Wuthering Heights

Catherine Earnshaw is a passionate and determined daughter of Mr. Earnshaw, serving as the emotional heart of Wuthering Heights. Growing up with Heathcliff at the Heights, she forms a bond with him that feels like it’s part of her very essence. However, she chooses to marry the cultured Edgar Linton, mistakenly thinking she can maintain both relationships. This impossible balance ultimately leads to her downfall. As a girl, she ran barefoot across the moors with Heathcliff, and later, as a frail and dreamy invalid, she sat by the open window at Thrushcross Grange, staring out at the world beyond. Nelly describes her at fifteen as the queen of the countryside—proud and strong-willed, yet showing a remarkable loyalty to her old ties, even as she pursues social elevation. After Heathcliff disappears, she becomes more unstable, suffering from a fever and a long mental and physical decline after his return. She dies without ever fully recovering, never returning to her former self. Even in death, she remains present in the novel: Heathcliff opens the locket around her neck and replaces its contents with a piece of his hair; her name is scratched repeatedly on the panelled bed at the Heights; and both Hareton and young Cathy are said to share her eyes. She represents both the victim and the catalyst of the tragedy that envelops everyone around her.

Catherine Linton — known as "Miss Cathy" and later "Mrs. Heathcliff" — is the only child of Catherine Earnshaw and Edgar Linton, serving as the second-generation heroine of the novel. Raised at Thrushcross Grange, Nelly describes her at sixteen as a vibrant, spirited young woman — "a happy creature, and an angel, in those days" — with golden ringlets, wild energy, and a deep capacity for love. Her curiosity about the world outside the Grange, especially Penistone Crags and Wuthering Heights, pulls her into Heathcliff's life. He tells her that Linton is dying for her love and encourages her to visit him; later, he confines her at Wuthering Heights and plans for her and Linton to marry the next morning, promising she can return home afterward. After Linton's death, she finds herself at Wuthering Heights, stripped of her property and freedom, under Heathcliff's control and in the rough company of Hareton Earnshaw. At Wuthering Heights, she becomes cold, disdainful, and deeply unhappy — ridiculing Hareton's efforts to improve himself and clashing with those around her. However, the novel ends with Nelly's hopeful account of a growing connection between Cathy and Hareton, suggesting a future marriage that Nelly describes as "the crown of all my wishes."

Edgar Linton owns Thrushcross Grange and is married to Catherine Earnshaw. We first meet him as a child, upset over a disputed lapdog, and he matures into a "soft-featured," fair-haired young man with a graceful presence. Nelly describes him as almost overly graceful, observing his large, serious eyes. He pursues Catherine earnestly, proposing to her and accepting her reaction even after a bout of bad temper. According to Nelly, their early marriage is marked by "deep and growing happiness," mainly because Edgar fears upsetting Catherine and can absorb her moods with understanding silence. When Heathcliff returns and disrupts their lives, Edgar is caught between his love for Catherine and his dislike for Heathcliff. He eventually confronts Heathcliff and demands that he leave. After Catherine becomes ill, Edgar cares for her devotedly, day and night, patiently enduring the irritations caused by her frayed nerves and troubled mind. When her life is declared out of danger, he is overwhelmed with gratitude and joy. Following her death, he isolates himself among books and takes long walks at dusk to Gimmerton kirkyard, often staying there well past midnight. He passes away as his illness worsens, and his headstone is placed next to Catherine's on the slope by the moor.

Hareton Earnshaw, son of Hindley Earnshaw, is the last of his family line, a fact etched above the door of Wuthering Heights, dated 1500. After his mother's death, Nelly Dean takes full responsibility for him as his father descends into alcoholism. Under Heathcliff's control, Hareton grows up in neglect and ignorance, becoming a strong young man who struggles with reading and mainly communicates with curses and sullen silence. Yet, the novel emphasizes his basic decency: Zillah notes he is "not bad-natured, though he's rough," and his bashful attempts to impress young Cathy hint at a deeper capacity for emotion beneath his tough exterior. His journey evolves from a neglected, inarticulate child—throwing stones at Nelly and swearing at visitors—to a young man learning to read with Cathy's assistance and enjoying moments of affection and walks on the moors with her. His relationship with Cathy represents the novel's most hopeful resolution, a tenderness born from their shared loneliness that gradually overcomes their initial animosity.

