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Emily Brontë
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Lockwood has been ill four weeks with bleak winds, impassable roads, and no human faces to see. Heathcliff sends the last brace of grouse of the season and sits an hour at his bedside, talking of anything but pills and leeches. Too weak to read yet craving something interesting, Lockwood rings for Mrs. Dean and asks her to resume Heathcliff's history from Thrushcross Grange. When Nelly carried Catherine to the Grange, the marriage seemed happy half a year: Edgar feared ruffling her humour, gunpowder lay harmless, and husband and wife appeared in deep and growing happiness until each began to feel the other's interest was not the chief consideration in the other's thoughts.
It ended on a mellow September evening when Nelly, coming from the garden with apples, heard a voice behind her. Heathcliff had waited an hour in the porch. Catherine flew upstairs crying that he was back; Edgar called him the gipsy ploughboy and wanted him in the kitchen. She crushed Edgar's reluctant fingers into Heathcliff's and mocked the idea of two tables, gentry and lower orders. Transformed tall and dignified, Heathcliff told her he had planned one glimpse of her face, then to settle his score with Hindley and die by his own hand before her welcome changed his mind. He lodged at Wuthering Heights after Hindley lost money at cards and invited him back for dice and brandy, coveting the rent Heathcliff offered to live within walking distance of the Grange.
Catherine woke Nelly at midnight, ecstatic while Edgar sulked and cried over her praise of Heathcliff. Isabella soon pined for him; on a moor walk she called Catherine a dog in the manger. Catherine warned her he was a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man, not a rough diamond, yet would crush her like a sparrow's egg if she became troublesome. Joseph reported nightly ruin at the Heights: Hindley borrowing on his land while Heathcliff won at cards, sat up till noon with shutters closed, and gossiped with Dame Catherine about her father's gold running into his pocket while her brother galloped down the broad road.
When Edgar was away at a justice-meeting, Catherine trapped Isabella in the library with Heathcliff as a joke, holding her until she scratched free with her nails. Heathcliff stared at Isabella like a repulsive animal, said he liked her too ill for love, and mused about painting rainbow colours on her waxen face; then he asked if she was her brother's heir. Edgar had already sensed the danger and blamed Heathcliff's deliberate designing, but could not stop the trap from closing. Nelly watched him grin in ominous musing whenever Catherine left the room and feared an evil beast prowling between Wuthering Heights and the Grange, waiting his time to spring and destroy.
The person telling the story shapes what you believe about everyone in it. Lockwood recovers from illness and asks Nelly Dean to resume Heathcliff's history, framing the Earnshaws through a tenant who misread the household twice before hearing her account.
Ask who controls the narrative and what they gain by framing cruelty as fate or romance.
On a bright frosty afternoon Nelly passes the guide-stone marked W.H. and G. Childhood floods back: she sees young Hindley with his slate and cries, Poor Hindley! Superstition sends her to the Heights, where Hareton throws a stone, curses like an adult, and names Heathcliff as his teacher while the curate is forbidden.
What this chapter proves — the patterns beneath the scene
In this chapter: Understanding How Revenge Destroys the Avenger · Navigating Class Barriers and Social Mobility.
The cards below name the patterns this chapter proves — carry them with you into the original text.
Understanding How Revenge Destroys the Avenger
Heathcliff returns mysteriously wealthy, refined, and educated. He hasn't come back to reconcile—he's come to systematically destroy everyone who wronged him. The transformation from abused boy to calculating avenger is complete.
Key Insight
This is the moment revenge consumes identity. Whatever Heathcliff did in those three years was done entirely in service of destruction. He doesn't build a new life; he builds weapons.
Navigating Class Barriers and Social Mobility
Three years later Heathcliff returns transformed: money, manners, and a new coat. He lodges at the Heights after winning Hindley's cards and asks whether Isabella is her brother's heir. The boy who was dirty in the stable has bought the costume Catherine once chose over him.
Key Insight
Wealth can buy the costume. It cannot close the original injury. Heathcliff uses the gentleman's surface as a weapon against the house that ranked him, which proves the ranking still owns him.
Chapter 10
A charming introduction to a hermit’s life! Four weeks’ torture, tossing, and sickness! Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons! And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring! Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call. About seven days ago he sent me a brace of grouse—the last of the season. Scoundrel! He is not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a great mind to…
Public-domain chapter text, formatted for reading.
Think of a difficult person in your life - someone you generally clash with or avoid. Now imagine them showing up with an unexpected act of kindness during a tough time in your life. Write about how this might change your understanding of them and your relationship.
Describe a time when someone surprised you with unexpected kindness or when you discovered there was more to a person than you initially thought. How did this change your perspective on judging others?
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Other theme-by-theme analyses from this book.
See Cathy teach Hareton to read by firelight after she first mocked his books, and watch a cycle fail to inherit the howl.
Stay with the howl among the trees and the night walks that never end, then the grave that still cannot satisfy the loss.
Sit on the moors, then hear I am Heathcliff behind the settle after she has already accepted Edgar.
Hold the ice-cold hand at the boarded window, the four blue marks, and the opened coffin.
Deep diving the literary elements.
Guides, life skills, and the full library.More ways to read Wuthering Heights: guides, life skills, and the wider library.
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