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, the object of his obsession, becomes the essence of his life, yet, in a sense, he ends up murdering his love. Ironically, after her death, Heathcliff's obsession only intensifies. Heathcliff's love for Catherine enables him to endure Hindley's maltreatment after Mr. Earnshaw's death.
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.
Their love exists on a higher or spiritual plane; they are soul mates, two people who have an affinity for each other which draws them togehter irresistibly. Heathcliff repeatedly calls Catherine his soul. Such a love is not necessarily fortunate or happy.
Heathcliff's love for Catherine is a selfish and obsessive love that leads to misery. Isabella has strong feelings of romantic love for her husband Heathcliff, but he is only using her. Isabella's unrequited love destroys her chances at happiness.
Secondly, there is no actual evidence in the book that the two of them ever had sex. Heathcliff ran away when he was sixteen and Catherine fifteen. It seems unlikely that they would have slept together before then.
It's true that having been raised as siblings, Heathcliff and Cathy's infatuation is laced with a queasy tug of incest. But even without that, their relationship can easily be read as obsessive, destructive, co-dependent – in a word, toxic.
Catherine explains that she cannot marry Heathcliff because Hindley has degraded him so much; however, she expresses her love for Heathcliff. She prefaces her remarks with "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff," and these are the words he overhears.
After Catherine's father's death, Heathcliff and Catherine become even closer because they can share their grief. Nelly describes how “the little souls were comforting each other.”
Catherine kisses Heathcliff, but while doing so, she comments upon his dirty appearance and compares him unfavorably to Edgar. Heathcliff is hurt by the changes in his friend's appearance and attitude.
He says that he can forgive her for the pain she has caused him, but that he can never forgive her for the pain that she has caused herself—he adds that she has killed herself through her behavior, and that he could never forgive her murderer.
Wuthering Heights is renowned as one of the greatest love stories in English literature. The relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw—unconsummated and bizarrely unerotic—is difficult, dangerous, and illicit, wreaking havoc on both the protagonists' lives and the lives of those around them.
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.
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 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.
Because of her desire for social prominence, Catherine marries Edgar Linton instead of Heathcliff. Heathcliff's humiliation and misery prompt him to spend most of the rest of his life seeking revenge on Hindley, his beloved Catherine, and their respective children (Hareton and young Catherine).
Heathcliff tells Nelly that he persuaded the sexton to dig up Catherine's grave. He stares at her dusty corpse and bribes the sexton to put his body next to hers when he dies. He has no fear of disturbing the dead, he tells Nelly. Cathy has been haunting him for eighteen years.
Wuthering Heights teaches you that everyone has a bad side. Brontë created no virtuous characters: all of them are capable of cruelty; all are a combination of good and evil, like real people. This moral lesson is one of the most life changing experiences you may get out of reading.
At the house, Heathcliff tells Nelly that he hopes Linton and Cathy will one day marry. Yet Cathy and Linton don't even recognize each other when they meet. Heathcliff's plot becomes clear: he wants to marry them in order to solidify his claim to Thrushcross Grange.
and Mrs. Linton themselves come down with the sickness and die. The civilized Linton's try to cure Catherine's fever (i.e. passion), but instead they are killed by it.
Wuthering Heights masquerades as a love story, but it is really a study of trauma. Catherine and Heathcliff both have Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and also shows signs of BPD.
When Heathcliff returns, he tells her that Catherine is sick, that he blames Edgar, and that he plans on making her suffer in place of Edgar.
After Catherine's marriage to Edgar, it becomes Edgar's job to try to keep Heathcliff and Catherine apart. To get revenge against Edgar for taking Catherine from him, Heathcliff marries Edgar's sister, Isabella, and treats her badly.
Heathcliff's abuse of the innocent, Isabella, who only wants to love him, indicates that he has no boundaries when it comes to satisfying his desire for revenge.
After working his way back into Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff aims for Thrushcross Grange, directing the second part of his revenge towards Edgar by encouraging Isabella's infatuation. Heathcliff has no passion, love, or desire for Isabella; he only wants to use her.