Plot Overview Essay Example For Students

Plot Overview Essay In the late winter months of 1801, a man named Lockwood rents a manor housecalled Thrushcross Grange in the isolated moor country of England. Here, hemeets his dour landlord, Heathcliff, a wealthy man who lives in the ancientmanor of Wuthering Heights, four miles away from the Grange. In this wild,stormy countryside, Lockwood asks his housekeeper, Nelly Dean, to tell himthe story of Heathcliff and the strange denizens of Wuthering Heights. Nelly consents, and Lockwood writes down his recollections of her tale inhis diary; these written recollections form the main part of WutheringHeights. Nelly remembers her childhood. As a young girl, she works as a servant atWuthering Heights for the owner of the manor, Mr. Earnshaw, and his family. One day, Mr. Earnshaw goes to Liverpool and returns home with an orphan boywhom he will raise with his own children. At first, the Earnshaw children-aboy named Hindley and his younger sister Catherine-detest the dark-skinnedHeathcliff. But Catherine quickly comes to love him, and the two soon growinseparable, spending their days playing on the moors. After his wifesdeath, Mr. Earnshaw grows to prefer Heathcliff to his own son, and whenHindley continues his cruelty to Heathcliff, Mr. Earnshaw sends Hindleyaway to college, keeping Heathcliff nearby. Three years later, Mr. Earnshaw dies, and Hindley inherits WutheringHeights. He returns with a wife, Frances, and immediately seeks revenge onHeathcliff. Once an orphan, later a pampered and favored son, Heathcliffnow finds himself treated as a common laborer, forced to work in thefields. Heathcliff continues his close relationship with Catherine,however. One night they wander to Thrushcross Grange, hoping to tease Edgarand Isabella Linton, the cowardly, snobbish children who live there. Catherine is bitten by a dog and is forced to stay at the Grange torecuperate for five weeks, during which time Mrs. Linton works to make hera proper young lady. By the time Catherine returns, she has becomeinfatuated with Edgar, and her relationship with Heathcliff grows morecomplicated. When Frances dies after giving birth to a baby boy named Hareton, Hindleydescends into the depths of alcoholism, and behaves even more cruelly andabusively toward Heathcliff. Eventually, Catherines desire for socialadvancement prompts her to become engaged to Edgar Linton, despite heroverpowering love for Heathcliff. Heathcliff runs away from WutheringHeights, staying away for three years, and returning shortly afterCatherine and Edgars marriage. When Heathcliff returns, he immediately sets about seeking revenge on allwho have wronged him. Having come into a vast and mysterious wealth, hedeviously lends money to the drunken Hindley, knowing that Hindley willincrease his debts and fall into deeper despondency. When Hindley dies,Heathcliff inherits the manor. He also places himself in line to inheritThrushcross Grange by marrying Isabella Linton, whom he treats verycruelly. Catherine becomes ill, gives birth to a daughter, and dies. Heathcliff begs her spirit to remain on Earth-she may take whatever formshe will, she may haunt him, drive him mad-just as long as she does notleave him alone. Shortly thereafter, Isabella flees to London and givesbirth to Heathcliffs son, named Linton after her family. She keeps the boywith her there. Thirteen years pass, during which Nelly Dean serves as Catherinesdaughters nursemaid at Thrushcross Grange. Young Catherine is beautifuland headstrong like her mother, but her temperament is modified by herfathers gentler influence. Young Catherine grows up at the Grange with noknowledge of Wuthering Heights; one day, however, wandering through themoors, she discovers the manor, meets Hareton, and plays together with him. Soon afterwards, Isabella dies, and Linton comes to live with Heathcliff. Heathcliff treats his sickly, whining son even more cruelly than he treatedthe boys mother. Three years later, Catherine meets Heathcliff on the moors, and makes avisit to Wuthering Heights to meet Linton. She and Linton begin a secretromance conducted entirely through letters. When Nelly destroys Catherinescollection of letters, the girl begins sneaking out at night to spend timewith her frail young lover, who asks her to come back and nurse him back tohealth. