Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë
PLOT

Themes
Main Ideas Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Destructiveness of a Love That Never Changes

Catherine and Heathcliff’s passion for one another seems to be the center of Wuthering
Heights, given that it is stronger and more lasting than any other emotion displayed in
the novel, and that it is the source of most of the major conflicts that structure the
novel’s plot. As she tells Catherine and Heathcliff’s story, Nelly criticizes both of them
harshly, condemning their passion as immoral, but this passion is obviously one of the
most compelling and memorable aspects of the book. It is not easy to decide whether
Brontë intends the reader to condemn these lovers as blameworthy or to idealize them as
romantic heroes whose love transcends social norms and conventional morality. The
book is actually structured around two parallel love stories, the first half of the novel
centering on the love between Catherine and Heathcliff, while the less dramatic second
half features the developing love between young Catherine and Hareton. In contrast to
the first, the latter tale ends happily, restoring peace and order to Wuthering Heights and
Thrushcross Grange. The differences between the two love stories contribute to the
reader’s understanding of why each ends the way it does.
The most important feature of young Catherine and Hareton’s love story is that it
involves growth and change. Early in the novel Hareton seems irredeemably brutal,
savage, and illiterate, but over time he becomes a loyal friend to young Catherine and
learns to read. When young Catherine first meets Hareton he seems completely alien to
her world, yet her attitude also evolves from contempt to love. Catherine and
Heathcliff’s love, on the other hand, is rooted in their childhood and is marked by the
refusal to change. In choosing to marry Edgar, Catherine seeks a more genteel life, but
she refuses to adapt to her role as wife, either by sacrificing Heathcliff or embracing
Edgar. In Chapter XII she suggests to Nelly that the years since she was twelve years
old and her father died have been like a blank to her, and she longs to return to the
moors of her childhood. Heathcliff, for his part, possesses a seemingly superhuman
ability to maintain the same attitude and to nurse the same grudges over many years.

Moreover, Catherine and Heathcliff’s love is based on their shared perception that they
are identical. Catherine declares, famously, “I am Heathcliff,” while Heathcliff, upon
Catherine’s death, wails that he cannot live without his “soul,” meaning Catherine.
Their love denies difference, and is strangely asexual. The two do not kiss in dark
corners or arrange secret trysts, as adulterers do. Given that Catherine and Heathcliff’s
love is based upon their refusal to change over time or embrace difference in others, it is
fitting that the disastrous problems of their generation are overcome not by some
climactic reversal, but simply by the inexorable passage of time, and the rise of a new
and distinct generation. Ultimately, Wuthering Heights presents a vision of life as a
process of change, and celebrates this process over and against the romantic intensity of
its principal characters.
The Precariousness of Social Class
As members of the gentry, the Earnshaws and the Lintons occupy a somewhat
precarious place within the hierarchy of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century
British society. At the top of British society was the royalty, followed by the
aristocracy, then by the gentry, and then by the lower classes, who made up the vast
majority of the population. Although the gentry, or upper middle class, possessed
servants and often large estates, they held a nonetheless fragile social position. The
social status of aristocrats was a formal and settled matter, because aristocrats had
official titles. Members of the gentry, however, held no titles, and their status was thus
subject to change. A man might see himself as a gentleman but find, to his
embarrassment, that his neighbors did not share this view. A discussion of whether or
not a man was really a gentleman would consider such questions as how much land he
owned, how many tenants and servants he had, how he spoke, whether he kept horses
and a carriage, and whether his money came from land or “trade”—gentlemen scorned
banking and commercial activities.

Considerations of class status often crucially inform the characters’ motivations

in Wuthering Heights. Catherine’s decision to marry Edgar so that she will be “the
greatest woman of the neighborhood” is only the most obvious example. The Lintons
are relatively firm in their gentry status but nonetheless take great pains to prove this
status through their behaviors. The Earnshaws, on the other hand, rest on much shakier
ground socially. They do not have a carriage, they have less land, and their house, as
Lockwood remarks with great puzzlement, resembles that of a “homely, northern
farmer” and not that of a gentleman. The shifting nature of social status is demonstrated
most strikingly in Heathcliff’s trajectory from homeless waif to young gentleman-by-
adoption to common laborer to gentleman again (although the status-conscious
Lockwood remarks that Heathcliff is only a gentleman in “dress and manners”).

