What happens in Chapter XXXIV of Wuthering Heights?
In the days after a previous evening, Heathcliff avoids meals but doesn't formally cut ties with Hareton and Cathy. One night, he slips out and doesn’t come back until morning, when Catherine tells Nelly he spoke to her and seemed "very much excited, and wild, and glad." Nelly finds him pale and trembling, yet there’s a strange, joyful sparkle in his eyes. At dinner, he picks up his knife and fork but soon loses his appetite and wanders off into the garden. That evening, Nelly brings him a candle and is frightened by how ghastly and goblin-like he looks in the flickering light. He retreats to the panelled-bed chamber, and as Nelly dozes off, she drifts into a half-dream about his mysterious origins, imagining his funeral and noting that his headstone will simply read "Heathcliff" — which, she later tells Lockwood, actually happened. The next morning, Heathcliff gives some farm directions to Joseph but can’t eat breakfast; instead, he stares at something invisible just a couple of yards away, lost in anguished rapture. That night, Nelly hears him pacing and murmuring Catherine's name. He asks her to light a fire and mentions calling his lawyer Green to settle his will but then drops the idea, saying the bliss of his soul is killing his body. Nelly urges him to see a minister, but he declines, instead giving instructions for his burial next to Catherine. He locks himself in his room; when Dr. Kenneth is called, Heathcliff refuses to let him in. The following rainy morning, Nelly finds his window open and, using a spare key, enters to discover him dead in the panelled bed, his face washed by the rain and his eyes wide open in an expression of exultation. Joseph refuses to touch the body and expresses gratitude that the rightful heirs are restored. Hareton alone mourns deeply, sitting by the corpse all night. Heathcliff is buried as he wished, without a minister, with only Nelly, Hareton, the sexton, and six bearers in attendance. Rumors of his ghost linger. Nelly shares a recent encounter with a crying boy who claimed to see Heathcliff and a woman on the moor. The narrative shifts back to Lockwood, who learns that Hareton and Catherine will marry on New Year's Day and move to the Grange. Lockwood quietly slips away, visits the kirkyard, finds the three graves, and closes the novel pondering how anyone could believe there are restless spirits for those sleeping in that tranquil earth.
Analysis
This final chapter resolves the novel's central tension with Heathcliff's death while deliberately leaving the cause and meaning ambiguous. Nelly Dean remains the main narrator, speaking directly to Lockwood ("Oh, Mr. Lockwood, I cannot express what a terrible start I got"), which maintains the narrative frame and reminds the reader that everything is filtered through her limited, sometimes fearful perspective. The chapter unfolds like a slow countdown: Heathcliff's refusal to eat, his nighttime wanderings, his obsession with something unseen, and his eventual confinement all lead up to the discovery of his body. Still, the cause of death remains uncertain — Nelly hides his four-day fast from the doctor and claims it was "the consequence of his strange illness, not the cause."
Imagery of weather and season shapes the chapter's emotional journey. The initial warmth of April — with green grass, blooming apple trees, and primrose roots — sharply contrasts with the damp, ash-filled room where Heathcliff leans against the open lattice, and the pouring rain that drenches his corpse. This shift from spring's vitality to cold stillness embodies the chapter's elegiac tone without being sentimental.
The supernatural elements are handled with care: Nelly's goblin simile, her half-dreaming reflections on Heathcliff's origins, the ghost rumors, and the weeping boy on the moor are all presented and then gently dismissed. The final image — moths among the heath, soft wind in the grass, and three graves on the slope — gains its quiet power precisely because Lockwood, the most skeptical observer, contemplates the possibility of restless slumbers, only to ultimately dismiss it.
Key quotes from Chapter XXXIV
“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!”
Heathcliff answers Nelly's question about where he has been, speaking with strange exaltation in the kitchen.
“My soul’s bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.”
Heathcliff explains to Nelly in the early-morning kitchen scene why he cannot eat or rest.
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Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter XXXIV
- denomination
- A particular branch or sect of the Christian church; here used to mean that any church affiliation will do, with no preference for one over another.