Heathcliff is the dark, brooding heart of Wuthering Heights. He grows up at the Heights with Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, developing a remarkably intense bond with Catherine. After their father's death, Hindley's cruelty robs Heathcliff of an education, forcing him into the role of a farmhand and igniting a deep yearning for revenge. When Catherine marries Edgar Linton and Heathcliff mysteriously disappears for three years, he returns transformed: wealthy, seemingly genteel, and ruthlessly determined. He capitalizes on Hindley's downfall, moves back into Wuthering Heights, elopes with Isabella Linton, and methodically sets out to reclaim both properties while humbling the families that wronged him. Yet, beneath this calculated thirst for vengeance lies deep anguish: his love for Catherine is absolute and consuming, and her decline and death plunge him into a state of barely contained torment. To Lockwood, his first tenant, he appears as a grumpy, misanthropic recluse; to Nelly Dean, who narrates much of the story, he embodies "intensest anguish" — a man capable of both cruelty and tenderness, with every action tied to Catherine.

Hindley Earnshaw is Catherine's older brother and becomes the master of Wuthering Heights after their father's death. At the start of the novel, he's a resentful fourteen-year-old whose jealousy of Heathcliff taints the household as soon as the foundling arrives. When he comes back from college for his father's funeral, he brings his wife, Frances, and quickly reasserts his power by reducing Heathcliff to a farm laborer and excluding him from the family. After Frances dies, Hindley appears broken: Nelly observes that "he had room in his heart only for two idols—his wife and himself," and his behavior turns erratic and violent, characterized by drunken rages where he threatens Nelly with a carving knife and dangles his infant son, Hareton, over the banister. Years later, Heathcliff returns, settles the score with Hindley, and takes control of the Heights, reducing Hindley's heir to the same miserable state Hindley once forced upon Heathcliff. By the later chapters, Hindley is seen as a dead villain, and Heathcliff revels in having "outmatched Hindley" by winning Hareton's loyalty, the very person who caused his downfall. Hindley's story is one of bitterness spiraling into self-destruction, and his treatment of Heathcliff sets off the entire cycle of revenge.

Isabella Linton is the younger sister of Edgar Linton and lives at Thrushcross Grange, moving in the same social circles as the Earnshaws. First seen as a child around eleven, she comes across as spoiled and emotionally unpredictable. As a young woman, she becomes infatuated with Heathcliff, ignoring Catherine's warnings and Nelly's concerns. She elopes with Heathcliff shortly after midnight while Catherine is gravely ill, but the marriage quickly turns into a nightmare: Heathcliff openly states that he never loved her, treats her cruelly, and uses her to gain power over Edgar. Isabella suffers this mistreatment at Wuthering Heights until she finally escapes, provoking Heathcliff into a rage that shatters his "fiendish prudence." She later dies, leaving behind a son, Linton Heathcliff. Her journey shifts from a sheltered, romantically naive girl to a woman disillusioned, whose suffering reveals the harsh reality of Heathcliff's character. Despite everything, she remains fiercely loyal to her brother Edgar and maintains a defiant, though despairing, spirit in the face of her husband's cruelty.

Joseph is the elderly manservant at Wuthering Heights, present throughout nearly the entire novel. He is one of only two servants who stay at the Heights during Hindley Earnshaw's destructive years — Nelly Dean remains out of loyalty to her charge, while Joseph, as Nelly puts it, is there because "it was his vocation to be where he had plenty of wickedness to reprove." He is described as "an elderly, nay, an old man, very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy," and he speaks in a thick Yorkshire dialect.

His main traits are sour religiosity, self-righteousness, and a knack for making those around him unhappy. Nelly refers to him as "the wearisomest self-righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours." He leads long prayer meetings, delivers relentless sermons, and exercises his pious authority to impose discipline on the children of the house. He gains increasing influence over the ailing Mr. Earnshaw, persuading him to see Hindley as a reprobate and feeding him "a long string of tales" against Heathcliff and Catherine.

