Catherine does not marry Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights because she sees better opportunities for herself and him by marrying
Catherine wants to lead a wealthy life and be a respected member of society. For that reason, she chooses Edgar's quiet adoration over Heathcliff's fierce love. Overall, Catherine chooses to marry Edgar because he can give her the life that Heathcliff cannot.
Heathcliff overhears only part of a conversation in which Catherine admits that it would be a disgrace to her social position to marry him, a fact that causes him to lose all control over his emotions and run away and leave the family.
But even without that, their relationship can easily be read as obsessive, destructive, co-dependent – in a word, toxic.
Lesson Summary
In some ways, Cathy is a doppelganger or double of her mother, though there are differences in the characters as well. Heathcliff has been in love with Cathy's mother, and he hates Edgar and his daughter Cathy as a result.
First, Catherine and Heathcliff were not blood siblings. We don't know if Heathcliff was officially adopted by Mr Earnshaw; the fact that he did not automatically inherit Wuthering Heights when Hindley died suggests not. Secondly, there is no actual evidence in the book that the two of them ever had sex.
The author explores multiple characters' affairs. She creates a narrative which describes the romantic involvement through generations. One of them, Catherine Earnshaw, truly loved Heathcliff. But she never managed to be with him due to the different social statuses.
a violent and cruel way are taken into account, Heathcliff cannot be labelled as the real villain of Wuthering Heights; an authentic villain is not capable of loving anyone, least of all the way Heathcliff loves Catherine. This explains why, for some other critics, the true villain of Wuthering Heights is Ellen Dean.
As Heathcliff grows older, he remembers the violence he has been taught, but takes it to another level by imposing violence on the loved ones of the people he hates. He is able to exact his revenge on Edgar by marrying and then abusing Edgar's sister, Isabella.
To get revenge against Edgar for taking Catherine from him, Heathcliff marries Edgar's sister, Isabella, and treats her badly. In chapter 17 of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, grief intensifies Heathcliff's abuse of Isabella to the point that she must run away.
Heathcliff, for example, continually desires contact with Catherine's ghost, even going so far as to plead with her to haunt him when she first dies. He also exhumes her grave so that he can look at her again, and he has part of her coffin removed so that he can truly be buried by her side when he dies.
Heathcliff responds to news of Catherine's death. As Nelly witnesses his reaction, the readers see his passionate and desperate love for Catherine. However, his wish that her soul would not rest shows the selfish side of his love: He prays that she would haunt him so he would not lose her.
Catherine and Heathcliff's love is based on their shared perception that they are the same. Catherine declares, famously, “I am Heathcliff,” while Heathcliff, upon Catherine's death, wails that he cannot live without his “soul,” meaning Catherine. Both Cathy and Heathcliff love each other profoundly.
Catherine Earnshaw's one true love is Heathcliff. Catherine firmly believes that Heathcliff is her soulmate, but she marries Edgar instead. In Brontë's Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff (Catherine's soulmate) marries Isabella Linton even though he is in love with his foster sister Catherine Earnshaw.
Heathcliff's dead body is found by the same window: "The lattice [window], flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill." Heathcliff is buried next to Catherine as he had requested, his hope being that in death, their bodies will conjoin, as they never did while alive, with the body of Edgar on her ...
After she falls asleep on a chair in his bedroom, Heathcliff wakes up Isabella and tells her this is not her room. Further, he blames Edgar for Catherine's illness and vows to take his revenge on Isabella for this. Isabella closes her letter by writing, 'I do hate him - I am wretched - I have been a fool!
The threat of sexual immorality with Heathcliff is heightened by chronological details: Cathy's baby, 'a seven month-child,' is born seven months after the return of Heathcliff (p. 137).
Heathcliff's son by Isabella. Weak, sniveling, demanding, and constantly ill, Linton is raised in London by his mother and does not meet his father until he is thirteen years old, when he goes to live with him after his mother's death.
Heathcliff purposefully sets out to force Hareton into a repressed and uneducated life, and he also torments his own son, Linton. Nelly explains that Heathcliff “bent his malevolence on making [Hareton] a brute.” Heathcliff later essentially imprisons Cathy Linton, forcing her to marry a boy she doesn't love.
Jealous of Heathcliff's closeness to Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley instantly treats Heathcliff with animosity and abuse. Eventually, this gives way to Mr. Earnshaw favoring Heathcliff as his favorite child, above his son Hindley and daughter Catherine, causing Hindley to hate his "foster-brother" even more.
Chapter 11 of Wuthering Heights opens with a vision of young Hareton, who has become a demon child from living with the 'Devil Daddy' that is Hindley. Then we move down to Thrushcross Grange, where Heathcliff is seducing Isabella to Catherine's great displeasure.
Many literary critics speculate that Heathcliff is a dark personification of the author herself. Heathcliff could be counted as the hero during the first half of the book, but after his lover Cathy dies he grows bitter and seeks revenge on Cathy's widower Edgar Linton and her daughter and namesake Catherine Linton.
Whatever our souls are made out of, his and mine are the same.” Perhaps the most famous of all Wuthering Heights quotes, this snippet from Chapter 9 has Catherine expressing her deepest feelings for Heathcliff to the housekeeper Nelly Dean.
Catherine's true love towards Heathcliff only made her marry Edgar Linton. She marries her for the sake of gaining status. She wants to make Heathcliff attain the status. Heathcliff's inferiority complex is one reason for the destructive relationship throughout this novel.
"In those two months, Mrs. Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever." But worse was to come, for her "state of disorder" left Catherine "a mere ruin of humanity". The second phase of her illness is told in terms that suggest hysteria - until we get to the bitter end.