Wuthering Heights quotes

'Darked skinned gypsy', yet a 'gentleman' C1

Heathcliff - contextually, his appearance is physically conflicting, use of juxtaposition emphasises the peculiarity of his role as 'master' of Wuthering Heights and the Grange. Additionally it betrays perhaps the internal conflicts that will consume Heathcliff throughout the novel.

'Violent emotion' C3

Heathcliff - his anguish is established through the adjective 'violent', his outpour of grief is extreme; indicative of all Heathcliff's feelings - nothing about him is impartial. Throughout the novel Heathcliff's griefs are all tied to Cathy, further emphasising the extent of his devotion and love for her.

'Oh! My heart's darling' C3

Heathcliff - use of the short sentences creates an atmosphere of frenzy, additionally the abrupt exclamatory sentences reinforces the pains that rapidly strike Heathcliff upon any remembrance of Cathy.

'Dark...from the devil' C4

Heathcliff - use of this metaphor links Heathcliff from the very being to evil and the supernatural. From a Post colonialist perspective, Brontë illustrates the racist sentiment of Victorian society, where people of colour are instantly associated with sources of satanic evil. Heathcliff's race is therefore the attribute which will irrevocably segregate him apart from typical society at Wuthering Heights.

'Heathcliff' for 'Christian and surname' C4

Heathcliff - he takes the literal place of the Earnshaw child who died as a baby, from the very beginning his presence is unnatural and intrinsically linked with death. With one name, and no surname, he is both a part of the family and yet still withdrawn from it; attributing to his feelings of displacement within society.

'Do her bidding in anything' C5

Heathcliff - a strong bond is almost instantly struck between Heathcliff and Cathy, there relationship appears the most natural throughout the novel.

'Not the manners to ask me to stay' C6

Heathcliff - currently, he is naive about the differences between himself and Cathy in terms of class, race, and origin.

Call him an 'acquisition' . 'American or Spanish castaway' C6

Heathcliff - betrays the racist sentiment of Victorian society, his race and birth origin is defining in regard to how others interpret from him. Upon his first experience with the inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange he is discriminated, acting as the first reason for the path of vindictive retribution Heathcliff will assume as an adult.

'So immeasurably superior...to everybody on earth' C6

Heathcliff - use of the superlatives emphasises how Heathcliff places Cathy above all others in his world. Shows the intensity and extremity of his love for her, foreshadowing the subsequent extremes he will go to after she is taken from him by Edgar.

'Three months service in mire and dust' C7

Heathcliff - the first time Cathy and Heathcliff have been truly separated, their situations directly juxtapose, as Cathy at the Grange becomes 'refined' Heathcliff becomes 'degraded' and supplicant under Hindley's 'tyranny'.

'I don't feel pain' C7

Heathcliff

'I struggled only for you' C10

Heathcliff - use of pronouns, the personal pronoun 'I' shows the raw emotion of Heathcliff as he confesses how he sought self betterment in order to make himself worthy for Catherine, so it would not 'degrade' her to marry him. Additionally, the direct address, 'you' creates a sense of personal explicitness, meaning Cathy cannot escape Heathcliff and her feelings for him. From this point guilt perhaps succumbs Cathy, resulting in her feelings of entrapment within the Grange and her marriage with Edgar. For the reader this is a moment of intense tragedy, as Heathcliff's efforts have ultimately been in vain, as Cathy has already married Edgar.

'No marks of former degradation' C10

Heathcliff - Brontë initiatives a progressive message for her Victorian audience, demonstrating that the social class system is not a rigid hierarchy but volatile and fluid.

'Sweeping survey of the house-front' C11

Heathcliff - reveals his purely financial and monopolistic reasons for marrying Isabella, linking him perhaps with Eliza Bennet of 'Pride and Prejudice' - who also considers becoming the 'Mistress of Pemberly' due to the greatness of the estate.

