A few readers have laid the blame for this tragedy at Nelly's feet, claiming that she is actually a very prejudiced person who only really cares about securing for herself a peaceful, comfortable existence and is consequently unable to relate to the intense passions of Heathcliff or Cathy. May be justified if one considers her complicity in failing to reveal to Cathy that Heathcliff was present when she was discussing who to marry, not telling Edgar Linton that his own wife was ill and dying, and keeping Cathy II and Linton's relationship hidden until it was too late.
Other scholars have suggested that Nelly was secretly in love with Hindley — as she takes his death especially hard, was quite aloof towards his wife Frances and seems to care for Hareton as a Replacement Goldfish. The 1970 film went ahead and made this part of the story.
Was Heathcliff always destined to be a "fierce, pitiless, wolfish man" (after all, he was hard, sullen and oddly quiet even as a child), or could he have been a better person if not for his hardship-filled early life?
When Heathcliff states to Nelly that he has done nothing wrong, did he truly believe that or did he know on some level that he was deluding himself. Throughout the story he has performed many mental gymnastics to justify his actions but at the same time when he takes Hareton under his wing with the intention of moulding him in a similar form to himself, that implies (if not outright states) that he is fully aware of his own depravity. When he later develops some affection for Hareton and becomes aware of his own mortality he doesn’t really do anything to stop Cathy II and Hareton's budding relationship or make any provisions to leave them with nothing. Was this his way of trying to make things up to them?
Was Mr. Earnshaw justified in his Parental Favoritism of poor orphaned Heathcliff over his two selfish, bratty biological children? Or were Cathy and Hindley just typical rowdy kids who could have grown up to be better adults if they hadn't been treated as The Unfavorites?
When Isabella falls in love with Heathcliff, what motivates Cathy I's speech warning her of Heathcliff's cruelty and her subsequent humiliating reveal of her feelings to Heathcliff? Pure selfish jealousy (as Isabella believes), genuine desire to protect her sister-in-law (as she herself claims), or both?
Was Linton an outright bastard from the moment he appears, or could he have been reformed by not being brought up by his dad? Furthermore, is his admittance of his weaknesses to Catherine a genuine moment of self-awareness or is he just manipulating her even more?
If we assume that Cathy I's ghost really does roam the moors, haunt Heathcliff and eventually cause his death, is she motivated by undying love for Heathcliff and longing for him to join her, or is she a vindictive spirit striving to save her daughter from Heathcliff's cruelty? Or both?
Are any of the book's narrators (Lockwood, Nelly, and others who recount off-page incidents) reliable or not?
Is Isabella looked on too cynically by the narrative? Yes she's young and naive, but she doesn't seem to be attracted to Heathcliff's bad boy tendencies as much as opting not to be prejudiced like her brother and sister-in-law and give Heathcliff a chance. He does go out of his way to seduce her, putting on a good show of being a gentleman — and he pursues her after Cathy tells him of her crush. He did his best to hide his bad qualities from her, and she was already feeling isolated after Cathy humiliated her by telling everyone her private feelings. In the 1939 film, she's not wrong when she calls Cathy out for her possessive jealousy. In fact, you could argue that Isabella is stronger than Cathy; once Heathcliff reveals all his bad traits, she falls out of love with him, does her best to resist him and eventually escapes from Wuthering Heights. Cathy by contrast knows what a sociopath he is, and continues to love him.
What allows the young Catherine and Hareton to be better people than their parents/foster parents, overcome their flaws and achieve a happy ending? Is it inherent goodness that the other characters lack? Or does the fact that young Catherine was raised in a far more loving home than her mother was and that Hareton, despite being degraded by Heathcliff, was never outright abused and hated the way young Heathcliff was by Hindley make all the difference?
Common Knowledge: The book is often criticized for having every character be an awful person — except only about half the cast qualifies for this. Edgar, Isabella, Lockwood, Hareton, and Catherine the Younger are all essentially good people, if perhaps not flawless.
Most adaptations of the book will Age Lift Cathy to a young adult when she’s attacked by the Linton's dog thus setting up a romantic scene for a grown Edgar to carry an injured Cathy into the house — except that’s not how it happens in the book. Cathy, Heathcliff and the Linton siblings are all children when it happens and it’s one of the servants who carries a young Cathy inside and of course Heathcliff is still politely toldto get lost!
Many female readers insist that Heathcliff is a dashing hero, despite his many, many shortcomings (even to the point where they thought his digging up Catherine's body was romantic). The story itself makes fun of this sentiment among her readers by making 18-year-old Isabella Linton idolize him. Catherine admonishes Isabella that "He's not a rough diamond—a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man" and Heathcliff comments on Isabella's naivety and romanticism regarding him, mocking it later in the book. It also doesn't help that Heathcliff, in some adaptations, is played by rathergood-lookingactors.
Catherine the elder is likewise often imagined as an ideal romantic heroine, a survivor of abuse and the more sympathetic of the pair. In reality she's a tempestuous brat who at one point wants to marry Edgar solely for his money to secure her own comfort — while still keeping Heathcliff around for pleasure. Additionally while she's married, she still acts like a possessive Green-Eyed Monster towards Heathcliff (her warning Isabella off him is motivated by jealousy as much as anything else). Several adaptations (particularly the 2009 miniseries) file off some of her worst traits to make her slightly more sympathetic.
