Literary Devices – Wuthering Heights

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”).

The Futility of Revenge

Revenge is a central focus of Heathcliff’s life and, in fact, drives most of the decisions he makes
later in the novel. Though Heathcliff gains some bitter satisfaction through causing pain for
others, he does not achieve any personal happiness. Instead, his single-minded pursuit of revenge
leaves him empty and exhausted. After being tormented by Hindley as a child, Heathcliff
becomes obsessed with the idea of getting revenge. By taking advantage of Hindley’s debt,
Heathcliff gains control of Wuthering Heights and becomes the master of the house, a great irony
considering he was once forced to work there as a de facto servant.

Heathcliff seeks further revenge on Hindley by raising Hareton, who should have grown up to be
a gentleman and a landowner, like a common servant, forcing on the boy the same indignity
Hindley had once heaped on Heathcliff. Heathcliff is fully aware of his cruelty. As he explains to
Nelly, he understands and desire Hareton’s suffering: “I know what he suffers now, for instance,
exactly—it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though.” Moreover, Heathcliff has the
perverse pleasure of knowing Hareton loves and respects him no matter how badly he treats
him.

Heathcliff eventually achieves his entire plan of revenge, including marrying Cathy and Linton
so that he also gains control of the Grange. However, Heathcliff’s death, alone and desperate for
his lost love, represents the futility of his struggle. Though he achieved his desired revenge on
those, living and dead, who had wronged him, he remains unfulfilled in his true desire—to be
reunited with Cathy, which can only be achieved in death.

Injustice Versus the Necessity of the Class System

Social class is presented as an ambivalent theme in the novel. On one hand, Brontë seems to
argue that social class is an arbitrary distinction that prevents people from being happy. On the
other, she shows disruptions to social class as negative forces that have to be eliminated in order
for peace and order to be restored. As a young child, the fact that Heathcliff is treated differently
simply because of his family background seems to be clearly unfair. Nelly tries to console him
by suggesting that he imagine the background he might have: “I would frame high notions of my
birth and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the
oppressions of a little farmer.” This consolation is particularly poignant coming from a servant
who also has to reconcile herself with her own class position even though she is essential to
everyone’s lives.

However, while Brontë seems to be sympathetic to Heathcliff’s frustration with the class system,
she also implies that he goes too far when he tries to disrupt it and insert himself. Nelly pointedly
calls Hareton “the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock” and later refers to him as someone who
“should be the first gentleman of the neighborhood.” When Heathcliff dies, Joseph thanks God
that “the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their rights.” Interestingly, it is
servants who express the strongest support for proper inheritance and tradition. Peace and
happiness are restored to both houses only when Heathcliff and his son have passed away, and
Hareton and Cathy are united as the inheritors of the Linton and Earnshaw legacies. Heathcliff
achieves his vision of lying next to Cathy for eternity, but he has to be wiped out of the class
system if anyone can lead happy and peaceful lives.
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
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.
Protagonist
Heathcliff is the protagonist of Wuthering Heights. The action of the plot begins when he is
brought into the Earnshaw household as a mysterious young child. His presence informs the
events of the novel and affects the decisions of all the other characters. Soon after his arrival,
Heathcliff begins to want to be treated like the equal of the Earnshaws and to be considered a
legitimate suitor for Cathy. When Hindley treats him cruelly and unjustly, Heathcliff also begins
to desire revenge. As he tells Nelly, “I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t
care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last.”
At the beginning of the novel, Heathcliff shows traits of hopefulness and kindness, but he
becomes increasingly bitter and anguished, subjected by personal cruelties and class
discrimination and deprived of Cathy, his true love. Eventually, his only motivation is his plan to
gain control of both the Heights and the Grange. This plan drives him to work to bring Cathy and
Linton together and to degrade Hareton. Heathcliff gradually becomes less motivated by
revenge, finally admitting that he doesn’t even care about trying to cause suffering anymore.
Heathcliff never wavers in his desire to be reunited with Cathy and only becomes more and more
tormented by his longing for her. The last words he speaks are a lament that “it’s unutterably too
much for flesh and blood to bear, even mine.”

