Edgar's heir was Isabella, Heathcliff's wife. Catherine's corpse looked peaceful and beautiful, and Ellen decided that she had found heaven at last.

She went outside to tell Heathcliff and found him leaning motionless against an ash tree. He knew she was dead, and asked Ellen how it had happened, attempting to conceal his anguish. Ellen was not fooled, and told him that she had died peacefully, like a girl falling asleep. He cursed Catherine and begged her to haunt him so he would not be left in "this abyss, where I cannot find you!... I cannot live without my soul!" He dashed his head against the tree and howled "like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears." Ellen was appalled.

On Tuesday, when Catherine's body was still lying, strewn with flowers, in the Grange, Heathcliff took advantage of Edgar's short absence from the chamber of death to see her again, and to replace Edgar's hair in her locket with some of his own. Ellen noticed the change, and enclosed both locks of hair together.

Catherine was buried on Friday in a green slope in a corner of the kirkyard, where, Ellen said, her husband lies now as well.

Analysis:

The question of what happens after death is important in this chapter and throughout the novel, though no firm answer is ever given. Ellen is fairly sure Catherine went to heaven, "where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fullness." But Heathcliff cannot conceive of Catherine finding peace when they are still separated, or of his living without her. In the chapter before, Catherine said: "I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there; not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart, but really with it, and in it." It is as though she had in mind a heaven that was like the moors in every way but the constraints of physicality: the spirit of natural freedom.

Another interesting question that comes up in this chapter is that of the value of self-control and reserve: Heathcliff tries to conceal his weakness and grief, holding "a silent combat with his inward agony," but Ellen considers it to be worse than useless, since he only tempts God to wring his "heart and nerves." Yet we know that Emily herself was almost incredibly self-disciplined, refusing to alter her everyday life even when suffering a mortal illness.

Chapter 17, Summary

The next day, while Ellen was rocking the baby, Isabella came in laughing giddily. She was pale and her face was cut; her thin silk dress was torn by briars. She asked Ellen to call the carriage for the nearest town, Gimmerton, since she was escaping from her husband, and to have a maid get some clothes ready. Then she allowed Ellen to give her dry clothes and bind up the wound. Isabella tried to destroy her wedding-ring, and told what had happened to her in the last days:

She said that she hated Heathcliff so much that she could feel no compassion for him even when he was in agony following Catherine's death. He hadn't eaten for days, and spent his time at Wuthering Heights in his room, "praying like a methodist; only the deity he implored was senseless dust and ashes." The evening before, Isabella sat reading while Hindley drank morosely. When they heard Heathcliff returning from his watch over Catherine's grave, Hindley told Isabella he would lock Heathcliff out, and try to kill him with his bladed pistol if he came in. Isabella would have liked Heathcliff to die, but refused to help in the scheme, so when Heathcliff knocked she refused to let him in, saying: "If I were you, I'd go stretch myself over her grave, and die like a faithful dog... The world is not worth living in now, is it?" Hindley came close to the window to kill Heathcliff, but the latter grabbed the weapon so the blade shut on Hindley's wrist; then he forced his way in. He kicked and trampled Hindley, who had fainted from the loss of blood, then roughly bound up the wound, and told Joseph and Isabella to clean up the blood.

The next morning when Isabella came down, Hindley "was sitting by the fire, deadly sick; his evil genius, almost as gaunt and ghastly, leant by the chimney." After eating breakfast by herself, she told Hindley how he had been kicked when he was down, and mocked Heathcliff for having so mistreated his beloved's brother, saying to Hindley: "everyone knows your sister would have been living now, had it not been for Mr. Heathcliff." Heathcliff was so miserable that he could hardly retaliate, so Isabella went on and said that if Catherine had married him, he would have beaten her the way he beat Hindley. Heathcliff threw a knife at her, and she fled, knocking down Hareton, "who was hanging a litter of puppies from a chairback in the doorway." She ran to the Grange.

That morning, she left, never to return to the neighborhood again. Later, in her new home, in the south, she gave birth to a son, named Linton, "an ailing, peevish creature," and died when he was about 12 years old.

Edgar grew resigned to Catherine's death, and loved his daughter, who he called Cathy, very much. Ellen points out the difference between his behavior and Hindley's in a similar situation.

Hindley died, "drunk as a lord," about six months after Catherine. He was just 27, meaning that Catherine had been 19, Heathcliff was 20, and Edgar was 21. Ellen grieved deeply for him ­ they had been the same age and were brought up together. She made sure he was decently buried. She wanted to take Hareton back to the Grange, but Heathcliff said he would keep him, to degrade him as much as he himself had been degraded. If Edgar insisted on taking Hareton, Heathcliff said he would claim his own son Linton, so Ellen gave the idea up.

Analysis:

Isabella's tendency toward impotent cruelty shows up again in the character of her son Linton. The question of how cruelty operates in powerful versus weak characters was evidently of great interest to Brontë and might bear further investigation. One obvious point is that weakness is not simply equated with goodness, as is often the case in the Christian tradition. Although the weak are unable to physically express their hatred, they can, like Isabella, use verbal taunts to hurt their enemies emotionally.