Nelly is often imagined as an older woman, and portrayed as being middle-aged in Catherine and Heathcliff's youth. Actually in the text, she's only six years older than Catherine and the same age as Hindley.
Heathcliff's paternity. The theory that Heathcliff is actually Mr Earnshaw's bastard son is a very popular one, but it's hard to say to what extent this is actually textual. It certainly would make sense. At the same time, though, Moses in the Bulrushesis an long established trope, and the story Mr Earnshaw tells is no odder than typical for the trope.
Heathcliff is the most famous example. He's a vicious, hot-headed man who ruins a bunch of lives out of a desire for petty revenge — and an abuser who is implied to have raped his wife. But his upbringing was far from ideal — where he was bullied by Hindley and constantly reminded of his place. Catherine was the one bright spot in his life, and even his relationship with her was unbelievably toxic. He's as much a victim of her as anyone else. Then after her death, he becomes more monstrous and ruins more lives than ever. All the while, he is tortured by grief for his Lost Lenore.
Catherine I is an arrogant, vicious-tempered gold digger whose relationship with Heathcliff is toxic, but she's also an orphan trapped in an oppressive household with a drunken brother as well as in a society that can't accept her natural wildness. By choosing to marry Edgar, she thinks she's doing what's best for Heathcliff as well as herself, hoping to free him from Hindley's abuse by supporting him with the Lintons' money. Instead, she is abandoned by him, and the turmoil both of her love triangle and of her dual longings for freedom and security drive her to madness and death.
Catherine II is introduced as cold and rude to everyone — but that's because she's been trapped in Wuthering Heights, had her inheritance stolen by her father-in-law, and had to watch her beloved father die of an illness partly brought on by her actions.
Hareton is a Foil to Heathcliff in that he's a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who's been treated like dirt by literally every character he meets.
Linton too purely on account of being Heathcliff's son and losing his mother at the age of thirteen.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The two lead characters are selfish people in a destructive relationship, and the sympathetic supporting characters get abused by them, die sadly or become cold and heartless because of their treatment. While the ending is happier than you'd expect, sometimes the story can feel so grim and pessimistic that it's hard to care what happens. A Tumblr user by the name of prideprejudice summed it up best with "wuthering heights is basically a book about awful people who all made a secret promise to ruin as many lives as possible before they fucked off and died. and by the end Heathcliff won with a 50 point lead".
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Lockwood is meant to be likable enough, but his opinions on others plus the way that he deals with the ghost of Catherine (To escape her grasp, he scrapes the ghost's wrists against broken glass) can poison modern readers perceptions of him.
The many lines calling Heathcliff "dark" conjure up thoughts of black Africans in modern readers' minds. Regency Era readers, however, would instead think of olive complexions (Heathcliff is often suspected to be Romani).
Catherine the younger falls in love with both her cousins. Marriage between first cousins wasn't uncommon among the upper classes and didn't fall out of favor until after World War I.
Isabella is subjected to an absurd amount of victim blaming for being seduced by a predatory man, is trapped in an unhappy marriage with him, and is considered Defiled Forever when she escapes with her child by rape.
The main obstacle in Cathy and Heathcliff being together is their class difference. Cathy would be expected to marry within her class, which is why she doesn't just elope with Heathcliff. This just makes her even less sympathetic to modern readers. Of course, a big part of this is intentional to show how horrible class divides are in keeping lovers apart. The book does end after all with Catherine II falling in love with the poor orphan Hareton (who, however, is relatively equal to her class because his father was a land-owner).
Lockwood is written as a somewhat foolish but ultimately likable guy, but some of his opinions (especially regarding Catherine II) don't come off well in a more modern light. Still, since he's the First-Person Peripheral Narrator and sometimes an unreliable one, the question of just how likable he's meant to be, and whether the readers are meant to agree with any of his opinions or not, is a matter of debate.
Values Resonance: A foolish and sheltered young woman shallowly falls in love with a bad man, marries him, and suffers horribly? Ask any domestic abuse counselor in the world if this part is outdated. They'll laugh at you.
Vindicated by History: When it was first published, the novel had a divisive reception from critics who felt it was well-written but far too dark and the characters too unsympathetic (plus some shock that a woman could write such a grim story). These days it's held up as a classic and iconic work of English literature.
The Woobie: The universe seems to conspire to make Isabella Linton's life a nightmare. She develops a Precocious Crush on Heathcliff that a jealous Cathy reveals to others — which humiliates her and makes her withdraw from everyone. This leaves her prime fodder for Heathcliff to seduce her as part of his revenge — and as soon as they're married, she's tortured for two months until she can take no more and flees for her life. Even after her death, Heathcliff manages to get one more over her, forcing Isabella's brother to hand the son Heathcliff undoubtedly raped into her over so that he could torment and turn the boy into a Jerkass like him.
In the novel, Nelly says "But where did he come from, the little dark thing, harboured by a good man to his bane?" Tom Hardy, who played Heathcliff in the 2009 version, would later play Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
at Nelly's feet, claiming that she is actually a very prejudiced person who only really cares about securing for herself a peaceful, comfortable existence and is consequently unable to relate to the intense passions of Heathcliff or Cathy. May be justified if one considers her complicity in failing to reveal to Cathy that Heathcliff was present when she was discussing who to marry, not telling Edgar Linton that his own wife was ill and dying, and keeping Cathy II and Linton's relationship hidden until it was too late.