Motifs
Main Ideas Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and
inform the text’s major themes.

Doubles
Brontë organizes her novel by arranging its elements—characters, places, and themes—
into pairs. Catherine and Heathcliff are closely matched in many ways, and see
themselves as identical. Catherine’s character is divided into two warring sides: the side
that wants Edgar and the side that wants Heathcliff. Catherine and young Catherine are
both remarkably similar and strikingly different. The two houses, Wuthering Heights
and Thrushcross Grange, represent opposing worlds and values. The novel has not one
but two distinctly different narrators, Nelly and Mr. Lockwood. The relation between
such paired elements is usually quite complicated, with the members of each pair being
neither exactly alike nor diametrically opposed. For instance, the Lintons and the
Earnshaws may at first seem to represent opposing sets of values, but, by the end of the
novel, so many intermarriages have taken place that one can no longer distinguish
between the two families.
Repetition
Repetition is another tactic Brontë employs in organizing Wuthering Heights. It seems
that nothing ever ends in the world of this novel. Instead, time seems to run in cycles,
and the horrors of the past repeat themselves in the present. The way that the names of
the characters are recycled, so that the names of the characters of the younger
generation seem only to be rescramblings of the names of their parents, leads the reader
to consider how plot elements also repeat themselves. For instance, Heathcliff’s
degradation of Hareton repeats Hindley’s degradation of Heathcliff. Also, the young
Catherine’s mockery of Joseph’s earnest evangelical zealousness repeats her mother’s.
Even Heathcliff’s second try at opening Catherine’s grave repeats his first.
The Conflict Between Nature and Culture
In Wuthering Heights, Brontë constantly plays nature and culture against each other.
Nature is represented by the Earnshaw family, and by Catherine and Heathcliff in
particular. These characters are governed by their passions, not by reflection or ideals of
civility. Correspondingly, the house where they live—Wuthering Heights—comes to
symbolize a similar wildness. On the other hand, Thrushcross Grange and the Linton
family represent culture, refinement, convention, and cultivation.
When, in Chapter VI, Catherine is bitten by the Lintons’ dog and brought into
Thrushcross Grange, the two sides are brought onto the collision course that structures
the majority of the novel’s plot. At the time of that first meeting between the Linton and
Earnshaw households, chaos has already begun to erupt at Wuthering Heights, where
Hindley’s cruelty and injustice reign, whereas all seems to be fine and peaceful at
Thrushcross Grange. However, the influence of Wuthering Heights soon proves
overpowering, and the inhabitants of Thrushcross Grange are drawn into Catherine,
Hindley, and Heathcliff’s drama. Thus the reader almost may interpret Wuthering
Heights’s impact on the Linton family as an allegory for the corruption of culture by
nature, creating a curious reversal of the more traditional story of the corruption of
nature by culture. However, Brontë tells her story in such a way as to prevent our
interest and sympathy from straying too far from the wilder characters, and often
portrays the more civilized characters as despicably weak and silly. This method of
characterization prevents the novel from flattening out into a simple privileging of
culture over nature, or vice versa. Thus in the end the reader must acknowledge that the
novel is no mere allegory.

Symbols
Main Ideas Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or
concepts.

Moors
The constant emphasis on landscape within the text of Wuthering Heights endows the
setting with symbolic importance. This landscape is comprised primarily of moors:
wide, wild expanses, high but somewhat soggy, and thus infertile. Moorland cannot be
cultivated, and its uniformity makes navigation difficult. It features particularly
waterlogged patches in which people could potentially drown. (This possibility is
mentioned several times in Wuthering Heights.) Thus, the moors serve very well as
symbols of the wild threat posed by nature. As the setting for the beginnings of
Catherine and Heathcliff’s bond (the two play on the moors during childhood), the
moorland transfers its symbolic associations onto the love affair.
Ghosts
Ghosts appear throughout Wuthering Heights, as they do in most other works of Gothic
fiction, yet Brontë always presents them in such a way that whether they really exist
remains ambiguous. Thus the world of the novel can always be interpreted as a realistic
one. Certain ghosts—such as Catherine’s spirit when it appears to Lockwood in Chapter
III—may be explained as nightmares. The villagers’ alleged sightings of Heathcliff’s
ghost in Chapter XXXIV could be dismissed as unverified superstition. Whether or not
the ghosts are “real,” they symbolize the manifestation of the past within the present,
and the way memory stays with people, permeating their day-to-day lives.

