Wuthering Heights Ch. 2: Misreading a Hostile

Emily Brontë

Misreading a Hostile Household

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Summary

Yesterday Lockwood almost stayed by his study fire at Thrushcross Grange, but a servant smothering the hearth sent him four miles through mist and snow to Wuthering Heights. Joseph refuses to open the chained gate; a coatless young man with a pitchfork leads him in by the back.

In the kitchen Lockwood mistakes the silent young woman for Mrs. Heathcliff. She will not make tea for an uninvited guest. Heathcliff sneers when Lockwood calls her his amiable lady: she is his daughter-in-law; the rough young man is Hareton Earnshaw, degraded yet proud of his name.

The storm closes in. Heathcliff offers only a bed with Hareton or Joseph. Lockwood flees into the yard; the dogs knock him down while Heathcliff and Hareton laugh. Zillah splashes icy water down his neck and Heathcliff orders brandy. Humiliated, Lockwood accepts lodging for the night.

Lockwood walks into a place that is signaling, at every step, that he should leave.

None of this stops Lockwood from applying the social script he knows: compliment the animals, praise the lady of the house, assume he can charm a grim table into warmth with talk of happiness in exile.

Each polite move makes things worse because he is treating hostility as shyness and contempt as mystery.

In this chapter:Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

How to read social barriers when hospitality means stay out

A household that wants you gone will make you ask for every inch of entry. Lockwood is left at a chained gate, mocked by Joseph, led through the kitchen by a pitchfork-wielding Hareton, and finally knocked down by dogs while Heathcliff and Zillah laugh before splashing icy water on his neck.

Read cold hospitality as a boundary signal and leave before pride traps you overnight in a hostile house.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: Hareton Earnshaw

Hareton meets a gentleman with a pitchfork and a chained gate, and he does not apologise for either. Nobody in this chapter is teaching him manners. He is already practising the house's method: make the visitor ask for every step, then laugh when the dogs finish the lesson. The humiliation he grew up inside now has his voice.

Continue this thoughtThe Same Injury Is Taught Downward

Coming Up in Chapter 3

Zillah will lodge Lockwood in a forbidden chamber where Catherine's names are carved into the window ledge and her childhood diary fills the margins of mildewed books. A child's hand will reach through the broken pane at midnight, and Heathcliff's controlled contempt will shatter when Lockwood names the ghost.

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Chapter 02

Misreading a Hostile Household

Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.—I dine between twelve and one o’clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five)—on mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as…

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Misreading a Hostile Household

Summary

Why This Matters