'I'm not your husband: you needn't be jealous of me' C11

Heathcliff - the situation has now flipped, instead of Cathy causing Heathcliff torment and jealousy, now as his marriage to Isabella approaches she will be the one to feel jealous. This could be a method which Heathcliff intended to use to gain his revenge on Cathy, as well as using Isabella as a tool for his own financial gain.

'Is Mr Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil?' C13

Heathcliff - Isabella, an outsider to Wuthering Heights, cannot effectively outside the society there or Heathcliff. Use of the three rhetorical questions represents her feelings of surprise and horror as Heathcliff's true nature is revealed. Again, Heathcliff is described as being sub-human, it is perhaps unclear to a modern audience whether Isabella's negative feelings towards him are due to his actual behaviour or as a result of his racial origins.

'He was the only thing there that seemed decent' C14

Heathcliff - he juxtaposes with the 'degradation' his rule at Wuthering Heights, has caused upon Hindley, Hareton and Isabella, his toxic character thrives upon dysfunction. Even then, Nelly's use of the tentative language through the verb 'seemed', demonstrates that Heathcliff is still only in part successful and functional. Due to his revenge, he will never truly be able to gain status as a true human, linking with Birmingham's idea that revenge makes Heathcliff 'powerless to form emotionally satisfying relationships'.

'Existence, after losing her, would be hell' C14

Heathcliff - despite his moral shortcomings, his raw emotion regarding Cathy causes the reader to feel extremely sympathetic towards her. All his vitality and happiness is within her, his life is only an 'existence' - this abstract noun furthers Heathcliff' representation as a supernatural rather than human being.

'It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not' C14

Heathcliff - his jealousy shrouding Edgar, due to his marriage to Cathy, generates further bad feeling between the two men - use of negation in the repeated declarative 'not', shows this.

'You loved me - then what right had you to leave me?' C15

Heathcliff, structurally use of dashes mirrors the stunting emotion ripping through Heathcliff, additional use of rhetorical questions conveys his sustained feelings of disbelief and anger that Cathy chose Edgar over him. His outlook is perhaps myopic, in that he neglects to acknowledge Cathy's financial and social position at Wuthering Heights, both of which she could only escape by an advantageous marriage to Edgar.

'I have not broken your heart - you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.' C15

Heathcliff - a semantic field of Heathcliff's shattered heart is created using variations of the verb 'broken'.

'May she wake in torment' C16

Heathcliff - all intense feelings of Heathcliff, whether they be of anger or bereavement, manifest into violent and vindictive displays of emotion. He does not wish Cathy peace after death as Christian Nelly and Edgar do.

'I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!' C16

Heathcliff - indicative of the existential love Heathcliff and Cathy share, now that she has died, as in Aristotle's teachings, he is now living with no soul. Edgar, in comparison is able to more effectively get over Cathy's death, further demonstrating the further depth and superior magnitude of the love between Cathy and Heathcliff.

'His eyes rained down tears among the ashes' C17

Heathcliff - after Cathy's death. All his displays of emotion are due to Cathy, demonstrating his love and desperation after her death.

'Now, my bonny lad you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked with another, with the same wind to twist it' C17

Heathcliff - use of the metaphor of the 'crooked' 'tree', introduces the themes of nurture and nature, betraying Heathcliff's desires to 'twist' Hareton, in order to cause him pain and 'degradation' as Hindley caused him.

'the guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights' C17

Heathcliff - shows Heathcliff's social progression, emphasising the fluidity of the class system, despite perhaps the opinions of the orthodox Victorian reader being the exact opposite.

'Usurper' C18

Heathcliff - appears as a machiavellian character, such as Macbeth, who has assumed a position that he is not worthy of, a position that he will be punished for having through his death.

Calls Linton 'my property' C20

Heathcliff - like Linton's mother before him, Heathcliff views his son as a financial asset with which he can further progress his plans for revenge and monopolistic collection of property.

Calls Linton a 'whey faced whining wretch' C20

Heathcliff - use of the alliterative 'w' sound, has an almost onomatopoeic effect, mirroring Linton's 'whining' and snivelling behaviour which makes him despicable to the reader, and the reader 'ultimately do not care what happens' to him.

'delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates' C21

Heathcliff - use of the verb 'delighting', accurately describes the corrosive and negative aspects of his personality, the pain and suffering he has endured in his life, has bred his vindictive nature - which causes his enjoyment of bringing pain to others. His desires, are perhaps what promote his vindictive actions, rather than an actual desire for revenge.

'treat myself to a slow vivisection of those two', C27

Heathcliff - a 'vivisection' means too dissect a body, creating an increasingly grotesque and violent image for the reserved and relatively emotionless Victorian audience.

'shall enjoy [himself] remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for satisfaction.' C27

Heathcliff - use of alliteration 's' evokes Heathcliff's poisonous and reptilian like qualities, as a man who is overwhelmingly vindictive and venomous. This is reiterated by Brontë's use of the declarative sentence.

'rather be hugged by a snake' C27

Heathcliff - the simile reinforces his feelings of hatred towards Cathy Linton, who acts as a reminder both of his lover Cathy and how he lost her.

'he's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him' C29

Heathcliff - metaphor demonstrates the differences between Heathcliff and his son; his son's comparative physical weakness is yet another reason for his feelings of hatred and bitterness towards him.

'Mr Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you' and 'Nobody will cry for you when you die!' C29

Heathcliff - another link to Birmingham's opinion that revenge makes Heathcliff 'powerless to form emotionally satisfying relationships', after Cathy's death he will never love or have a friendship again. He could have been a surrogate father to his own double Hareton, who is orphaned at a young age, instead he choses to 'twist' him cruelly, using him as a further mechanism or revenge.

'she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years - incessantly - remorselessly' C29

Heathcliff, despite for the reader Cathy Earnshaw being dead now for a long time, it appears that Heathcliff is still 'disturbed' and cannot escape her memory at all. Use of the superlative adverbs 'incessantly' and 'remorselessly' emphasise this, ironic as Heathcliff feels despair at how Cathy haunts him still - yet in Chapter 16 after her death he begged her to 'haunt' him and denied her 'peace' after death.

'I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth' C29

Heathcliff - his belief in Cathy's ghost and her continual presence around him. Their love defies the invisible boundaries between the dead and the living.

'when I look for his father in his face, I find her every day more! How the devil is he so like? I can hardly bear to see him' C31

Heathcliff - reveals to the reader that he sees more of Cathy in Hareton, than in her actual daughter, perhaps why he has more feelings of affection towards Hareton. Cathy instead merely reminds him of his sworn enemy Edgar, who he believes took his Cathy from him

'restless, anxious expression' C31

Heathcliff - as his death nears he becomes more and more unsettled.

'Your land, insolent slut? You never had any!' C33

Heathcliff - elements of misogyny infiltrate his bitter invective towards Cathy, his hatred manifests into the frenzied use of rhetorical and declarative sentences.

'I am surrounded with her image!' C33

Heathcliff - the exclamatory sentence conveys the extent of his bereavement still, even though it has been years since Cathy's death. Her 'image' taking form visually through the presences of her daughter and Hareton at Wuthering Heights, who are getting increasingly closer - mirroring the relationship Heathcliff had with Cathy at the beginning of the novel.

'The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her' C33

Heathcliff - he cannot find comfort in anything, everything is intrinsically bound to the memory of Cathy.

Has 'monomania' regarding Cathy C33

Heathcliff - meaning an overriding obsession with one single thing, from a psychoanalytical perspective his desires for Cathy are what drive his every action.

'I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment nor a hope of death' C33

Heathcliff - does not 'fear' death, so strong is his will to now be with Cathy

'Ready to tear Catherine in pieces' shifts to 'calmness' C33

Heathcliff - his erratic behaviour is demonstrated using juxtaposition as he nears death

'it was unnatural - appearance of joy under his black brows' C34

Heathcliff - any presence of happiness within him is perverse, emphasising how serious and melancholy an atmosphere must perpetually shroud him

'would not shut; they seemed to sneer at [Nelly's] attempts' C34

Heathcliff - even in death he 'delights' at the suffering and difficulty others face.

