Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontË Melissa Alvarez, Rebecca Alvarez, Dessire Arauz, Alejandra Brizuela, Rony Peguero, Jacqueline Rey, & Nicholas Sanchez

Main Characters Catherine Earnshaw- Catherine Earnshaw is the daughter of Mr. Earnshaw. She is described as pretty, with, as Nelly states “the bonniest eye”” and “the sweetest smile”. She has long locks of beautiful brown hair, as Heathcliff describes it. She is free-spirited, strong willed, wild, passionate, mischievous and spoiled. In the novel, Catherine falls deeply in love with Heathcliff, claiming that they are the same person. However, because of their difference in social status, she marries Edgar Linton instead. She often has fits of temper and is torn between her unique passion for Heathcliff and her social ambition. She serves mainly as Heathcliff’s love and as the heroine or protagonist of the story. Although Catherine is extremely important to the story, she's only around for half of the novel. She comes up again as a ghost from the past. Heathcliff- Heathcliff is a “tall, well-formed man”. He was brought into the manor as an orphan by Mr. Earnshaw himself when he was a young boy. He had always looked different than the others, being introduced to his new family by saying that he is “as dark, almost as if it came from the devil”, and he is called a “gypsy” by some of the other characters. Looking as different as he does makes it impossible for Heathcliff to ever truly fit in. He serves as Catherine’s main love interest, whereas Catherine is torn between being with him and Edgar, causing the main love triangle of the novel. Heathcliff and Catherine are forever haunted by one another, seeing themselves as inseparable from one another, and feel they cannot bear to live without each other.

Main characters (continued) Ellen “Nelly” Dean: Mrs. Dean is the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights manor, who has grown up with the rest of the main characters, and this gives her special insight into the history of the family. Nelly serves as the main narrator of the novel, along with Mr. Lockwood. She is a sensible, intelligent, and compassionate woman. Since she had grown up essentially alongside Hindley and Catherine Earnshaw, she is deeply involved in the story she tells. She has strong feelings for the characters in her story, and these feelings complicate her narration, making her an unreliable narrator for the fact that she supplements her opinion throughout the novel. Catherine (Cathy)Linton: Cathy is the daughter of Catherine and Edgar. She resembles her father more in her appearance, with golden hair and fair skin. As mother and daughter, Catherine and Cathy not only share the same name, but also their headstrong behavior, recklessness, beauty, and occasional arrogance. However, because of her father’s influence, Cathy becomes a more gentle and compassionate person then her mother was. Due to the fact that she is a constant reminder of Catherine and is the offspring of Catherine and Edgar’s relationship, Heathcliff hates her and plans to seek his revenge around her. She is known as Catherine Heathcliff after her first marriage, and Catherine Earnshaw after her second marriage.

Main Characters (continued) •Mr. Lockwood is an English gentleman who is staying at the Yorkshire moors and is one of the two narrators in the book Wuthering Heights. Lockwood rents the Thrushcross Grange from Heathcliff. We quickly come to the conclusion that we will have to be careful about how we interpret Lockwood’s point of view, because he speaks in a very careless, undependable proxy of information. •Edgar Linton is the well-mannered, wealthy, and faithful husband of Catherine Earnshaw. He resides at Thrushcross Grange and throughout the novel Linton is seen as one of the more weak characters as he constantly shows his emotions and is not seen as a strong masculine character. We are first introduced to Linton when he is noted to be crying over a puppy which causes Heathcliff to look at him as a weak man. Heathcliff and Edgar both fight over who deserves Catherine’s love and this clash for Catherine’s love is seen as one of the main plot basis of Wuthering Heights.

Main characters (continued) Linton Heathcliff is the son of Heathcliff and Isabella. Linton is seen as a weak character who tends to showcase womanly characteristics and a cruel personality just like his father. His father despises, often regarding him as a tyrant and Linton actually uses him to gain control of Thrushcross Grange. •Hindley Earnshaw is the sole son of Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw and most notably the main enemy of Mr. Heathcliff who tends to show strong hostility towards Hindley. Hindley is mad at Heathcliff because Mr.Earnshaw shows a certain favoritism towards him and regards him to be his favorite son. During the duration of the story Hindley is quickly seen as an ill-mannered child seeking revenge for maltreatment during his younger years. His true character shows once his wife Frances dies and Hindley becomes a miserable drunk who bashes at others for his own character flaws.

