How Does Emily Bronte's Use Of Mistaken Identity

Heathcliff resents her scorn. He desires to regain her approval. He attempts to be “decent” and “good” for her sake (Brontë 40). However, his attempt to be decent fails miserably. He resents the attentions that Catherine gives to Edgar. Catherine would rather wear a “silly frock” and have dinner with “silly friends” than ramble about the moors with him (Brontë 50). Heathcliff keeps track of the evenings Catherine spends with Edgar and those that she spends with him. He desperately wants to be with Catherine. When Catherine announces to Nelly her engagement to Edgar, Heathcliff eavesdrops, but leaves the room when he “heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him” (Brontë 59). Catherine has spurned his love, choosing Edgar over him. Heathcliff cannot bear this rejection. The love he possesses for her transcends romantic and filial love (Mitchell 124). He feels that he is one with her (Mitchell 123).

   "My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff" (81)" These words, uttered by Catherine, in the novel Wuthering Heights are for me the starting point in my investigation into the themes of love and obsession in the novel. Catherine has just told her housekeeper that she has made up her mind to marry Edgar Linton, although she is well aware that her love for him is bound to change as time passes. That she is obsessed by her love for Heathcliff she confirms in the above quotation and by saying that she will never, ever be separated from him. Why does she not marry him then? Well, she has

Heathcliff is abused; his only source of love is his dearest Catherine, yet even that love cannot thrive in Heathcliff’s environment. The problem is not that his love is unrequited, but rather that Catherine believes she would fall to ruin if she were to be with Heathcliff “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him---because he's more

Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Brontë distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights   to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Brontë perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.

Catherine’s crisis starts with her decision to marry Edgar Linton. “Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to know what I should do. To-day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I've given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.”(77) Catherine starts to worry about the decisions she made because she realized she loves Edgar but not nearly as much as she loves Heathcliff. Cathy went on to admit this saying “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” (80) She knows she shouldn't marry Linton because she loves Heathcliff more than anyone else, but she does

Catherine’s and Heathcliff’s relationship commences with both participants “... [promising each other] to grow up as rude as savages”

Even in his darkest moments he is so passionate that Nelly does not consider him fully human because he reacts so violently that it’s not possible to consider him a human being. Heathcliff’s masculinity is not traditional for the period he lived in; men were supposed to resist and restrain their passions. But Heathcliff is like an animal and the opposite of what was expected in the Victorian

1. As it deteriorates and dies, Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship serves as a cautionary tale and a witness to love’s destructive nature. Their love for one another is an addiction. Catherine long for Heathcliff and states, “I wish I could hold you.. till we were both dead” (Brontë 357). Catherine understands their relationship as “a source of little visible delight, but necessary” (Brontë 183). She views herself as one in the same with her lover, “Nelly, I am Heathcliff” (Brontë 183). She is obsessed with him-- regardless of her relationship with Edgar, Heathcliff never ceases to occupy her thoughts. If she were to lose Heathcliff, she would effectively go through withdrawal; their love is an addiction. She wants possession of Heathcliff

With such an infamous knack for the art of the scorn and slander, it’s not much of a surprise that Catherine enjoys her gossip. While telling Nelly about Edgar’s Marriage proposal, with Heathcliff eavesdropping close by, Nelly asks Cathy why she would not marry heathcliff instead. Her response, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now” (Bronte 81), shows that she not only cares more about her social status and appearance, but that she disregards Heathcliff’s feelings almost entirely as she has, as if she were shopping, gone with the better deal. Once Heathcliff hears Cathy’s words, he becomes a changed man, and by no means for the

The scene reveals Heathcliff’s possessiveness and savage tendencies. Without Catherine, Heathcliff would not have any motivation to retain any morals or decency. Much of his personality is centered around his romantic interest. In essence, Heathcliff’s passion for Catherine shapes who he is; his love fosters both his ability to be loving and gentle to her and the subsequent hostility he displays toward everyone

Many experiences shaped Heathcliff to become the character he was, but nothing shaped him as much as Hindley’s treatment as well as Catherine’s “confession.”

“My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” (Brontë, 82)

Catherine even reveals to Nelly that her love for Linton is temporary and false, whereas her love for Heathcliff is as eternal as “the rocks beneath” (70). Her decision shows her naivety, therefore demonstrating the destructive features of the women of the time.

Heathcliff and Catherine’s love is “an attempt to break the boundaries of self and to fuse with another to transcend the inherent separateness of the human condition; fusion with another will by uniting two incomplete individuals

Heathcliff and Catherine’s introduction to the Linton family acts as the point in Wuthering Heights when racialization and othering have fully proliferated throughout Heathcliff’s environment, what with Catherine’s recognition of Heathcliff’s imposed racial and class inferiority. The earliest trace of Catherine’s shifting perspective is found in her reaction to Isabella’s claim that Heathcliff looks “exactly like the son of a fortune-teller”; hearing this, Cathy laughs (50). This is the first betrayal of many in Heathcliff’s eyes. Catherine’s shift in vocabulary becomes evident after she finally returns to Wuthering Heights, the girl unabashedly telling Heathcliff how “black and cross” he looks upon entering, and how his dark demeanor stands out because she is “used to Edgar and Isabella Linton” (54). In short, a mere few weeks at Thrushcross Grange has taught Catherine to consider Heathcliff a different breed of human being altogether. When considering the growing divide between Heathcliff and Catherine across lines of class and race, then, one can see that Catherine’s perspective offers what Nelly’s does not: it illustrates a deliberate shift from a mind full of mere adoration to one poisoned with feelings of superiority. To be granted insight into Catherine’s mind as she “gaze[s] concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her