Plot of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Mr. Lockwood rents a cottage in Yorkshire from Mr. Heathclif who lives at Wuthering Heights, four miles from Thrushcross Grange. Mr. Heaethcliff resides at Wuthering Heights with his daughter, Catherine, his son-in-law, Hareton Earnshaw, and his two servants, Joseph and Nelly. On Lockwood’s first visit to Wuthering Heights, he claims to be thrilled with the desolate nature of the moor, but soon gets bored, so he asks Nelly, one of his servants to tell him her life story, which she does.

as a child, Nelly worked as a servant at Wuthering Heights. The house was then owned by Mr Earnshaw, who had two children, a son named Hindley and a daughter named Cathy. On day, Mr. Earnshaw came back from a business trip and brought with him a young boy whom he simply called “Heathcliff”. At first, Hindley and Cathy hate Heathcliff, but soon he and Cathy become inseparable, and when Hindley continues to treat Heathcliff badly, Mr. Earnshaw sends Hindley away to school, keeping Heathcliff at home. Mr. Hindley dies and Hindley (with his wife, Frances) inherits Wuthering Heights, where he demotes Heathcliff from adopted son to farmhand. Heathcliff and Cathy stay friends, however.

One day, Heathcliff and Cathy decide to visit their neighbours at Thrushcross Grange, the Lintons. Mr. and Mrs. Linton have two children, Edgar and Isabella. While there, Cathy gets bitten by a dog and has to stay five weeks to recuperate. During that time, Mrs. Linton teaches her some ladylike manners, and Cathy develops a romantic interest in Edgar, which makes her feeling about Heathcliff more complicated. Despite proclaiming herself to be passionately in love with Heathcliff, Cathy agree to marry Edgar Linton in order to improve her social standing. At Wuthering Heights, Frances gives birth to a boy name Hareton, then dies, leaving Hindley to become a morose alcoholic.

Three years later, Heathcliff comes back to Wuthering Heights with the goal of getting revenge on everyone whom he feels has wronged him_ in other words, everyone. He loans money to the drunken Hindley to increase Hindley’s debts, and gets Wuthering Heights as repayment when Hindley dies. Heathcliff also marries Isabella Linton, whom he abuses, and inherits Thrushcross Grange. Cathy gives birth to a daughter named Catherine, then dies, making Heathcliff despondent; Isabella runs away to London and gives birth to a sn named Linton.

Years later, Catherine grows up at Thrushcross Grange, then one day discovers Wuthering Heights, where she meets Hareton and plays with him. Isabella dies and Linton is shipped back to his father, Heathcliff who abuses him. Catherine meets Linton and the two begin a romance by mail, but Nelly soon discovers that Linton is only pretending to be in love with Catherine because Heathcliff is forcing him to. Linton is in poor health, and Heathcliff realizes that if his son marries Edgar and Cathy’s daughter, Heathcliff will inherit Thrushcross Grange after both Linton and Edgar die (since women can’t own property at that time). This ends up being exactly what happens. Catherine and Linton marry, Linton dies, Edgar dies, and Heathcliff now owns both Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. He makes Catherine work as a servant at Wuthering Heights and rents Thrushcross Grange to Lockwood, bringing the story back to the point in time where it starts.

Lockwood, shocked at how everyone he’s just met has come to be where they are, leaves Thrusdhcross Grange and goes back to London. Six months later, however, he goes back to Wuthering Heights, and Nelly tells him what has happened in the meantime: Heathcliff spent more and more time obsessing over Cathy’s death, until he was wandering around the moors talking to her ghost, and died out there one day. Catherine and Hareton Earnshaw, meanwhile, fell in love and decided to get married and live more or less happily ever after.

Continue Reading: The Theme Of Sufering In Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte