1.Zakelijke Gegevens
A.Auteur: Emily Brontë
B.Titel: Wuthering Heights, L.J. Veen’s Uitgeversmij N.V., Amsterdam, 1985-4,290 blz. (Eerste druk 1847).
C.Genre: The story is a love-drama, since the main character Heathcliff is not able to
obtain the love of his life. Because of this his life is miserable and he
dies in misery.

2.Eerste reactie
A.Keuze: A few years ago, I’ve seen the movie and I really liked it. I already knew the story, so the choice was easy.
B.Inhoud: It's a very long but interesting book. I didn’t find it difficult to understand and I really liked it. The book is written in a rather descriptive style, long sentences, and difficult words. But I liked reading it though, because the author has done everything possible to build up tension, to describe the feelings, appearances, events, surroundings, and even the weather.


3.Verdieping
A.Samenvatting: The story starts somewhere in Great-Britain (England). Mr Lockwood asks his housekeeper Nelly Dean to tell the story of Heathcliff. The owner of W.H. Mr Earnshaw brings home an orphan boy. His son Hindley hates the boy, but his sister Catherine seemed to feel a natural attraction to him, she loves him more than herself. One day C. and H. go to Thrushcross Grange, but when a dog has taken her, only she is allowed to go in. When she comes back, 5 weeks after, she is changed, now she behaves like a lady. She tells Nelly Dean she can not marry H. because he is socially inferior to her. H. after he heard this, disappears and doesn't come back for three years, when C.and Edgar are happy at T.G.. He visits her and each visit is full of emotions. Edgar is jealous and says H’s visits make C. ill. C. dies in childbirth, with a broken heart. Isabella marries H. and they get a child Linton. Hindley dies and his son Hareton and H. live at W.H. The little Cathy, having seen Linton H., loves him very much. And after she has find out that he lives at W.H. she visits him secretly, although her father has forbidden it. H. then forces Cathy to marry Linton, but Linton dies soon. Edgar dies too. Cathy falls in love with Hareton, who she begins to teach. Heathcliff dies and he feels united with Catherine.
Mr Lockwood visits W.H. twice, but the second time he catches a cold and he has been laid up for a long time. Mrs Dean keeps him company and tells the story of W.H. One day Mr Earnshaw brings home a little villain. He loves the boy and so does his daughter, but Hindley, his son hates the wicked boy and after his father has died, he forbid the boy to keep them company. H. has to much heavy work, but Catherine still loves him and sometimes, like before, they wander through the moors. One evening they decide to go to T.G., but the dogs are free, and Catherine is catched by one of them. Only she is allowed to go in and she remains there for 5 weeks. She has changed considerably after her stay; she has become a lady. But her affection for H. hasn't changed. H. has been thoroughly neglected and looks like a savage. One evening Catherine tells Nelly Dean how much she loves H., she says: "His mind and the mine are the same." But she tells that she has accepted Edgar, but in heart and soul she feels that is wrong. H. having overheard the last part of the conversation disappears for a number of years. The night H. runs away, a thunderstorm breaks. Catherine marries Edgar, but she is not at all happy, by times she is depressed, but it seems to be a happy time, full of rest and peace at T.G. When H. returns and visits her she welcomes him as her lost brother and she can not stop looking at him and kissing him. H. has changed; he has become more decent. Edgar doesn't like the visits of H. because Catherine seems to forget Edgar and Catherine becomes very restless, depressed and sad. Catherine becomes unmanageable and her only desire is to be at W.H., to be with H. till death. Isabella falls in love with H. and though he didn't like her at all, he marries her because he knows that Edgar doesn't like that. (REVENGE). H. lives with Hindley, who is gambling all the time and finally loses all his money to H., and Hareton and Isabella at W.H. Edgar is not interested in Isabella any more; she is not his sister anymore because she has married H. Isabella sends a letter in which she writes about her bad circumstances and H.'s detestable behaviour. But Edgar doesn't take steps to bring about reconciliation with her. During the following visit of H. both C. and he accuse each other of torture and both are violent, and overcome with emotion. They seem broken-hearted. C.dies, after the birth of her baby, leaving Edgar distracted with grief. H. calls on C. to haunt him as long as he lives. Isabella flees to London, where her son Linton is born. After C.'s death Edgar becomes almost a hermit and Cathy becomes his great joy and consolation. Hindley dies and H. becomes master of W.H. After Isabella's death Edgar takes Linton back home. Cathy is fond of him, but that night Joseph comes to tell that H. wants Linton for his own at W.H. So the following day he has disappeared and Cathy doesn't know where to, and is very sad. On C.'s sixteenth birthday she and Nelly meet on a walk H. and he tells C. to come with him, because he wants to show her somebody she has seen before. C. meets Linton and is wild of joy, but H. tells her not to say anything to her father because once they quarrelled and her father hates him now. Nelly forbids her to visit him once more, but Cathy secretly writes to him. She and Nelly meet H. once again and he stays that she must be ashamed because Linton is dying and thinking she despises him. Nell Dean catches a cold and Edgar is ill too. And in the evening, having nursed Nelly and her dad, she visits Linton secretly. But it comes out and he forbids her to go. Linton writes letters, supervised by H., so that he doesn't refer on his ill health to Edgar. Edgar finally allowes Cathy to go once a week because he desires that
she marries him, because he is the heir of W.H. H. locks up C. and Nelly, he wants to force C to marry Linton. C. says she will willingly do that if only he let her go home to be with her dying father. After 5 days Nelly is allowed to go and she finds Edgar dying the same day Cathy comes having prevailed on Linton to unlock the door. After the funeral H. trusts to Nelly that he has opened the coffin of Catherine to see once more her face. Cathy H. and Hareton live at W.H. but Hareton and C. are not good friends till one day their antipathy turned to love. Hareton and she are drawn together as rebels against H., and H. changes. He is defeated by the power of love and friendship and he has only one desire: to die and to be with his only love together, Catherine. He goes out at night, cannot eat or drink, says he sees her, but cannot yet touch her, finally he dies. Hareton and Cathy marry and move to T.G.