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Linton is pursuingCatherine only because Heathcliff is forcing him to; Heathcliff hopes thatif Catherine marries Linton, his legal claim upon Thrushcross Grange-andhis revenge upon Edgar Linton-will be complete. One day, as Edgar Lintongrows ill and nears death, Heathcliff lures Nelly and Catherine back toWuthering Heights, and holds them prisoner until Catherine marries Linton. Soon after the marriage, Edgar dies, and his death is quickly followed bythe death of the sickly Linton. Heathcliff now controls both WutheringHeights and Thrushcross Grange. He forces Catherine to live at WutheringHeights and act as a common servant, while he rents Thrushcross Grange toLockwood. Nellys story ends as she reaches the present. Lockwood, appalled, ends histenancy at Thrushcross Grange and returns to London. However, six monthslater, he pays a visit to Nelly, and learns of further developments in thestory. Although Catherine originally mocked Haretons ignorance andilliteracy (in an act of retribution, Heathcliff ended Haretons educationafter Hindley died), Catherine grows to love Hareton as they live togetherat Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff becomes more and more obsessed with thememory of the elder Catherine, to the extent that he begins speaking to herghost. Everything he sees reminds him of her. Shortly after a night spentwalking on the moors, Heathcliff dies. Hareton and young Catherine inheritWuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, and they plan to be married onthe next New Years Day. After hearing the end of the story, Lockwood goesto visit the graves of Catherine and Heathcliff. ChronologyThe story of Wuthering Heights is told through flashbacks recorded in diaryentries, and events are often presented out of chronological order-Lockwoods narrative takes place after Nellys narrative, for instance, butis interspersed with Nellys story in his journal. Nevertheless, the novelcontains enough clues to enable an approximate reconstruction of itschronology, which was elaborately designed by Emily Bront. For instance,Lockwoods diary entries are recorded in the late months of 1801 and inSeptember 1802; in 1801, Nelly tells Lockwood that she has lived atThrushcross Grange for eighteen years, since Catherines marriage to Edgar,which must then have occurred in 1783. We know that Catherine was engagedto Edgar for three years, and that Nelly was twenty-two when they wereengaged, so the engagement must have taken place in 1780, and Nelly musthave been born in 1758. Since Nelly is a few years older than Catherine,and since Lockwood comments that Heathcliff is about forty yea rs old in1801, it stands to reason that Heathcliff and Catherine were born around1761, three years after Nelly. There are several other clues like this inthe novel (such as Haretons birth, which occurs in June, 1778). Thefollowing chronology is based on those clues, and should closelyapproximate the timing of the novels important events. A ~ before a dateindicates that it cannot be precisely determined from the evidence in thenovel, but only closely estimated. The Art Of Procrastination EssayIn this passage, one also can see an active example of Wuthering Heightssambiguous genre. The work is often compared to the Gothic novels popular inthe late eighteenth century, which dealt in ghosts and gloom, demonicheroes with dark glints in their eyes, and so on. But Bront wrote her bookin the 1840s, when the fashion for the Gothic novel was past and that genrewas quickly being replaced as the dominant form by the socially consciousrealistic novel, as represented by the work of Dickens and Thackeray. Wuthering Heights often seems to straddle the two genres, containing manyGothic elements but also obeying most of the conventions of Victorianrealism. The question of genre comes to a head in the appearances of ghostsin the novel. Readers cannot be sure whether they are meant to understandthe ghosts as nightmares, to explain them in terms of the psychology of thecharacters who claim to see them, or to take them, as in a Gothic novel, asno less substantial than the other characters. Bront establishes thisambiguity carefully. The spectres here are introduced within a simile,and in a context that would support their interpretation as a nightmare. Similarly subtle ambiguities lace Lockwoods account, a few pages later, ofhis encounter with the ghost of Catherine. 3. