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Revision:Wuthering Heights - Chapter 7 Volume 2
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SUMMARY
Cathy missed her cousin when she woke up that morning, but time made her forget him. Linton grew up to be a selfish and disagreeable boy, continually complaining about his health. On Cathy's sixteenth birthday she and Ellen went out on the moors, and strayed onto Heathcliff's land, where he found them. He invited them to come to Wuthering Heights, telling Ellen that he wanted Linton and Cathy to marry so he would be sure of inheriting the Grange. Cathy was glad to see her cousin, though she was somewhat taken back by his behavior. Hareton, at Heathcliff's request, showed her around the farm, though he was shy of her and she teased him unkindly. Linton also mocked his ignorance, showing himself to be mean and cruel.
Cathy later told her father where she had been, and asked him why he had not allowed the cousins to see each other (Heathcliff had told her that Edgar was still angry at him because he thought him too poor to marry Isabella). Edgar told her of Heathcliff's wickedness, and forbade her to return to Wuthering Heights. She was unhappy, and began a secret correspondence with Linton. By the time Ellen discovered it, they were writing love letters. Ellen confronted Cathy and burned the letters, saying she would tell her father if she continued.
CHARACTERS
Catherine
- Catherine is lively and full of vitality, as she is described as "like a young greyhound" (P211) by Nelly.
- She is extremely selfless, as shown when she cries not because of herself but because of Linton not getting to see her (p.221). This paves way for the motherly role Catherine grows into, both for Linton and for Edgar.
- Cathy is brought up within the confines of Thrushcross Grange, and brought up by Edgar. Her ignorance of the world beyond Thrushcross Grange is shown repeatedly. She has been treated like an angel in Thrushcross Grange and expects everyone to treat her so:
- On first meeting Heathcliff, she exclaims "I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that way." (p.219)
- This ignorance also brings out the spiteful side in her, shown in her taunting and teasing of Hareton. Nelly understands that this is because of her ignorance in the treatment of other people - "and the girl relishing his (Linton's) pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the ill-nature they evinced... " (p.219). This is in stark contrast to Linton deliberate cruelty and hate towards Hareton.
She has to grow up quickly as Edgar brings to light the fact that people are malicious to her, and it is her first real introduction to Wuthering Heights - a realisation of the sophisticated and dark world that lay beyond Thurshcross Grange - p220
Linton
Linton is weak, sniveling, demanding, and constantly ill. Heathcliff despises him, treats him contemptuously, and, by forcing him to marry the young Catherine, uses him to cement his control over Thrushcross Grange after Edgar Linton's death.
Alan Gardiner: "Linton Heathcliff embodies the worst traits of both the Linton family (physical and emotional weakness) and his father Heathcliff (selfishness and spite). However, he does so to such an extreme degree that he is rarely a believable character. His faults are so obvious that it seems implausible that Cathy should remain blind to them for so long."
Hareton
Hareton is the uncultured, rough, ignorant product of Heathcliff's nurturing. He serves as a means of revenge of Heathcliff towards Hindley. However, this does not take all his true nature from him as he is observed by the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights to be "not bad-natured, though he's rough" (p.210)
As a projection of Heathcliff's revenge, his treatment is the same as Heathcliff's when he was younger. On p216, he is treated with the same amount of condescension as Heathcliff was treated when told to meet Catherine, who had just come back from Thrushcross Grange. (p53)
The plot for the later chapters between Hareton and Catherine is prepare when Catherine expresses "small admiration" for Hareton before she starts to mock him with Linton.
Heathcliff
Heathcliff is a dark, plotting character in the chapter, who carries out the next step in his grand plan of revenge. He shows that he is capable of masking his intent towards Catherine but at the same time readers knows his real intentions through Nelly.
Heathcliff senses his opportunity to carry out his plan when he meets Linton's daughter -" 'No, that man is not my son,' answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside."
Nelly, although she is "in the know", tries to convince herself of Heathcliff fake attitude towards Catherine. "... but now he smiled when he met her eye, and softened his voice in addressing her, and I was foolish enough to imagine the memory of her mother might disarm him from desiring her injury." P.213
Catherine herself affirms that she herself was deceived when she says "But Mr Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa" p.220
He reveals his plans to Nelly (and the readers) , because he knows that she is powerless to stop him, and it is also a form of proving his successful revenge through talking to Nelly (p215)
Nelly
Mind her own business
Rod Mengham - after discovering the letters "she is now in a position to confront Catherine with the evidence of her misdemeanour; but instead of doing this, she takes an uncalled-for step involving even greater furtiveness. She intercepts one of the letters that Catherine has written to Linton; this is completely unnescessary, and is only done to satisfy her own curiosity. ... The amount of scorn and derision that Nelly employs is out of all proportion in the context, and we may question her authority as an arbiter of what is or isn't love when she has never been in love in her life"
"Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea... " p.217
"Whether they satisfied Cathy, Idon't know, but they appeared very worthless trash to me." P.223
Edgar
After Catherine's death he becomes a peripheral figure: he turns into a recluse, giving up his duties as magistrate and staying away from the village, and though a loving father, remains ignorant of Heathcliff's manipulation of his daughter.
"On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was, also, the anniversary of my late mistress's death" p.210
RELATIONSHIPS
Relationship between Catherine and Linton
Rod Mengham: "When Nelly starts to burn the letters from Linton, Catherine tries to save them by thrusting her hand into the fire, showing the same kind of physical rec klessness for the sake of love that had animated her mother. Linton comments on his own part in the epistolary romance in terms which stress his languid self-centredness: "You should have come instead of writing. It tired me dreadfully, writing those long letters."
"her love for him is conceived through the medium of letters. In other words, it depends on an ignorance of his real nature." Relation with Isabella
"Wouldn't you rather sit here?" asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a tone which expressed reluctance to move again.
"I don't know," she replied, casting a longing look to the door, and evidently eager to be active.
Relationship between Heathcliff and Linton
"He had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes together." P.209
"We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen."p.215
Relationship between Heathcliff and Hareton
"I believe the master would relish Earnshaw's thrashing him to a mummy, if he were not his son." P.210
"do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation?" p.215
"I can sympathise with all his feelings, having felt them myself." P.217
His revenge - "And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You'll own that I've out-matched Hindley there."p.217
Relationship between Hareton and Linton
"Linton giggled"
"If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I would." P.218
Link back to p.114
Windows
He will go on, if I leave the window open, a bit late in the evening. Oh! It's killing, a breath of night air." p.209
"I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in some unripped fringes of the window curtain, keeping my eye steadily fixed on her proceedings.
