Themes of Love and Obsession in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

To begin, Heathcliff uses Isabella as a means of exacting revenge on Edgar Linton, whom he despises. When Heathcliff finds out Isabella is in love with him, he is delighted. His pleasure comes not from a mutual like for Isabella, but rather a vision for revenging Edgar. After Catherine lets slip that Isabella is in love with him, Heathcliff says to her, “...and if you fancy I’ll suffer unrevenged, I’ll convince you of the contrary, in a very little while! Meantime, thank you for telling me your sister-in-law’s secret: I swear I’ll make the most of it. And stand you aside!”(112). Heathcliff’s comment

Catherine Earnshaw appears to be a woman who is free spirited. However, Catherine is also quite self-centered. She clearly states that her love for Edgar Linton does not match how much she loves Heathcliff. She is saying that she does love both, and she is unwilling to give one up for the other; she wants “Heathcliff for her friend”. Catherine admits that her love for Linton is “like the foliage in the woods”; however, her love for

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).

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.

In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses the setting of the English Moors, a setting she is familiar with, to place two manors, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The first symbolizes man's dark side while the latter symbolizes an artificial utopia. This 19th century setting allows the reader to see the destructive nature of love when one loves the wrong person.

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

Harsh, wild and unforgiving; the Yorkshire moors on which Emily Brontë played, provided the backdrop and catalyst of turmoil in her most tragic book Wuthering Heights. Born in 1818 in rural England, Haworth she lived in the heart of these wild, desolate expanses which provided her an escape where she truly felt at home and where her imagination flourished. Along with her sisters and brother, the Brontë children in their pastimes would often create stories and poems largely based on their playful ramblings in this environment.

Here, she tells Nelly that marrying Heathcliff would degrade her, and she would’ve married him if he wasn’t a disgrace to marry. She also says “Nelly, I see now, you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married we should be beggars? Whereas, if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother's power?” (Bronte 87). Catherine believes that by marrying Edgar, she could help Heathcliff with his financial state and free him from Hedley. However that doesn’t happen, because Heathcliff overhears the part where she tells Nelly that it would degrade her to marry him and he decides to leave Wuthering Heights.

She wants a future and doesn’t want to settle for less since Hindley made Heathcliff into a servant. She is marrying Edgar and not Heathcliff because of status, and Edgar is rich. She also shows how she feels about both Heathcliff and Edgar: “he's more myself than I am. 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.” Knowing that Catherine's marry makes Heathcliff life miserable since he is not allowed to see her and is shock that Catherine chooses Edgar over him. Heathcliff then decide to make her miserable as well and seek revenge on her. The fact, she love Heathcliff describes Edgar is only an option; she never shows any details to have real feelings for Edgar. Heathcliff tell us: “I seek no revenge on you”… “The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him: they crush those beneath them” (pg84) ironically Heathcliff tell us he will not seek revenge to Catherine but his actions show us he still when to get Catherine. When Heathcliff leaves and returns three years later; He attempts to see how Catherine’s doing and if he could win her love. Aware that she is married, Heathcliff returns as a gentleman and with money but doesn’t win Catherine back. Therefore Heathcliff starts his revenge by seeing and marrying Isabella, who is Edgar sister; and is trying to get Catherine

In the chapter XV of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights book reveals the complex relationship as lover between Heathcliff and Catherine. In order to demonstrate that feeling of love is hard to forget, Emily Bronte reveals that their love was so strong that it destroyed the distance and their relationship with other, but Catherine and Heathcliff never can be together because they are stubborn and never fight for their relationship between others because they do not want to hurt their partners.

This leads to him running away from the heights entirely, leaving Catherine to marry Edgar. “He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him.” (81). Upon his return (two years later), Heathcliff marries Isabella to get back at Catherine, and her speech about how marrying him would degrade her. Isabella is also taken against her and her family’s will. Heathcliff kidnaps her and locks her away at the heights. In a letter written to Nelly, Isabella confirms that it was truly against her will for her leaving, and that she cannot return in the time of crisis in her brother’s life. “… an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding offended him: asserting that she could not help it then, and being done, no power to repeal it.” (140). In the act of kidnapping Isabella, Heathcliff’s intent is to hurt Catherine. Catherine would develop almost a jealous-like temper towards the whole situation, as Heathcliff knew it would. Even on Catherine’s deathbed, there is a constant push and pull (in almost a literal sense) of the cruelty that goes on between the two of them. Between the crying, the vexing, and the constant apologies, comes the brutal cruelty of the words Catherine speaks to Heathcliff. “I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me – and thriven on it, I think.” (164)

“The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish,” said Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island. Any person can write a book, but to be able to write what you mean and affect your readers is very difficult. A writer simply can’t just drop dialogue into a character’s mouth without having any context of the dialogue. If an author has his or her character saying “I’m broke,” what does this really mean without any context? To Oprah Winfrey, being broke may mean she can’t buy a Silk Jet, a winery, or a country. To a middle- class American, being broke may mean they can’t buy a new pair of shoes that week, buy a new car, or get their hair

Catherine’s love for Heathcliff is deeply passionate, but ultimately all-consuming and destructive. Even as a child, Catherine is “much too fond of Heathcliff” (42). As she grows older, her affections for Heathcliff deepen and she eventually comes to believe her “great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries” and that “he is more [her]self than” she is (80-81). Catherine’s ability to empathize with Heathcliff’s “miseries” reveals her deep emotional connection to him, as the events of the rest of the novel do not portray her as an especially empathetic character. Additionally, rather than saying Heathcliff is her “other half,” a more traditional statement, Catherine claims Heathcliff is more herself than she is, introducing the all-consuming nature of their love. After Catherine and Heathcliff are reunited following Heathcliff’s three year absence, Edgar and Heathcliff passionately argue; Catherine subsequently becomes violently ill. Her condition rapidly deteriorates and during her final moments with Heathcliff, Catherine proclaims he “[has] killed” her (157). Catherine herself acknowledges that her illness and impending death result from her love for

Heathcliff and Catherine’s feelings towards each other influence their minds to the point of obsession, as their childhood affiliation advances into something neither one of them can handle and is something both of them fail to escape. Throughout the novel, Brontë reminds the reader of how their tribulations, rashness and destructive lust are all centred around their fixation for one another. Catherine had a very strong hold over Heathcliff as he would willingly do anything she wanted him to: ‘how the boy would do her bidding in anything, and his [Mr Earnshaw’s] only when it suited his own inclination’ . They seemed to have found consolation in each other as Heathcliff was being treated