Joseph doesn’t drive the plot himself, but he is a constant, oppressive presence — a living symbol of the Heights' joylessness. By the end of the novel, Heathcliff suggests that Joseph will stay on to tend to the empty house after everyone else has left.

Linton Heathcliff is the son of Heathcliff and Isabella. As a sickly and peevish young man, he arrives at Wuthering Heights as a boy, where his father uses him to secure the Linton property. Physically frail, he often lies on the heath unable to rise, walks weakly, and suffers from suffocating coughing fits. Emotionally, he is volatile: he shows tender feelings for his cousin Young Cathy but is also prone to spiteful outbursts and self-pity. He and Cathy share a secret correspondence that starts awkwardly and evolves into love letters, which Nelly describes as "foolish" and oddly a mix of "ardour and flatness." Heathcliff closely monitors him, controlling the tone of his letters and ultimately terrorizing him into convincing Cathy to come to the Heights so that Heathcliff can force a marriage and claim the Grange. Linton finds himself torn between weak but genuine affection for Cathy and deep fear of his father. In a moment of terror, he fetches the key that allows Cathy to escape, an act for which he is punished. By the time Heathcliff speaks about him to Nelly, Linton is clearly dying, described as "such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him," and Heathcliff has lost all interest in him, having shifted his focus to Cathy, indicating that Linton's usefulness as a pawn has run out.

Mr. Earnshaw is the head of Wuthering Heights and the father of Hindley and Catherine. He sets the novel's main tragedy in motion by returning from a trip to Liverpool with a homeless, nameless child—the boy who becomes Heathcliff—and insisting on raising him alongside his own children. Nelly Dean portrays him as a man with "a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes," who had "always been strict and grave" with his kids. His fierce, unexplained favoritism toward Heathcliff alienates Hindley, creates tension in the household, and sows the seeds of the rivalry that will linger for decades.

In his later years, Mr. Earnshaw's health declines, and he becomes "grievously irritable," more susceptible to Joseph's religious moralizing, and obsessively protective of Heathcliff, even threatening Hindley with his stick. He dies quietly in his chair one October evening, with Catherine resting against his knee and Heathcliff lying on the floor beside her—a scene that reflects both the affection and chaos of his household. His death removes the only restraint on Hindley's cruelty toward Heathcliff and sets off a long chain of revenge that drives the rest of the novel. Even after he passes, he is referenced as a benchmark for the household's decline: the "favours of old Mr. Earnshaw" that once gave Heathcliff a sense of superiority have vanished, leaving Wuthering Heights a place of decay and violence.

Mr. Kenneth is the doctor for the communities surrounding Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. He appears throughout the novel as a recurring but minor character—a straightforward, no-nonsense man who visits homes during illness, crises, and death. Described as "a plain rough man," he openly shares his doubts and often finds himself at odds with those who prefer comforting lies. He attends to Frances Earnshaw, warning Hindley that the winter is likely to take her; he diagnoses Catherine Earnshaw's dangerous fever, bleeds her, and leaves strict care instructions; he returns with Nelly to the Grange when Catherine Linton falls gravely ill again; he tells Edgar that what he saved from the grave would bring constant anxiety; he delivers the news of Hindley Earnshaw's death; he is called upon when Heathcliff falls ill near the end; and he is baffled when trying to determine the cause of Heathcliff's ultimate demise. He also informs Lockwood that he shouldn't expect to be outside until spring. Kenneth isn't a moral compass in the story but rather represents the harsh realities of medicine: he consistently tells characters what they would rather not hear, and his words resonate with the novel's themes of loss. His relationship with Hindley, whom he calls "my wicked gossip," adds a personal touch, even as he conveys Hindley's death with blunt, unsentimental humor.

