Wuthering Heights: English Assignment Essay, Research Paper

In chapter nine, Catherine reveals to

Nelly that Edgar Linton proposed to her and that she has accepted. She wishes

to find out Nelly’s opinion on the whole affair. In these passages she uses a

great deal of imagery to express what she is feeling. She seems to be

confessing to marrying Edgar, mainly for the social status attached and that it

would be the appropriate thing to do. Since her brother Hindley went into a

state of madness after the death of his wife, Frances, Catherine has been given

the freedom to make up her own mind, and yet she still chooses Edgar over

Heathcliff, the one who she truly loves. One of the things Catherine does is to

describe a nightmare that she once had. This upsets Nelly, as she is very superstitious

about nightmares. Nightmares have certain connotations, leading to anxieties,

fears, and showing a deeper meaning underneath the surface. What makes the

dream quite sinister is that it was about heaven. Heaven is usually represented

as a wondrous place, where people would be content, and happy. The fact that

Catherine admits she would not be happy there gives the nightmare a quite dark

side, "I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my

home?". The idea that anyone could be unhappy would seem quite strange and

possibly scary to the reader, particularly the 19th Century audience

that would have first read this novel. This description of her dream reveals a

lot about what she thinks of herself and the entire situation. The way she broke

her heart with "weeping to come back to earth" and how the angels

were "so angry" that they flung her out "into the middle of the

hearth on top of Wuthering Heights?" seems to represent her marriage to

Edgar Linton. Heaven is with Edgar, but she recognises that she does not belong

with him when she says, "I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than

I have to be in heaven?". She does admit that she loves Heathcliff,

"? how I love him?", but she knows that she cannot not marry him. She

understands that she must marry a rich and respected man, which is what Edgar

Linton is, and not Heathcliff. She says it would "degrade" her to

marry Heathcliff. ????? The use of the family home, Wuthering

Heights, in her imagery makes connotations back to Heathcliff. Because she woke

"sobbing for joy" at Wuthering Heights, we can assume that the things

attached to the house make her truly happy. Even in the name

"Wuthering", it means "stormy", perhaps like Heathcliff’s

spirit. Everything in the house is a complete contrast to Edgar as well. The

house was earlier described as "The floor was smooth, white stone; the

chairs high-backed, primitive structures, painted green; one or two heavy black

ones lurking in the shade." It shows that the Heights are quite bland and

plain, yet in a stony way. There is no feeling of warmth, or comfort, and the

sense of "shade" gives the ideas of shadows and darkness. This is the

house where Heathcliff lives. In contrast, Edgar lives at Thrushcross Grange;

it is nothing like the Heights. In Heathcliff’s words, it was described as:

"? a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson covered chairs and

tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass-drops

hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with the little soft

tapers."? In comparison,

Thrushcross Grange is a much warmer place. Signs are shown in its name, also.

"Thrush" is a sweet-sounding, beautiful bird and "Grange"

means a farmhouse, generally used for storing things. It makes it seem rich,

and not emptiness, like Wuthering Heights. The description is almost quite

regal sounding with words like "shimmering" and "shower of

glass-drops". It has warm colours, and carpets, rather than plain stone.

It has a welcoming and loving feeling about it. This is the house where Edgar

Linton lives. It seems to suggest that the two men are compared and represented

by the houses they each occupy. Again, Edgar was compared to heaven, perhaps

this is what Thrushcross Grange is seen as; somewhere that Catherine does not belong.

She also describes the differences between

them with an interesting quote: "Whatever our souls are made of, his

(Heathcliff) and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam

from lightening, or frost from fire." She is just describing here how

different she sees her and Edgar. The moonbeam represents Edgar because it is a

soft light, perhaps showing Edgar’s tender and caring nature. Lightening, on

the other hand, is powerful and dramatic; it is full of action and represents

Catherine’s fierce temper. Also, lightening is very spontaneous, unpredictable,

and destructive. A moonbeam is constant and expected; it never changes. As for

frost/fire, frost is not really being used in the cold sense, more that it

settles and becomes lifeless, and unmoving. This is where Catherine puts Edgar

down, showing that he is lacking passion. Fire, on the other hand, seems to

show a great deal of passion. It is uncontrollable, raging and unpredictable.

Again this relates back to the personality of Catherine. She believes that her

and Heathcliff are one together. She means a similar thing as to the soul

reference when she says, "I am

Heathcliff!" She simply means that they are so much alike that they could

not possibly have so much love for anyone else. It is something that she

mentions on many occasions, including "He’s always, always in my mind: not

as pleasure? but as my own being." She is a part of Heathcliff. ????? Although Catherine loves Heathcliff, she

also loves Edgar at the same time – she merely loves them in different ways.

This is shown by the quote: "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the

woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My

love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible

delight, but necessary." She means here that she loves Edgar now, for her

own reasons, but she knows that the reasons are merely temporary, and it is

very likely that one day she will no longer feel the same way. It is only

because she lives for the present that she chooses to marry him. The word

"change" may actually be used in the physical sense, as she says,

"winter changes the trees". Perhaps here she means that she loves him

because he is handsome, and, over time, old age will set in and he will no longer

be handsome. The way she loves Heathcliff is for much more solid reasons, one

that can never change It is nothing do with his physical appearance, which she

even admits herself when she says "? I love him? not because he’s

handsome?". Instead of trees, as she uses to describe her love for Edgar,

she uses rocks. Rocks are strong, unchanging, and ubiquitous; it feels

literally solid as a rock. She re-enforces this with the word

"eternal", meaning everlasting, and ongoing. "Eternal" is a

very powerful word, often bringing connotations of their love continuing after

death, when they are souls together. The two are completely different, however.

The trees are visible, because her love for Edgar is the love she lets people

see. She says the rocks are "beneath" and "of little visible

delight" because her love for Heathcliff must be hidden, as she knows she

can never be with him. ????? In contrast to this scene, Chapter 10 is

where Isabella confesses her love for Heathcliff. Catherine, again, uses

imagery to describe Heathcliff. She describes him as "an arid wilderness

of furze and whinstone." Here she is still saying that he is wild and out

of control with the "furze" remark. Furze is a wild shrub. The

"whinstone" is a hard type of rock, showing Heathcliff’s toughness.

As before, Catherine described him as being wild and powerful, but here she

seems to be doing it in a slightly more negative way in the hope that she can

deter her sister-in-law from pursuing feelings for Heathcliff. She also uses

the rocks in a different way. As before, she had used them to show her solidity

of feelings for Heathcliff, yet here she uses them in order to represent

Heathcliff’s savage nature.