Heathcliff’s actions significantly change other characters, particularly Hareton and Cathy Linton.
He succeeds in making Hareton an uneducated and lonely man who is ashamed of his ignorance.
By forcing Cathy to marry Linton, he changes her from a sweet girl into an embittered young
woman. However, their natural tendency towards love and kindness causes Cathy and Hareton to
finally reverse these changes as they find first friendship and then love. Their change also seems
to influence Heathcliff; once he accepts their feelings for each other, he seems finally able to let
go of his quest for vengeance and surrender to a death where he can be reunited with his beloved.

Antagonist
Literary Devices

Hindley Earnshaw is the antagonist of the novel. His primary motivation is jealousy: as a child,
Hindley resents the affection his father shows Heathcliff and comes to see the adopted boy as “a
usurper of his parent’s affections and his privileges.” Hindley taunts young Heathcliff by calling
him a “beggarly interloper,” showing that he is keenly aware of Heathcliff’s lack of status and
privilege. Once he inherits Wuthering Heights, Hindley continues to work to thwart Heathcliff
by treating him like a servant, preventing him from continuing his education, and continually
humiliating him. He ends up shaping Heathcliff into an embittered and vengeful man. However,
after Hindley deteriorates from grief and addiction and Heathcliff returns as wealthy man, the
dynamic between the two characters reverses. Heathcliff now works to achieve his revenge by
seeking control of Hindley’s property and the loyalty of Hindley’s son. By the time of his death,
Hindley has become totally disempowered, and Heathcliff has attained full control of everything
that remained in his life.

Genre

Literary Devices Genre

Wuthering Heights is a Gothic novel. Gothic novels usually feature supernatural elements,
ominous settings, and threats to young women, often involving imprisonment in an isolated
mansion. The Gothic novel developed in the 18th century and remained popular during the
Victorian era, and its popularity was associated with a rising interest in psychology and the
subconscious, especially repressed desires. Author Emily Brontë incorporates supernatural
elements, such as the possibility of ghosts, into her novel and presents Wuthering Heights as an
archetypal Gothic building, full of dark and mysterious secrets. For example, when Lockwood
first sees the house, he notes “the excessive slant of a few, stunted firs… and gaunt thorns all
stretching their limbs as if craving alms of the sun.” Additionally, Cathy Linton’s storyline
revolves around a young woman being held captive by an older, villainous male figure.
However, earlier Gothic novels written in English were traditionally set outside England in
locations such as Spain or Italy, while Brontë used the English setting of the Yorkshire moors.

Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing in Wuthering Heights creates narrative interest and suspense. In the initial
chapters, Lockwood is confused by the strange inhabitants of Wuthering Heights. The clues he
picks up foreshadow plotlines which will later be revealed, drawing the reader into the tale. For
example, when Heathcliff explains that Cathy Linton is his daughter-in-law, Lockwood notices
he sends “a particular look in her direction, a look of hatred.” This expression on Heathcliff’s
face foreshadows the revelation of his embittered past, particularly the marriage between
Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton. Foreshadowing is also significant in the novel because of
the multi-generational storylines and the sense that characters’ destinies are being controlled by
events that happened before they were ever born.

Cathy’s Unhappiness in Love

When Lockwood spends the night at Wuthering Heights, he notices how a window ledge has
“writing scratched in the paint… a name repeated in all kinds of characters.” The re variations on
Cathy’s name with different surnames (Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and Linton) foreshadows how
Cathy’s life will be unhappy because she is torn between different identities and different men .
She will also become a pawn in male power struggles and class conflict when she is just trying to
make a happy life for herself. Thus, the childish writing of a girl trying on married names
furthers an ominous tone and reflects how Cathy’s innocence will ultimately be lost.
The Arrival of Linton
Nelly Dean recounts how Mr. Earnshaw returned from a trip to Liverpool with a young boy who
was “starving, and houseless and as good as dumb.” Earnshaw decides to have the boy live with
him, and even though it is clear that Heathcliff will not be treated as one of the family, he is
given “the name of a son who died in childhood.” Heathcliff’s arrival into his adopted family
foreshadows how many years later his own son, Linton, will arrive at Thrushcross Grange after
the death of his mother. Although Linton is greeted more fondly by Edgar and Cathy Linton
because of his family relationship, he will not be allowed to stay. Heathcliff’s unhappy inability
to integrate into a family foreshadows how his son will end up torn between two families who
are divided against each other.