Mr. Lockwood is the tenant of Thrushcross Grange and serves as the novel's frame narrator, sharing his diary entries and first-person perspective at both the beginning and end of the story. He arrives in 1801, describing himself as a sociable misanthrope—a man who coldly recalls withdrawing from a woman who had feelings for him at the coast, yet believes he has a keen insight into people. His two visits to Wuthering Heights in the opening chapters throw him into a world he struggles to understand: he mistakes the unfriendly young widow Catherine Heathcliff for Heathcliff's wife, misidentifies Hareton Earnshaw, and stirs up a frenzy of dogs. His unsettling experience in the oak bed-closet, where he encounters the ghostly child Catherine Linton clawing at the window, provokes Heathcliff's anguished outburst and offers Lockwood a glimpse into the intense emotions surrounding the Heights.

While confined to bed due to illness, Lockwood asks Nelly Dean to recount the history of the household, and it is through his framing of her story that the reader learns the entire narrative. He acts as an unreliable yet self-aware narrator: he acknowledges that his willingness to listen is convenient, and he occasionally interjects—urging Nelly not to rush, or reflecting on his own mild attraction to young Catherine. When he returns in September 1802, he discovers that the world of the Heights has changed: Heathcliff is dead, Hareton and Catherine have reconciled, and Nelly has moved back to the Heights. He quietly departs, visits the three graves on the moor, and ends the novel pondering how anyone could picture restless spirits resting in that tranquil earth.

Nelly Dean, also known as Ellen Dean, is the housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange and serves as the primary narrator in Wuthering Heights. She shares her extensive story with the bedridden Mr. Lockwood, beginning with old Mr. Earnshaw's return from Liverpool with the orphan Heathcliff and continuing through to Heathcliff's death and the eventual reunion of Hareton and young Cathy. Growing up at Wuthering Heights alongside Hindley, Catherine, and Heathcliff, Nelly finds herself in a unique role: although she is a servant, she is privy to the secrets of both households, cares for the sick, raises children, and often serves as a moral guide, even if her counsel is frequently ignored.

Nelly is both practical and warm, demonstrating genuine affection in her care for baby Hareton and her loyalty to Edgar Linton during his final days. However, she grapples with self-deception and moral ambiguity: she hides Heathcliff's letter to Catherine for three days, takes young Cathy to Wuthering Heights against her better judgment, and later admits that her role in arranging the secret meeting was wrong, though it was convenient. Nelly isn't merely a passive observer; her choices affect the events she recounts. This raises questions about her reliability as a narrator, a central theme in the novel. By the end, Nelly has moved to Wuthering Heights, witnesses Heathcliff's death, and anticipates Hareton and Cathy's marriage—the restoration of order she has quietly desired all along.

Zillah is the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights, introduced as "the stout housewife." Though a minor character, she plays a steady role throughout the later chapters of the novel, acting as a practical link between the residents of the Heights and the outside world. Her position fluctuates between that of a domestic servant and an unwilling narrator; it’s through her account, shared with Nelly Dean, that readers find out how young Catherine is treated after being brought to the Heights as Heathcliff's captive.

Zillah is practical and self-serving. She follows Heathcliff's commands without complaint—when he tells her not to help young Catherine, she "willingly acquiesced." Nelly bluntly describes her as "a narrow-minded, selfish woman." However, Zillah shows small gestures of kindness: she prepares a clean room and a warm fire for young Cathy and Linton during their initial visits, serves them warm wine and gingerbread, and checks on the confined Catherine twice a day after Linton's death. Her compassion, though, is conditional and can easily fade if she feels wronged. She quietly resents young Catherine's pride and tells Nelly she would "love well to bring her pride a peg lower." By the time Lockwood returns in Chapter XXXII, Zillah has left the Heights, and Nelly has taken over her duties.