'They's Heathcliff, and a woman, yonder' C34

Heathcliff - in death, despite his 'unchristian' lifestyle, he is reconciled with his true love Cathy, this along with Hareton and Cathy's approaching marriage, shows the novel has come full circle and all chaos at Wuthering Heights has been settled at last. The second generation providing a second chance for the original character's mirrors to do the right thing.

'Poor Heathcliff' C3

Cathy Earnshaw - Instantly she becomes Heathcliff's only ally, and his protector against the hatred of Hindley. The reader's first encounter with Cathy is in the form of a private diary entry, demonstrating further Lockwood's invasive invective within Wuthering Heights

'Little ice cold hand' C3

Cathy Earnshaw - First visual of her is in the form of a ghost or apparition .

'Wild' and 'wicked' C5

Cathy Earnshaw - her character is not compliant with what was expected of Victorian women, even as a young child her defiant character is established.

'Sweetest smile' C5

Cathy Earnshaw - despite her 'wicked' characteristics she also has the propensity for kindness, here the use of sibilance emphasises the contrasts within her character, juxtaposing with the previous alliteration of 'w' where she was described as 'wild' and 'wicked'. From a Feminist perspective, Mahaptra says that 'Female gentility is socially produced and reinforced', these characteristics for Cathy are not natural - they are artificial.

'Much too fond of Heathcliff' C5

Cathy Earnshaw - use of the superlative 'too' demonstrates from the beginning the extremity and the depth of the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff. Wion even believes that 'Heathcliff is the world to Catherine'.

'Dignified' and has 'fine clothes' C7

Cathy Earnshaw - while Heathcliff becomes degraded in 'mire and dust', she undergoes a process of refinery while living at Thrushcross Grange. Her material sophistication however, is not indicative of her actual interior feelings; this discordance between Cathy's internal and external feelings perhaps cause her to ultimately chose Edgar over Heathcliff, a choice that will cause her fundamental suffering.

'Flew to him' C7

Cathy Earnshaw - use of the verb 'flew' reveals the spontaneity of how Cathy greets Heathcliff when she returns to Wuthering Heights. She appears to be drawn to him as if magnetised.

'Haughty and headstrong character' C8

Cathy Earnshaw - assonance of the 'a' sound emphasises the extent of her arrogant behaviour.

'Double character' C8

Cathy Earnshaw - Miller says with 'Edgar on one side ... Heathcliff on the other ... represents [each] aspect of her double nature'. From a psychoanalytical perspective Cathy is the ego, a compromise between the id, Heathcliff, and the super ego, Edgar; once the three are combined in their graves which lay side by side the 3 parts of the mind are reunited, allowing tranquility to return to Wuthering Heights.

Loves Edgar because he is 'handsome and pleasant' C9

Cathy Earnshaw - her love for Edgar is extremely shallow and superficial, due to his appearance and easily manipulated manner.

Wants to be the 'greatest woman of the neighbourhood' C9

Cathy Earnshaw - the only way to fulfil her ambitions of financial and social elevation are to make an advantageous marriage. Use of the superlative 'greatest' is evident of the extent of her ambitions and the lengths Cathy will go to reach them. Gold says that Cathy is the ego in a 'male world' and to survive she must identify with either Edgar or Heathcliff.

'Heaven did not seem to be my home' C9

Cathy Earnshaw - her love for Heathcliff is so great that she forsakes any beliefs of religion, willing to morally degrade herself in order to be with him. Despite her selflessness in this regard when Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights, she chooses Edgar and 'heaven'.

'Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same' C9

Cathy Earnshaw - Brontë establishes existential love between Cathy and Heathcliff, drawing upon Aristotle's views about love, that humans must search for the other half of their soul.

'I am Heathcliff!' C9

Cathy Earnshaw - exclamatory is demonstrating of the extent of her deep and all consuming feelings for Heathcliff.