Plot There are many major plot events, beginning with Lockwood’s encountering Cathy as a ghost, that sets the mood for the whole story. Lockwood entering the room that Heathcliff told him to stay away catches his attention and is where Nelly starts the telling the story, when Heathcliff arrives. Another major point would be when Cathy leaves and comes home after a couple of months and is a different person. Heathcliff’s moment of when he ran away and coming back wealthy changes the plot to the story as he is not the poor little orphan boy anymore. The birth of Cathy causing Catherine’s death and Heathcliff becoming very anger and mourns brings in more tension as he seeks his vengeance. Has the end gets near the more deaths seem to happen. Cathy and Hareton are becoming closer and want to be together but Heathcliff treats them wrong, Edgar Linton’s death following Heathcliff’s death bring a sense of peace. And the last major event would be Cathy and Hareton ending up together, promising not to be like their past family.

Setting Time period: 1770s-1802 Place: Yorkshire moors in northern England, beginning in Wuthering Heights and later moving on to Thrushcross Grange. The story spans through a time period of around the last fifty years of the eighteenth century. Due to the fact that the estate of Wuthering Heights has such a physically secluded setting, it adds to the feelings of despair and confusion that contribute to the tone of the novel.

Point-of-view Wuthering Heights has two main narrators: Lockwood and Ellen "Nelly" Dean. The novels main narrator is Lockwood, who begins and ends the story and is telling the story that he has heard from Nelly. Wuthering Heights is also written in Nelly's point of view, as she tells the story of Catherine and Heathcliff’s love and their struggle to be together. Nelly tells Lockwood her opinions and understandings of the characters and their experiences, but at times they may seem one sided. Nelly was not a witness to all of the events so she fills in the story with what she has heard has happened in those times. Nelly adds her own creative interpretations to a scene, and therefore because she was too much of a part of the actual history to describe the narrative objectively.

Symbols and themes Ghosts/Supernatural Ideas: In the novel, ghosts symbolize the way in which people keep certain memories that have had a great impact on their life. They also represent the importance of the past in the present in the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Lockwood sees the ghost of Catherine while he is in her room and Heathcliff longs for her to haunt him. Catherine’s ghost at this point serves as a nightmare and as a way to show how much Heathcliff loved her and misses her presence in his life. Supernatural elements are recurring factors in the novel which help transmit emotions of the characters to the audience as well as the importance of certain people or situations. Windows: The purpose of windows in the novel is that they serve as a barrier between things, especially people. When Catherine is bit by a dog while she and Heathcliff were outside of the Linton home, she was brought in to be taken care of and Heathcliff was left outside. He looked at her through the window. This represented how they were seen differently as people and they were not equally socially accepted. It also served to describe the way in which Heathcliff will always care for Catherine no matter what obstacles may be there.

Symbols and themes (Continued) Wuthering Heights: Wuthering Heights is the child home of multiple characters in the book such as Heathcliff, Catherine, and Hindley. This home symbolizes passion, a care-free lifestyle, simplicity, and wildness. Thrushcross Grange: This house was owned by the Linton’s and where Lockwood lived. It represented culture in a tamed and civilized manner. Social Class: Social class is a very important theme in the novel. Every character is judged off the amount of money they make or the social ranking they have among each other. The way a character in the novel is treated is majorly based on their social class.

Important Quotations “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and [Edgar’s] is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” “I am Heathcliff!” “I love my murderer” “Linton is all I have to love in the world, and though you have done what you could to make him hateful to me, and me to him, you cannot make us hate each other. And I defy you to hurt him when I am by, and I defy you to frighten me!”

Writing Style The novel Wuthering Heights was written as a frame narrative. This means that there is a story being told within a story. The novel starts off with Lockwood being the narrator but then transitions to Nelly Dean telling Lockwood the story behind the other characters in the novel. The majority of the novel is based on flashbacks and events that have taken place in the past.

Human condition in the novel Human condition is anything involving thematic concern about human nature, human society or how we live our lives. In other words, it's about the major issues of human existence. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë speaks about such modern issues as love, social class, and human drive. With the theme of love and social class in regards to the human condition, Brontë showcases that love is not planned or secure. She also shows that in the time in which the novel is set, it was very difficult to love a man in your same social class, and that love can make you do unusual things. Heathcliff's constant drive to earn Cathy’s love and his persistent attempts to win her over help us to further understand the human drive aspect oh human condition, which shows that even if we know that we will never attain what we want, we still fight to get the best possible outcome.