A critical analysis of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights .

Wuthering Heights is a novel full of contradictions. The environment at Grange
contradicts that at the Heights and so do their inmates and their ways of life.
Heathcliff is a contradiction set against the meek and lean Edgar Linton, while
Catherine is also a complex character, a lot different from any other female
character in the novel. The peculiarity of the characters and the settings had
both baffled and amazed critics at the time of the novel’s publication.
From complicated characters to intense and complex emotions, the novel is
filled with all the elements of a tragic and macabre love story. The novel is
macabre because tragic deaths happen and Catherine’s ghost haunts
Lockwood. Despite it all, it is an unforgettable piece of literature; deeply
engaging and equally interesting. Wuthering Heights goes far beyond ordinary
tragic romance.
The author has used the element of supernatural to deepen the sinister effect.
Not just romance, Wuthering Heights is about hatred, revenge, class conflict,
complicated relationships and several more complex things. Starting from the
point of innocence, the romance in the novel turns gothic, blooming into
obsessive revenge. The love between Catherine and Heathcliff blooms at a
young age. As they grow up, Catherine grows attracted towards things like
social status and imagines a better life with Edgar Linton. Leaving Heathcliff
behind, she marries Edgar who can afford all luxuries of life. Heathcliff is forced
to leave the scene unable to bear the impact of Catherine leaving him for Edgar.
While the novel was criticised for its peculiar approach on love, still Bronte’s art
of story-telling did not go unappreciated.  Heathcliff is a dangerous but engaging
character. Somewhat unpredictable and insane, he generally defies being
understood. Apart from the characters, it is the settings which are an important
strength of the novel. The entire plot of the novel is set in a space far from the
society and social conundrum. The reason behind the heavy criticism was that
its settings and tragic character make it look entirely unreal. However, the
novel’a attraction lies in the way it explores human emotions and various facets
of the human personality and the effect of circumstances on it. The profound
change, Heathcliff’s personality has undergone throughout the course of the
story has its root in the insecurity that is born of his poor upbringing. He has
nobody to rely upon and no ally except the one who left him for Edgar Linton.
The unpredictability associated with his character right from the beginning is an
important attraction of the novel. 
The weather, the hills and the moors, all reflect the barren life inside Heights.
The storm in the hills reflects the emotional turmoil in the lives of the characters.
The weather is just as unstable as life inside Heights and Grange. At the
Grange, life seems better from the outside, but inside things are again ghostly
and pale like Linton Kids.
The Earnshaw and Linton families represent two distant ends of life. Lintons
lead a civilized and more organized life, the Earnshaws are unruly and lack
discipline. The use of the spiritual and the supernatural while on the one hand
makes events appear severe, it intensifies the pain and the appeal of the novel.
The central appeal of the novel is strengthened by the pain and tragedy in it.
None of the characters remains divorced from pain. As if Catherine’s father had
brought a storm with him from Liverpool, Heathcliff’s entry changes everyone’s
life at the ‘Heights’.
The central characters Heathcliff and Catherine are similar in various regards.
Both are stubborn and possessive. The love between the two is at the core of
the novel and if anything is more dramatic than their love then it is Heathcliff’s
obsession for revenge. One by one, most characters fall prey to an unknown
evil. Catherine haunts the Heights after her death. Earnshaw family and Linton
family are vastly different in terms of lifestyle and thinking. Their family values
differ and the Linton family looks a lot more sociable than the Earnshaws. No
soul finds solace in the novel till Heathcliff’s death.
Poor Heathcliff keeps punishing others and nearly destroys everyone with his