The desire to escape—from houses, social roles, and even the body—recurs throughout the novel. In Chapter XII, the feverish Catherine cries, "I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free," and then says, "I'm tired of being enclosed here. I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world" (Chapter XV), framing death itself as the only true freedom. Her ghost in Chapter III scratches at the window, pleading to be let back in after twenty years of wandering—escape and return become mirror images. Lockwood's narrative begins as a retreat from society; he describes himself as having "shrunk icily into myself, like a snail" before a woman who showed feeling (Chapter I), and he concludes Chapter XXXI by announcing his departure for London, escaping the desolation of the Heights. Isabella's flight in Chapter XVII—arriving at the Grange soaked and bruised after running from Wuthering Heights—is the most literal escape in the novel, and she later moves to the south of England. In Chapter XXVIII, young Catherine escapes Heathcliff's locked room by climbing out through "her mother's" chamber window using a fir tree, highlighting how escape and the past are intertwined. Even Heathcliff's final state in Chapter XXXIV—refusing food, rejecting the doctor, retreating to the panelled bed—reads as a deliberate escape from life toward the reunion he has sought for eighteen years.

Questions of identity run through the novel from the start. In Chapter III, Lockwood finds "Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton" carved into the window ledge — three identities competing for space. Catherine articulates this struggle in Chapter IX when she says, "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same," and declares, "I am Heathcliff!" — indicating her identity is deeply connected to another person. Heathcliff's identity is equally fluid: he is introduced in Chapter IV as a nameless foundling given a dead child's name, while Chapter I describes him as "a dark-skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman," illustrating a character who defies categorization. In Chapter VII, young Heathcliff's longing — "I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well" — shows how societal notions of identity torment him. Hareton's identity undergoes similar scrutiny: in Chapter II, he growls, "My name is Hareton Earnshaw," as he tries to reclaim a heritage that Heathcliff has systematically taken from him. In Chapter XVIII, Nelly sees Hareton's neglected potential as "Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds." Even in Chapter XXXI, Heathcliff wrestles with identity: "when I look for his father in his face, I find her every day more!" — Hareton's features blur Heathcliff's understanding of who he is and what he wants.

Grief runs deep throughout Wuthering Heights. In Chapter V, old Mr. Earnshaw passes away peacefully by the fire while Catherine sings him to sleep, and Nelly finds the two children seeking comfort in each other's presence, envisioning a beautiful heaven that makes her wish "we were all there safe together." In Chapter VIII, Frances's death pushes Hindley into a reckless despair; he turns to drinking and distances himself from those around him. The emotional heart of the novel lies in Catherine's death in Chapter XVI: Edgar sits beside her lifeless body, her face showing "the expression of a smile," while outside, Heathcliff pounds his head against an ash tree until blood stains the bark, crying out, "Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss." Isabella's grief takes another form—she shares with Nelly in Chapter XVII, "I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me." Young Catherine's sorrow in Chapter XXII—fearing she will be left alone when her father and Nelly are gone—reflects the novel's theme of children losing their parents. In Chapter XXX, Catherine expresses her anguish to Zillah, saying, "When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of your faces, you all kept off," highlighting her sense of isolation during Linton's death, a striking image of grief intertwined with abandonment. Even Hareton's solitary vigil beside Heathcliff's corpse in Chapter XXXIV—the only one who mourns him—brings the novel to a close, resonating with the theme of loss.

Love in Wuthering Heights isn't tender or domestic; it's raw and consuming. In Chapter IX, Catherine proclaims that Heathcliff is "more myself than I am," comparing her love for him to "the eternal rocks beneath," while her feelings for Edgar are just seasonal. Her declaration "I am Heathcliff!" suggests that love is not just an emotion, but a part of her identity. When Catherine and Heathcliff reunite in Chapter XV, it’s a tumultuous and emotional encounter: "I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine." After Catherine's death in Chapter XVI, Heathcliff's sorrow turns into a desperate plea — "Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss" and "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" — illustrating how for him, love and existence are intertwined. In Chapter XXIX, he admits that Catherine "has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years—incessantly—remorselessly," and that seeing her lifeless face in the coffin finally gave him some sense of peace. Even in Chapter XXXIII, the world feels like "a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her." In contrast, the gentler love between Hareton and young Catherine in Chapter XXXII — with their heads bent over a book, sharing kisses — implies that love can also be a source of renewal rather than destruction.