'Uncontrollable grief'

Cathy Earnshaw C9 - reaction to Heathcliff running away from Wuthering Heights

'I have such faith in Linton's love that I believe I might kill him, any he wouldn't retaliate' C10

Cathy Earnshaw - her relationship with Edgar is quite destructive in the way she lacks any reverence for him. Contrasting with the expected gender dynamics in an upper class relationship.

'Too absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer any embarrassment' C10

Cathy Earnshaw - instantly upon Heathcliff's return her deeper bond with him is demonstrated, reinforcing her love for Edgar as being superficial. Use of the superlative 'too absorbed' emphasises this. Unlike Cathy's love with Edgar which is one sided, her love with Heathcliff is 'mutual'.

'I'll try breaking their hearts by breaking my own' C11

Cathy Earnshaw - she uses destructive langauage, similarly to Heathcliff, she wishes to pass on her own difficult feelings to others, making them feel the pain instead.

'Will you give up Heathcliff hereafter, or will you give up me?' C11

Cathy Earnshaw - Edgar attempts to control her by giving her an ultimatum, however her love for Heathcliff will always out trump her relationship with Edgar.

'I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me' C12

Cathy Earnshaw - her feelings of narcissism are revealed, declarative of 'could not' reinforces the absolute nature of her beliefs in her own self worth and how others feel about her.

'Converted at a stroke into Mrs Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger' C12

Cathy Earnshaw - has a lack of personal identity, it having been stripped from her by her marriage to Edgar - the 'stranger' in his ignorance of Cathy's true nature.

'I wish I were a girl, half savage and hardy, and free' C12

Cathy Earnshaw - Brontë presents the romantic notion of harking back to a simpler, more natural time. Ironic that when Cathy was 'free' she wished to be the 'greatest woman in the neighbourhood' and to have a fine house such as the one which is now her prison.

'I don't want you, Edgar: I'm past wanting you' C12

Cathy Earnshaw - an absolute rejection by her of any feelings of love between her and Edgar, despite this he continues to dote upon her, demonstrating his needs to have an authoritarian role over her and all women.

'A mere ruin of humanity' C13

Cathy Earnshaw - her physical entrapment and mental decay has led to an utter deterioration of her once 'hardy' nature.

'You and Edgar have broken my heart Heathcliff' C15

Cathy Earnshaw - attempts to place blame of her predicament through the use of direct address.

'Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me?' C15

Cathy Earnshaw - her frenzied mental state is mirrored structurally through the use of rapid rhetorical and exclamatory sentences. It also reveals her fears of death, as she will die before her true desires and hopes are achieved; contrastingly both Edgar and Heathcliff are not scared of death, as they both believe they are going to be reconciled with Cathy after death.

'I'm tired, tired of being enclosed here' C15

Cathy Earnshaw - her marriage with Edgar has ultimately become a physical and mental source of entrapment for Cathy. Gilbert and Gubert say that there are many 'images of enclosure and escape' representing how women were 'enclosed in the architecture of an overwhelmingly male dominated society'.

'Beneficent fairy' C2

Cathy Linton - she is instantly objectified by Lockwood, describing her as a supernatural creature rather

'Wouldn't let me go to the end of the garden wall' C2

Cathy Linton - she lives a constricted life at Wuthering Heights, a fate which is established from the very start of the novel

'An unwelcomed infant' C16

Cathy Linton - when Cathy Earnshaw dies another motherless child is added to the world of Wuthering Heights

'Now am I old enough to go to Penistone crags?... constant question' C18

Cathy Linton - has a thirst for adventure and excitement like her mother, a life of isolation at Thrushcross Grange with her father does not fulfil her wishes

'Did not resemble her mother' C18

Cathy Linton - doesn't appear physically like her mother

'He my cousin!' C18

Cathy Linton - using an exclamatory sentence her feelings of upperclass prejudice and superiority result in feelings of repulsion upon realising that Hareton is her cousin

Made a 'pet of her little cousin' C19

Cathy Linton - she views Linton as a younger brother or animal rather than as her equal. her feelings for him are purely platonic and even maternal not romantic, making their subsequent marriage even more uncomfortable

