Wuthering Heights and Betrayed Themes
By: Nam Perugu
Tags: Literature, Wuthering Heights, Love, Reading, Books

Catherine the First

The first half of Wuthering Heights (told through a doubly insulated narration) deals with the life and times of Catherine Linton née Earnshaw, and her devoted lover Heathcliff. It culminates in that saintly woman’s death at a point just shy of the interval, and there rests our heroine but for spectral cameos.

“ ‘It is twenty years,’ … ‘twenty years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!’ ” —Catherine née Earnshaw, Chapter 3

The Set Up

Catherine is introduced to us with a great deal of build up. Our primary point of view narrator Lockwood reads her journals, gives us all the names she had in life, and manifests her specter at the window. Heathcliff has a character defining moment when he cries out for her ghost to visit him. Her childhood voice that we hear through Lockwood is the thinnest the veil will be between us and the true story of the events that transpired at Wuthering Heights.

“An awful Sunday … I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute — his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious — H. and I are going to rebel — ” — Catherine née Earnshaw, Chapter 3

The story of Heathcliff and Catherine is that of immovable object meeting unstoppable force. They are a sharknado of incredible declamations, and by far the most engaging elements of the book. Nearly two centuries later when we talk of Wuthering Heights discourse tends to center on these two star strangling lovers. Catherine is one half of this whole, and as such she is set up with due respect. The reader may well begin the book prepared to admit her to the ranks of the best awful women in literature, rubbing shoulders with Rebecca Sharp and Rebecca de Winters.

The Betrayal

It would not shock the reader to find Catherine dead, but that it happened too soon. Catherine devours what screen time she has, and then is the stage abandoned to Heathcliff, who dominates the story. If you have ever read Death Note you are familiar with the vacuum left behind by a character whose demise the plot demands, but whose shoes the remaining cast is too feeble to fill. You are left tagging along with an antihero whose downfall you know must be coming, but your heart is simply not in it. What is Vanity Fair without our little Becky?

Catherine née Earnshaw was never meant to be a symbol. As a living woman she continuously excites the reader. As a ghost, the best she can do is frighten London dandy Lockwood. By second narrator Nelly’s report, she had a delightfully inaccurate estimation of herself:

“Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I’d not only turn the other, but I’d ask pardon for provoking it; and, as a proof, I’ll go make my peace with Edgar instantly. Good-night! I’m an angel!” — Catherine née Earnshaw, Chapter 10

By sublimating Catherine née Earnshaw into a symbol halfway through the novel, Catherine and Heathcliff’s love story is left lopsided for the entire second half. There is a definite drag to the story after the shark to Heathcliff’s tornado is abruptly dropped into that Tartarean ocean to which we must all retire. This loss of narrative energy pinions the book; makes a mockery of the living fire of the real woman. We are left pining for Catherine ever after. Perhaps the real Heathcliff was inside us all along.