Ellen's particular grief for Hindley emphasizes the way characters are paired in the novel: Ellen and Hindley, Heathcliff and Catherine, Edgar and Isabella. These pairs all grew up together (Ellen's mother was Hindley's wet-nurse, so they literally shared mother's milk) under somewhat fraternal conditions. Brontë's careful structure and concern with symmetry are important presences throughout the novel, and form an interesting contrast with what might be considered the chaotic emotions that seem to prevail.

Chapter 18, Summary

In the next twelve years, Cathy Linton grew up to be "the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house." She was fair like a Linton, except for her mother's dark eyes. High spirited but gentle, she seemed to combine the good qualities of both the Lintons and the Earnshaws, though she was a little saucy and was used to getting her way. Her father kept her within the park of the Grange, but she dreamed of going to see some cliffs, Penistone Crags, not too far away, on the moor.

When Isabella fell ill, she wrote to Edgar to come visit her, so he was gone for three weeks. One day Cathy asked Ellen to give her some food for a ramble around the grounds ­ she was pretending to be an Arabian merchant going across the desert with her caravan of a pony and three dogs. She left the grounds, however, and later Ellen went after her on the road to Penistone Crags, which passed Wuthering Heights. She found Cathy safe and sound there ­ Heathcliff wasn't home, and the housekeeper had taken her in ­ chattering to Hareton, now 18 years old. She offended Hareton though by asking whether he was the master's son, and when he said he wasn't, saying he was a servant. The housekeeper told her he was her cousin, which made her cry. Hareton offered her a puppy to console her, which she refused. Ellen told her that her father didn't want her to go to Wuthering Heights, and asked her not to tell him of her negligence, to which she agreed.

Analysis:

We have moved from the violent and discordant world of adulthood back to harmonious childhood. The abrupt contrast between the hellish last chapters and this relatively serene and innocent one could hardly be more clear. One might even suppose that we are witnessing a second chance: the story of the first Catherine ended in grief and bloodshed, but perhaps that of her daughter will be more serene. Indeed there are many similarities between the first Catherine and her daughter, although the mother's bad qualities are minimized in the younger Cathy.

Although Cathy appears to display more Linton characteristics than Earnshaw ones, her desire to explore the wilderness outside of the Grange's park links her strongly to the wild, Wuthering Heights clan. Her sauciness also reminds the reader of her mother, as does her aristocratic unwillingness to be related to Hareton (just as Catherine thought it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff, who was at the time very much like Hareton).

Chapter 19, Summary

Isabella died, and Edgar returned home with his half-orphaned nephew, Linton, a "pale, delicate, effeminate, boy," with a "sickly peevishness" in his appearance. Cathy was excited to see her cousin, and took to babying him when she saw that he was sickly and childish. That very evening, Joseph came and demanded the child for Heathcliff ­ he was after all his son. Ellen told him Edgar was asleep, but he went into his room and insisted on being given Linton. Edgar wished to keep Linton at the Grange, but could not legally claim him, so he could only put it off till the next morning.

Analysis:

The contrast between Cathy and her cousin Linton is very strong: she is energetic and warm-hearted, whereas he is limp and parasitic. It is interesting to see how Brontë distributes conventionally masculine and feminine characteristics among her characters without regard for gender. Linton is pointedly described as being delicate, with fine flaxen hair even lighter than Cathy's: he is the helpless "lady" of the two, who cries when he doesn't get his way, and allows himself to be "courted" by his female cousin.

Chapter 20, Summary

The next morning, Ellen woke Linton early and took him over to Wuthering Heights, promising dishonestly that it was only for a little while. He was surprised to hear he had a father, since Isabella had never spoken of Heathcliff. When they arrived there, Heathcliff and Joseph expressed their contempt for the delicate boy, and Heathcliff told him that his mother was a "wicked slut" not to tell him about his father. Ellen asked Heathcliff to be kind to the boy, and he said that he would indeed have him carefully tended, mostly because Linton was heir to the Grange, so he wanted him to live at least until Edgar was dead and he inherited. So when Linton refused to eat the homely oatmeal Joseph offered him, Heathcliff ordered that he be given some toast or something instead. When Ellen left, Linton cried for her not to leave him there.

Analysis:

Brontë's novel is full of innocent children who are abandoned into a cold and unfriendly world: Heathcliff as an orphan in Liverpool, Hindley sent away to college, Heathcliff and Cathy again at Earnshaw's death, Hareton, Linton, Cathy Linton at her father's death... The effect of this is that each character, no matter how ruthless and cruel he or she may be, contains at their core the same wish for love and the same loneliness as their former childlike selves. We are never able to judge any character entirely objectively because we know this. Linton is a particularly interesting example of this because he is unpleasant, even as a child, yet one can only pity him for being abruptly introduced to an unloving father and a home where everyone despises him.