'how dreary the world will be, when papa and you are dead' C22

Cathy Linton - she has an awareness of her loved ones mortality and how alone and vulnerable she will be when they are gone

'I love [Edgar] better than myself' C22

Cathy Linton - selfless love, use of hyperbole 'better', alludes to previous language used by her mother 'Heathcliff is more myself than I am', the extreme and deep emotions Cathy Earnshaw felt have been passed on to her daughter

'her features were so sad, they did not seem hers: she evidently regarded what she had heard as every syllable true' C22

Cathy Linton - use of the superlative 'so', and declarative 'not' emphasises the melancholy aspect of Cathy, and how shifted her personality is from her usual happy self. Nelly uses the adverb 'evidently', to convey Cathy's naivety in how she instantly believes Heathcliff's rhetoric.

'next to papa, and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living' C23 (about Linton)

Cathy Linton

'the Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my jailer', C23

Cathy Linton - use of the metaphor as the Grange as a 'prison', for Cathy Earnshaw it did become an 'enclosed' liminal space. In some respect Cathy Linton is trapped there due to her father's restrictive parental love which prevents her from a relationship with Linton or even Hareton while Edgar is still alive.

Linton wanted to 'lie in an ecstacy of peace' whereas Cathy wanted to 'sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee' C24

Cathy Linton - they are wholly incompatible, Linton longs for calm tranquility shows through the verb 'lie' which demonstrates his passive and lazy attitudes towards life. Cathy's desires are juxtaposing and comparatively chaotic - she wants to 'dance' in a 'jubilee', craving for excitement

she 'should fall asleep in his [heaven]' and Linton responds that 'he could not breathe in [hers]' C24

Cathy Linton - ultimately Linton and Cathy have negative effects on each other, their relationship is inconsistent and they are constantly falling out with each other.

'oh you dunce!', 'laughing heartily at [Hareton's] failure' C24

Cathy Linton - she appears like Isabella who scorned Heathcliff, her amusement at Hareton's inability is demonstrated through the exclamatory sentence and the adverb 'heartily'

She gives Hareton a 'cut with [her] whip' C24

Cathy Linton - the verb 'cut' conveys her careless brutality towards Hareton, this is a reconditioning of the 'whip' Cathy Earnshaw asked her father for in Chapter 4 - like her mother she has a cruel and spiteful streak.

she 'beat [Linton] constantly' C24

Cathy Linton - she is better than Linton in terms of intellectual as well as physical strength

'no one could see Catherine Linton, and not love her' C25

Cathy Linton - Nelly believes it impossible for any one not to lover her.

'I'll not get up, and I'll not take my eyes from your face, till you look back at me!' C27

Cathy Linton - she stands up to Heathcliff, the multi-clausal sentence can show her linguistic dominance, refusing to be silenced by him

'Have you never loved anybody, in all your life, uncle?' C27

Cathy Linton - rouses painful memories for Heathcliff of Cathy with her rhetorical questions.

'Catherine's face was just like the landscape - shadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid succession'. C27

Cathy Linton - use of elemental and natural imagery to describe Cathy's emotions, use of the verb 'flitting' describes how rapidly they changed - she has a volatile mental state, emblematic of the chaotic life she has led since her father died

'I sometimes think she can't speak for pain' C28

Cathy Linton - the suffering and grief she has faced acts as a metaphorical gag, silencing her. Personification of the abstract noun 'pain'.

'Catherine's despair was as silent as her father's joy'. C28

Cathy Linton - her emotions directly juxtapose to her fathers, while he beckons death seeing it as an end to his suffering she dreads it, his death will leave her isolated and vulnerable.

'He's safe, and I'm free' says this with 'bitterness' C30

Cathy Linton - all sisterly affection she once had for Linton has dissipated ultimately she will feel no sorrow as his death, as he acts as merely another shackle in her life

she says to Hareton in a 'tone of disgust', 'How dare you touch me!' C30

Cathy Linton - still is unwilling to befriend Hareton shown through the exclamatory sentence.