vengeance. Seeking revenge from Hindley and Edgar, he obtains their
properties. Hindley’s son Hareton gets to lead the life of a poor labour.Heathcliff
tortures him and keeps him uneducated. However, nothing can bring Catherine
back to life. The union of the two lovers does not happen on earth, but the poor
souls are cremated next to each other.
Catherine lies after her death between Edgar and Heathcliff, just as she was in
her life – torn between the two. Many times she lamented having married Edgar
who could never afford the same intense love that Heathcliff could. Edgar
always lacked Heathcliff’s intensity and manliness and Catherine could not find
what she expected of her husband. She dies and after her death she haunts
Heathcliff’s memories, who is still mad and seeks revenge from others for not
having found her.
The level of hatred and grief in the novel can be mind boggling and it is why
several readers find the novel gothic. Heathcliff’s character looks repulsive at
various instances. Against him Edgar looks like a poor and comic character.
Between the two, the fate of Catherine is even tragic who dies giving birth to
Cathy. Several critics found Heathcliff a deformed monster and an insane
psychopath. He is equally offensive in his love and hatred. Whether in terms of
love or revenge, he is always willing to cross the limit. He gives everyone more
than they can endure. Overall, it seems like Emily Bronte has let no chance go
to make the life of the two families appear like a brutal joke. Just everyone is
living in hell.
At last the two people that remain are Cathy and  Hareton. Cathy treats Hareton
with care and love and teaches him to read. She is aware of the wrongs the
poor creature has suffered at the hands of Heathcliff. By the end, they are soon
to be married. It looks like the tragic sequence at the Heights has gotten over
with Heathcliff’s death. Catherine and Heathcliff could not unite in their lives but
the union of Cathy and Hareton is an indication that the two will be united after
death. The novel is intensely engaging and while the agony of Heathcliff and
Catherine is deeply unsettling, it is the intensity of their longing which makes the
appeal of the novel grow. Rest all in the novel is painful and twisted.
At the end, the pain and gloom subsides and it appears like a new beginning in
the novel but the haunting presence of Catherine remains till the end of the
story because it is for her sake that everyone has born so much punishment
which ends only after Heathcliff’s death. The author proves that people create a
hell of their life because they cannot overcome their expectations from others.
There is hardly a character in the novel who finds what he expected from life.
From Mr Earnshaw to Heathcliff, Catherine and even the Linton kids, nobody
gets the expected in his life. While the black gypsy kid is at the centre of this
mess, he has not caused it all alone. Apart from him, Catherine and Hindley are
also responsible for the mess. Seen in the light of the circumstances Heathcliff
has faced in his life, his behaviour seems understandable and to a limited
extent pardonable.
The novel contains very high level of emotional and psychological drama where
penetrating into the psychology and emotions of some characters becomes
difficult. It is however, due to the presence of contradictory traits in them.
Despite the high level of pain in it, the novel does let readers see things with
clarity and things start falling into place by the end. Emily Bronte’s style is
attractive but even attractive is her choice of settings and characters. The turn
of  events as set by the author is also appreciable and things have come a full
circle by the end. A storm that had set in with the arrival of the gypsy kid is gone
with his death. The only problem is that the author has explored a deeply
sadistic side of love that critics of her time found that difficult to digest. The kind
of love and hatred in the novel are unexpected for most readers.
Wuthering Heights and
its Many Genres
Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is one of the most
recognisable titles in English literature. The cult classic,
staged against the backdrop of the wild Yorkshire moors,
explores the love, hate, passion, and revenge of two
neighbouring families.

