Wuthering Heights Themes

Heathcliffs chilodhood characterised by violence- "he would stand Hindelys blows without winking or shedding a tear..."

Catherines immaturity stays with her- she was a sopilt child so she is very used to getting what she wants, when she doesn't get this she gets ill with "brain fever" chooses Linton but still wants Heathcliff

Moors is seen as an escape in their childhood

Contrasts between the Lintons childhood (wealthy) and the Earnshaws (poorer) Catherine goes the Thrushcross Grange and becomes a proper Lady, though she still has an awful temper.

Cathy is treated very differently as a child, she is locked in her house and not allowed over the moors to discover what is there untill she is 16, this is down to Linton who is afraid of what Wutherin Heights might do to her

Heathcliff and Catherines love is developed through their mutual rebelion against Hindley and Joseph.

Their status' keep them apart but the pledge to be together- but Catherine chooses Linton.

Choice of Linton fuelled by stauts and wealth?  she feels guilty for choosing Edgar because of her devotion to Heathcliff- however she feels "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff"

reunited when Catherine is ill and Heathcliff is let into the Grange by Nelly when Edgar is out they are caugth and Heathcliff hands Catherine back to Edgar- showing he knows who she belongs to.

Hindely wants revenge on Heathcliff early on in the book because of the way he is treated by his father Nelly says it was "enough to make a fiend of a saint"

it is Hindley and Edgar, whose wealth and propertly that Catherine finds attractive, who separate Heatcliff form his love and inspite his revenge.

Heathcliff's revenge is to gain control of the Earnshaw proerty and also the Lintons- aiming to destroy it.

Heathcliff becomes trapped and isolated in his obsession with revenge.

Issabella learns to want revenge, wishing she could take "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth"

Catherine saying she will have revenge of knowing Heathcliff's cruelty arises from his loneliness and misery.

The first 2 chapters have references to the superntural- foreshadowing later events.

in Chapter 3 we meet the supernatural, in the form of Catherine's ghost which seems very real, as we read on we discover the sture story of the ghost.

there are many references throught out the book  with Catherine saying to Nelly

"Surely you and everybody else have a notion that there is or should be an existance of yours beyond you"

After her death Heathcliff asks Catherine to haunt him- "I know ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always"  he describes how he feels her presence around him.

Death brings Haerton and Cathy together as thier births both resulted in the deaths of ther mothers.