Heathcliff’s Death
After Lockwood experiences nightmares and ghostly visions while sleeping in an oak-paneled
bed at Wuthering Heights, he goes to sleep in another room. He looks back and sees that
Heathcliff has “got on to the bed and wrenched open the lattice.” Heathcliff also begs Cathy to
come back to him one more time. This action foreshadows how, at the end of the novel,
Heathcliff will be found dead on the same bed with the window wide open. His calling to Cathy
during this time also hints at his desperate desire to be spiritually reunited with his beloved in the
afterlife.

Point of View
Literary Devices

Wuthering Heights is presented from a number of different points of view. The first narrator is
John Lockwood, who offers first-person narration. Readers are given Lockwood’s perspective on
people, places, and events and are limited to learning information along with him. Lockwood’s
arrogant and self-absorbed perspective makes him unreliable; for example, he reflects on how he
“must beware how I cause her to regret her choice,” assuming that Cathy Linton will be attracted
to him. Lengthy sections of the novel are narrated by Nelly Dean as a first-person retrospective
as she recalls her memories of the past. However, it is still Lockwood who compiles and records
what he hears from Nelly, and he admits to telling it “in her own words, only a little condensed,”
which implies he omits some of what Nelly tells him. Nelly is also an unreliable narrator in that
she has strong biases and emotional attachments to the characters she talks about.

Writing Style
Literary Devices
The style of Wuthering Heights is poetic and lyrical. Many critics have noted that Brontë’s use of
romantic imagery and emotional dialogue in the novel evokes her previous work as a poet. The
passionate feelings and dark events reveal the characters’ emotional intensity and are unusual in
a Victorian novel. The structure of Wuthering Heights’ structure also heavily influences its style.
The novel is essentially comprised of Lockwood’s diary, and it contains his own recollections of
events as well as a retelling of events as related to him by Nelly. There are also direct quotes
from other characters, such as Catherine and Heathcliff.
Accordingly, Brontë’s style alters depending on which character is speaking. For example,
Heathcliff often rages in aggressive, succinct sentences, such as, “What can you mean by talking
in this way to me! ... How-how dare you, under my roof.” Joseph, on the other hand, speaks in a
Yorkshire dialect, representative of his servant status, “If there's to be fresh ortherings—just
when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev' a mistress set o'er my heead, it's like time to be
flitting.”

Setting
Literary Devices

Wuthering Heights is set in Yorkshire, a region in the north of England. The “present day” action
of the novel takes place from 1801-1802 with the retrospective plot events occurring over the
previous thirty years. All of the action happens in a small, isolated, and wild area dominated by
two grand estates owned by neighboring families. This choice of setting allows for an intense
and focused plot that is concentrated on a small cast of characters. Because of the geographical
isolation, many conventional social rules don’t seem to apply at the Heights, which is part of
why Lockwood is often shocked by what he learns about the local residents.
The setting is also dominated by stormy, unpleasant weather. Lockwood explains that the word
“Wuthering” refers to “the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy
weather.” However, the Yorkshire moors can be a beautiful place as well as a violent one. As
Lockwood reflects when he returns to Yorkshire at a more pleasant time of year, “In winter,
nothing is more dreary, in summer nothing more divine.” Thus, the setting also serves as a
parallel to the love of Cathy and Heathcliff, stormy and devastating yet divinely powerful.

Tone
The tone is critical and disapproving throughout most of the novel, but it changes to become
more hopeful and compassionate towards the end. Lockwood begins the novel with a desire to be
alone, seeking out “a perfect misanthropist’s heaven,” but quickly becomes annoyed by what he
views as the anti-social and unrefined behavior of the residents of Wuthering Heights. With the
exception of admiring Cathy’s beauty, he usually shows disapproval towards the people he
meets, sarcastically calling them “a pleasant family.” Because Nelly knows more about the
complex histories of the Earnshaw and Linton families, she demonstrates more compassion in
her narration, but she often expresses disapproval when speaking of Cathy Earnshaw and
Heathcliff. She knows that they, and others, have made decisions that have culminated in the
unhappy lives of Hareton and Cathy Linton.

When Lockwood returns to Yorkshire in the late summer, the tone is very different and is now
imbued with hope. Nelly reflects on how happy the upcoming marriage will make her: “The
crown of all my wishes will be the union of those two.” Lockwood, after spending most of the
novel being judgmental towards the people he is learning about, ends the tale with a tone of
sympathy and compassion, referring to Cathy, Edgar, and Heathcliff as “sleepers in that quiet
earth.”