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know howI love him; and that, not because hes handsome, Nelly, but because hesmore myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are thesame, and Edgars is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frostfrom fire. ExplanationCatherines speech to Nelly about her acceptance of Edgars proposal, inChapter IX, forms the turning-point of the plot. It is at this point thatHeathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights, after he has overheard Catherine saythat it would degrade her to marry him. Although the action of WutheringHeights takes place so far from the bustle of society, where most ofBronts contemporaries set their scenes, social ambition motivates many ofthe actions of these characters, however isolated among the moors. Catherines decision to marry Edgar Linton out of a desire to be thegreatest woman of the neighbourhood exemplifies the effect of socialconsiderations on the characters actions. In Catherines paradoxical statement that Heathcliff is more myself than Iam, readers can see how the relation between Catherine and Heathcliffoften transcends a dynamic of desire and becomes one of unity. Heterosexuallove is often, in literature, described in terms of complementary opposites-like moonbeam and lightning, or frost and fire-but the love betweenCatherine and Heathcliff opposes this convention. Catherine says not, Ilove Heathcliff, but, I am Heathcliff. In following the relationshipthrough to its painful end, the novel ultimately may attest to thedestructiveness of a love that denies difference. 4. . . . I got the sexton, who was digging Lintons grave, to remove theearth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought, once, I would havestayed there, when I saw her face again-it is hers yet-he had hard work tostir me; but he said it would change, if the air blew on it, and so Istruck one side of the coffin loose, and covered it up-not Lintons side,damn him! I wish hed been soldered in lead-and I bribed the sexton to pullit away, when Im laid there, and slide mine out too. Ill have it made so,and then, by the time Linton gets to us, hell not know which is which!You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff! I exclaimed; were you not ashamedto disturb the dead?ExplanationWhen Heathcliff narrates this ghoulish scene to Nelly in Chapter XXIX, thebook enters into one of its most Gothic moments. Heathcliff, trying torecapture Catherine herself, constantly comes upon mere reminders of her. However, far from satisfying him, these reminders only lead him to furtherattempts. Heathcliffs desire to rejoin Catherine might indeed explain themajority of Heathcliffs actions, from his acquisition of ThrushcrossGrange and Wuthering Heights, to his seizure of power over everyoneassociated with Catherine. He tries to break through what reminds him of his beloved to his belovedherself by destroying the reminder, the intermediary. Readers can see, inthe language he uses here, this difference between the objects that referto Catherine and Catherine herself. When he opens her coffin, he does notsay that he sees her again. Instead, he says, I saw her face again,showing that her corpse, like her daughter or her portrait, is a thing shepossessed, a thing that refers to her, but not the woman herself. It seemsthat, in this extreme scene, he realizes at last that he will never getthrough to her real presence by acquiring and ruining the people andpossessions associated with her. This understanding brings Heathcliff a newtranquility, and from this point on he begins to lose interest indestruction. 5. That, however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest myimagination, is actually the least, for what is not connected with her tome? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but herfeatures are shaped on the flags! In every cloud, in every tree-filling theair at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day, I amsurrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women-my ownfeatures-mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadfulcollection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!ExplanationIn this passage from Chapter XXXIII, Heathcliff confesses to Nelly hisinner state. What Nelly calls Heathcliffs monomania on the subject of hisdeparted idol has now reached its final stage of development. In thepassage in which Heathcliff describes his excavation of Catherines grave,the reader gains insight into Heathcliffs frustration regarding the doublenature of all of Catherines memoranda. While Catherines corpse recallsher presence, it fails to substitute fully for it, and thus recalls herabsence. Heathcliffs perception of this doubling comes through in hislanguage. The many signs of Catherine show that she did exist but that Ihave lost her. In the end, because his whole being is bound up withCatherine, Heathcliffs total set of perceptions of the world is permeatedby her presence. Consequently, he finds signs of Catherine in the entireworld, and not just in localized figures such as her daughter or aportrait of Catherine.