Wuthering Heights: Key Quotations and Analysis
- Created by: SarahE96
- Created on: 12-05-16 18:20
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- Key Quotations
- 'He is more myself than I am'
- An example of Cathy as transgressive: the bond she feels with Heathcliff is all-consuming, even consuming her sense of identity- something that 'should' only happen in marriage. Gothic idea of doubles, duality and exploration of the human psyche
- 'In every cloud, in every tree...I am surrounded with her image!'
- Heathcliff sees Cathy in nature, linking her with the natural world, rather than the world of man.
- 'I love my murderer'
- Heathcliff is accusing Cathy of killing part of him in her death, and goes on to accuse her practically of self-murder-suicide. Truly Gothic.
- Descriptions of Heathcliff
- 'Fiend', 'imp of Satan', 'demon', 'not a human being', 'devil daddy', 'monster'.
- 'Everything lay in misty darkness'
- The surrounding darkness makes the Heights seem, ironically perhaps, like sort of haven. The mist adds to the sense of the unknown and danger out in the real world: It is as the inhabitants of the Heights are separated from society by something greater than distance.
- 'I cannot live without my life, I cannot live without my soul'
- Echoes Cathy's declaration that she and Heathcliff are one. Brings association of bodies without souls (vampires, the undead). Heathcliff lives without his soul and it is seen in his acts of cruelty, Gothic having the villain live without a soul
- 'I wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumber for the sleepers in that quiet earth'
- The concluding sentence of the text draws the reader back to death and to the love-triangle at the heart of the plot. Lockwood's wondering seems as if he is trying to rationalise events, but comes on the back of the peasant boy swearing he saw the ghosts of Cathy and Heathcliff- spirits united at last. It is an ambiguous ending, much like the rest of the text: we are not sure what is and what is not.
- 'Terror made me cruel'
- 'I pulled its wrist onto the broken pane and rubbed it to and fro 'till the blood ran down and soaked the bed clothes'
- Bronte has built up the terror of this passage- the enclosing tomb-like bed, the voice of Catherine expressed in her journal, the nightmare Lockwood has suffered: all conspired to bring the reader the most traditionally Gothic phase of the narrative.
- 'Terror made me cruel'
- Bronte has built up the terror of this passage- the enclosing tomb-like bed, the voice of Catherine expressed in her journal, the nightmare Lockwood has suffered: all conspired to bring the reader the most traditionally Gothic phase of the narrative.
- 'As if craving the aim of the sun'- Lockwood's impression of the trees at Wuthering Heights
- The wind-swept nature of the Heights is emphasised- a nature which can make things twisted and misshaped, just like many of the characters who live there.
- 'He is more myself than I am'
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