Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848)

Emily Jane Brontë was a British novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights,

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's only novel. It was first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell.

Brontë's novel tells the tale of Catherine and Heathcliff, their all-encompassing love for one another, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them both. Social tensions prevent their union, leading Heathcliff to shun and abuse society. The plot is given here in detail, as the book's narration is at times non-linear.

The story is narrated by a character named Lockwood, who is renting a house from Heathcliff. The house, Thrushcross Grange, is close to Wuthering Heights.
Much of the action itself is narrated to Lockwood during his illness by the housekeeper of Thrushcross Grange, Nelly Dean. Lockwood's arrival is after much of the story has already happened - but his story is interwoven with Dean's.

Dean's story provides insight into how the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine would have far-reaching repercussions for their families. Heathcliff's passion for Catherine is so dark and sinister that he becomes hellbent on destroying the happiness of her sister-in-law, her daughter and even his own son. This mission of destruction, though fervent during Catherine's lifetime, becomes still more impassioned after her death.

The plot is complicated, involving many turns of fortune. It begins with Mr. Earnshaw, the original proprietor of Wuthering Heights, bringing back the dark-skinned foundling Heathcliff from Liverpool. Initially, Earnshaw's children - Hindley and Catherine - detest the boy, but over time Heathcliff wins Catherine's heart, to the resentment of Hindley, who sees Heathcliff as an interloper of his father's affections. Later, Hindley is packed off to college by his father. Catherine and Heathcliff become inseparable.

Upon Earnshaw's death three years later, Hindley comes home from college and surprises everyone by also bringing home a wife, a woman named Frances. He takes over Wuthering Heights, and brutalizes Heathcliff, forcing him to work as a hired hand. Despite this, Heathcliff and Catherine remain the fastest of friends. By means of an accident (a dog bite), Catherine is forced to stay at the Linton family estate Thrushcross Grange for some weeks, wherein she matures and grows attached to the refined young Edgar Linton. When she returns to Wuthering Heights, she goes to some trouble to maintain her friendship with both Edgar and Heathcliff, in spite of them having an instantaneous dislike for each other.

A year later, Frances dies soon after the birth of Hindley's child Hareton. The loss leaves Hindley despondent, and he turns to alcohol. Some two years after that, Catherine becomes engaged to Edgar, causing Heathcliff to leave.

After Catherine has been married to Edgar for three years, Heathcliff returns to see her, having amassed significant wealth. He has duped Hindley into owing him Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff learns of, and takes advantage of, a crush Edgar's sister Isabella has on him and he seduces and elopes with her, much to Edgar's despair. This places Heathcliff in a position to inherit Thrushcross Grange, as well. After his marriage, Heathcliff's true feelings toward Isabella emerge and his cruelty towards her (and Hareton, as the son of his old rival, Hindley) knows no bounds.

Back at Thrushcross Grange, Catherine dies in childbirth, giving birth to her and Edgar's child, a girl— also named Catherine. Isabella flees Heathcliff's cruelty a year after, and later gives birth to a boy, Linton. At around the same time, Hindley dies, and Heathcliff takes final control of Wuthering Heights. He also takes complete control of Hindley's son, Hareton, determined to raise the boy with as much neglect as he suffered at Hindley's hands years earlier. (Hareton, however, will remain loyal to Heathcliff to the end, looking at him as a surrogate father.) In perhaps the most complicated turn of the plot, fifteen or sixteen years later Heathcliff recalls his real son Linton back to Wuthering Heights. The boy is sickly and spoiled. Through a series of events, Heathcliff forces young Catherine and Linton to marry. Soon after, Edgar Linton, father of young Catherine, dies, followed shortly by Heathcliff's son, Linton. This leaves young Catherine a widow and a virtual prisoner at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff gains complete control of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange.

It is at this point in the story, the winter of 1801, that Lockwood arrives. Dean tells him the past thirty or so years of the story during his illness. Lockwood is horrified and departs for London.

Young Catherine, at first repulsed by Hareton's roughness, eventually grows tender towards him— just as her mother grew tender towards Heathcliff. In her lonely state of existence at Wuthering Heights, Hareton becomes her only source of happiness.

Only through the union of young Hareton and young Catherine can the pattern of hatred and darkness be broken and of course this can only come with Heathcliff's eventual demise at the end of the novel. The difference between young Hareton and young Catherine and Catherine and Heathcliff is that they are matched in social status and experience and therefore have more in common than just their love for one another. Furthermore, it is strongly implied that Heathcliff himself, on seeing their love for one another, no longer cares to pursue his life-long vendetta.

Tormented for years by what he perceives as the elder Catherine's ghost, Heathcliff finally dies, and Catherine and Hareton marry. Heathcliff is buried with Catherine (the elder), and the story concludes with Lockwood visiting the grave, unsure of exactly what to feel.