Power — its acquisition, use, and decline — influences every relationship in the novel. Hindley exerts control over Heathcliff during their childhood, denying him an education and forcing him into servitude (Chapter VI). Heathcliff systematically regains and surpasses this power: by Chapter XVII, he owns Wuthering Heights due to Hindley's debts, and in Chapter XX, he refers to Linton as his "property" and reveals his intention to take Thrushcross Grange through the boy's inheritance. In Chapter XIV, Heathcliff confines Nelly at the Heights and coerces her compliance, stating, "I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails!" Isabella discloses in the same chapter that "he says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him." In Chapter XXVII, he physically assaults Catherine and locks both women in a room, eliminating any legal and domestic resistance. Even Mr. Green, the lawyer, is compromised: in Chapter XXVIII, "he had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff." However, power ultimately fails Heathcliff from within. In Chapter XXXIII, he confesses that his desire to destroy both houses has "vanished," and in Chapter XXXIV, the joy of his impending death — "My soul's bliss kills my body" — indicates that his quest for control has been replaced by something beyond power's reach.

Revenge propels Heathcliff's actions throughout the novel. In Chapter VII, a young Heathcliff shares with Nelly his plans to get back at Hindley, expressing a desire for Hindley to live long enough for him to exact his revenge. By Chapter XI, he warns Catherine that he will manipulate Isabella to retaliate against Edgar, noting, "The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them." In Chapter XVII, he revels in tormenting Hareton, declaring, "Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!" — deliberately obstructing the boy just as Hindley had obstructed him. In Chapter XXI, he boasts to Nelly that he has control over Hareton, even more than his unscrupulous father did, and that the boy takes pride in his brutishness. His abduction of Catherine and Nelly in Chapter XXVII, his takeover of both estates, and his manipulation of the dying Linton all serve the same purpose. However, in Chapter XXXIII, Heathcliff's pursuit of revenge begins to falter: he admits to gathering levers and mattocks to tear down the two houses and trains himself to work like Hercules, but when everything is prepared and within his grasp, he realizes he no longer has the will to lift a slate off either roof. The sight of Hareton and young Catherine's eyes — mirroring those of Catherine Earnshaw — drains his determination, transforming his quest for revenge into something more intricate.

Class and its injuries weave throughout the entire arc of the novel. Heathcliff first appears in Chapter IV as a ragged foundling from the streets of Liverpool, immediately disrupting the privileges of the Earnshaw children and sparking resentment. In Chapter VI, Hindley denies him an education and forces him to work outside, while the Lintons at Thrushcross Grange — with their crimson carpets, gold-edged ceilings, and "shower of glass-drops" — represent a world of refinement that excludes him. By Chapter VII, Heathcliff's humiliation in front of Edgar Linton crystallizes into class envy as he laments: "I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!" Heathcliff's eventual rise reverses these injuries through property rather than sentiment: by Chapter XVII, Hindley has mortgaged every acre to him, and Heathcliff declares Hareton "mine," intent on keeping him as degraded as he once was. In Chapter XX, he reveals his motive for tolerating Linton: he envisions "my child hiring their children to till their fathers' lands for wages." In Chapter XI, the novel clearly illustrates the mechanism: "The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them."

The past refuses to stay buried in Wuthering Heights. The novel's frame structure — Lockwood reading Catherine's old diary in Chapter III and Nelly recounting decades of history — intertwines the present with memories. The ghost-child in Chapter III cries, "I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!" claiming to have wandered for twenty years, which makes the past feel hauntingly alive. After Catherine's death, Heathcliff's entire life revolves around memory: in Chapter XXIX, he tells Nelly that Catherine has haunted him "night and day, through eighteen years — incessantly — remorselessly," describing it as "a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years." In Chapter XXXIII, he reveals that "the entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her." Even the landscape holds memories: in Chapter XI, the stone guide-post brings back Nelly's childhood vision of Hindley as a boy. In Chapter XXXIV, Heathcliff's final joy — "Last night I was on the threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me!" — is connected to his reunion with a remembered Catherine. Lockwood's last visit to the three graves leaves us questioning whether the dead truly rest or if memory keeps them in turmoil.