Wuthering Heights
SynopsisPlot
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature.
Story
About this book
Wuthering Heights, first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Ellis Bell, follows two families of the landed gentry on the West Yorkshire moors. The Earnshaws of Wuthering Heights and the Lintons of nearby Thrushcross Grange become entangled through Heathcliff, a foundling taken in by Mr. Earnshaw and raised alongside his children, Catherine and Hindley. Catherine and Heathcliff form an intense bond, but after Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley degrades Heathcliff to the status of a servant. When Heathcliff comes to believe Catherine does not return his feelings, he disappears, only to return years later transformed into a man of wealth and purpose.
The story is told largely through layered narration, with a tenant named Lockwood hearing the history of the two households from Nelly Dean, a longtime servant. This structure moves back and forth across decades, gradually revealing how Heathcliff sets out to punish both families for the suffering he endured. The moors themselves are a constant presence, shaping the isolation and roughness of daily life at the Heights.
Emily Bronte drew on elements of Romanticism and Gothic fiction. The novel's Yorkshire setting, its closed world of farmhouses separated by open heath, and the friction between social classes give the story a physical weight that stays close to the landscape it describes.