First published in 1847, the novel continues to be

devoured by avid bookworms, closely scrutinised by
English majors, and remains a staple of high school
English curricula. However, there remains a question that
has been continually argued, considered, and debated,
offering no definitive answer. That is, what is the novel’s
genre? An analysis of the famous novel presents several
possibilities.

Romanticism
Wuthering Heights is considered to have been a product of
the Romantic movement (note, the capital R).
The period between the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries in Europe has retrospectively been
labelled the ‘Romantic Era.’ This movement of
Romanticism refers not to love, but rather, a celebration
of art, the natural world, and finding beauty in the
everyday aspects of life. These elements were common
throughout the literature published at the time.

The literature of this period was dominated by male poets.

The movement gave rise to names such as William
Wordsworth or John Keats, poets which are popular even
today. However, it was during this period that, for the first
time in history, there were more female writers than male.
Emily Bronte being among them.

Having published Romantic poetry herself, it is no

surprise that aspects of Romanticism found a place in
Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights. While Romanticism is
not a genre, the movement had an influence on the way
Bronte’s story was told.
This is evident in the novel’s tendency to stop and admire
nature. Bronte uses Romantic imagery to set many scenes.
The descriptions of nature are celebratory, and inanimate
objects are often personified. When describing the natural
world, it also tends to be sensory, describing sound or
smell, not merely relying upon sight.

“I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched

the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells;
listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass.”

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Volume II, Chapter XX.

Bronte depicts lovely scenes of “garden trees, and the wild

green park.” She suggests that the windows have
“displayed” this natural world, likening it to an art
display.

Several characters, including Catherine Earnshaw or Mr.

Lockwood, express delight at being removed from society
and surrounded by nature. For Catherine, she longs to be
in the wild and untamed environment. In Wuthering
Heights, being outside is frequently symbolic of freedom.
These ideas are Romantic, allowing Bronte’s novel to fit
within this movement.
Wuthering Heights, by LeonNack.

Bildungsroman
Emily Bronte’s famous novel demonstrates characteristics
of the Bildungsroman genre. This is also known as a
coming-of-age story. For a story to be categorised as a
Bildungsroman, it usually follows a familiar plot-line. The
young protagonist in this kind of story will often spend
time away from home. In this time, they will grow, learn,
or mature. Perhaps they will have to grapple with an
important aspect of their identity. Ultimately, however,
their past will shape the person they become. This can be
observed in two of the novel’s central characters,
Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff.

An injury forces the young Catherine Earnshaw to be away

from home for five weeks. During this exile, she
undergoes a personal transformation. No longer
recognisable as the “hatless little savage” she once was,
Catherine matures to become a perfect example of the
quintessential, respectable English woman.

Before her estrangement from Heathcliff, the pair were

inseparable. However, her time away, and the influence of
those she is living with, allows her to see her former friend
the way those around her do.

“If the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so

low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to
marry Heathcliff, now.”
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Volume I, Chapter IX.

Heathcliff’s overhearing of this statement provides the

catalyst for his ensuing anger and revenge.

Heathcliff also spends a period of time away from his

home. The destination of this absence, a stint in the army,
is only alluded to. However, he returns to Wuthering
Heights looking “intelligent, and retained no marks of
former degradation.” So changed is Heathcliff, that to
those who formerly dismissed him, he appears suddenly
worthy of his place in the honourable home. Though he is
now worthy of Catherine, she does not receive him as he
had hoped. He is left heartbroken and furious.

The lives of both protagonists are shaped by these events.

Without both crucial plot points, Wuthering Heights would,
perhaps, have concluded very differently.
Gothic Fiction
The gloom of Gothic

The Gothic genre first appeared in the mid-eighteenth

century. It is defined by its gloomy scenes, supernatural
beings, and shrieking heroines. Since its inception, the
Gothic genre has dominated the literary scene and
popular culture, more broadly.

Wuthering Heights displays several characteristics of the

Gothic genre. The location of Heathcliff’s home,
Wuthering Heights, is given a Gothic description. The
area is subject to “atmospheric tumult” and frequent
“stormy weather.” Rather than the Romanticised scenes
otherwise depicted, Wuthering Heights is described less
beautifully. It is surrounded by “stunted firs” and “a range
of gaunt thorns.” These scenes are abrasive, rather than
inviting. The darkness and the dangerous weather aim to
unsettle characters and readers alike. This is common
throughout the genre.
The novel also depicts elements of the supernatural, a
popular Gothic trope. Early in the novel, Mr. Lockwood, a
visitor to Wuthering Heights, is horrified by the ghost of
Catherine Earnshaw at his window.

“I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the

window–Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to
attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the
broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran
down and soaked the bed-clothes.”

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Volume I, Chapter III.

Both the gore and the ghost of this scene work together to
paint a terrifying and unsettling picture, worthy of any
Gothic novel.

In Gothic literature, especially in the earliest iterations of

the genre, women are commonly the victims. Isabella
Linton falls prey to the tyrannical power of Heathcliff. She
is tricked into marrying him. This leaves her imprisoned,
by law, to abide by the man who now treats her poorly.
She pleads with her confidant to “explain…what I have
married.” She likens him to the Devil. This marriage, true
to Gothic form, leaves her longing for death.

Heathcliff is unashamed in his efforts to use the women,

and occasionally men, in his life for his own malicious
gain. To Nelly, the narrator, he states, “I must either
persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my
determination to see Catherine.” Nelly occupies the
position of innocent bystander within the novel. Preying
upon her makes Heathcliff appear deeply villainous.
Fit for the Gothic genre, characters are continually on
edge, anticipating the tyrant’s next moves. This anxiety is
only fuelled by the menacing appearance described in
their location.

Romance
Often heralded as the greatest love story in
history, Wuthering Heights is commonly categorised as a
romance novel. Arguably, more so than any other genre.
This is justified in that the love shared between Catherine
and Heathcliff is central to the story-line. In fact, many of
the novel’s darker aspects arise from the thwarted love of
this couple.
Bronte’s novel has provided hopeless romantics with
some of the most iconic pronouncements of deep love.

“He shall never know how I love him; and that, not
because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more
myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and
mine are the same.”

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Volume I, Chapter IX.

Judge a book by its cover?

Wuthering Heights has been given a large array of covers over the
years. The differences in what is emphasised by the covers suggest
the conflicting ideas about its genre. This one appears Romantic
with an element of romance.

The lovers are separated in life, but in true romance (and

Gothic) fashion, they remain together forever, in death.
Heathcliff has the adjoining wall of both his and
Catherine’s graves removed, so that the lovers can be
together eternally. Heathcliff expresses his wish of
“dissolving with her, and being more happy still!” This is
their happy ending.

The relationship between Edgar Linton and Catherine

Earnshaw demonstrates a popular aspect of the genre,
unrequited love. Edgar loves Catherine, evident in his
sadness for her, both on her deathbed, and after her
passing. However, Catherine does not feel the same. After
describing a dream where she is thrown out of heaven, she
admits to having “no more business to marry Edgar
Linton than I have to be in heaven.” She marries him, as it
is socially desirable for their families to be combined.
However, she is tormented by her lack of love for her
husband.

Wuthering Heights does offer readers a more traditional

happily-ever-after, though. At the novel’s conclusion,
Catherine Linton marries Hareton Earnshaw, her true
love. She empowers him, teaching him to read after he
was deliberately kept illiterate by Heathcliff. It is said that
“together, they would brave Satan and all his legions.”
This neat and tidy conclusion occurs after the tribulations
of relationships that are not happy. This is characteristic
of novels in the romance genre.

Tragedy
Wuthering Heights is also considered a tragedy. More
specifically, a revenge tragedy. The story contains many
scenes of death and suffering. Eleven of the thirteen main
characters are deceased by the novel’s conclusion. Many
of these deaths are sudden or premature.
The passing away of key characters is often untimely and
saddening. Catherine Earnshaw passed away two hours
after giving birth to her only daughter. This daughter, also
named Catherine, was pushed aside amidst the mourning
of her family. Edgar Linton’s grief for the passing of his
wife is deeply saddening.

“His bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its

after effects showed how deep the sorrow sunk.”

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Volume II, Chapter II.

The novel is premised on the scorned Heathcliff’s revenge

upon those who have mistreated him. For several
characters, he destroys both their will to live, and their
quality of life. While married to Heathcliff, Isabella
expresses in a letter to her confidant that, “the single
pleasure I can imagine is to die.” Catherine Linton,
Hareton Earnshaw, Edgar Linton, and most of the novel’s
other central characters, are all forced to suffer
continually.

Heathcliff’s own son, Linton, is not spared. He is forced to

marry his cousin, Catherine Linton, and both are
powerless to resist. This is a key strategy for Heathcliff.
Rather than think of his son’s happiness, he leaves him
miserable in order to secure his wealth. The pair live
unhappy lives together, true to the tragedy genre. This is
only ended by Linton’s death, at the tender age of
seventeen. These characters, among many others, are
forced to deeply suffer, as the characters of tragedies often
do.

Finally, the tragedy genre also usually offers a sense of

catharsis, or a release from strong emotions, for its
characters. By the novel’s conclusion, the last remaining
characters are provided with this catharsis in the eventual
death of their tyrant, Heathcliff. The novel concludes,
then, with the acknowledgement of Heathcliff’s grave,
“still bare” from being so recent. The happily-ever-after is
only possible in his absence.