B.Onderzoek van de verhaaltechniek:
1.Schrijfstijl: Descriptive style, long sentences, difficult words. A very wide description of tension, the feelings, appearances, events, surroundings, the weather.

2.Ruimte: The action takes place at the end of the 18th century in Wuthering Heights, Thrushcross grange and Gimmerton (It is in England, that’s for sure. And it has to be in a circle at a distance of sixty miles from Liverpool) The narrator of the story begins to tell it in November 1801 and finishes the story in September 1802.The actual story Mrs Dean tells about Heathcliff takes place between 1771 and 1802.

3.Verhaalfiguren:
Mr Heathcliff is a man with a gypsy-like appearance, who has black eyes and a dark forehead. He appears impatient, unfriendly and suspicious. He is a gentleman in dress and manners. Heathcliff has a lot of bad sides in his character, some I have mentioned before. The only positive thing Mr Lockwood noticed during his visits is that Heathcliff is intelligent, good-looking and upright. I really don't like Heathcliff, because he only cares about himself. He hasn't changed at the end of the book. Years have passed by, but he is still the same unfriendly man.

Catherine Earnshaw's spirits are always high, and her tongue is always going:
singing, laughing, and disturbing everybody. She's a wild and wicked girl with pretty eyes, a sweet smile, the lightest foot and means no harm. Catherine is proud and self-willed.
She changes in the story at the Lintons at Trushcross Grange: "She had learnt to enjoy fine clothes and admiration, so that instead of her wild, hatless, uncivilised little thing jumping into the house and rushing up to us, there got down with grace from a fine black pony, a well-dressed little person, very careful of her appearance." I feel sympathy for her, because she's very nice and doesn't mean a harm to anyone. But Heathcliff just doesn't see what other people feel, and only thinks of himself.
Edgar Linton is a calm young man with good manners; he lives on Thrushcross Grange. He marries to Catherine.
Catherine Linton (Cathy) is Catherine and Edgar's daughter. She is a young girl with an admirable form and a delicate little face; she is also very sweet, kind and good. Cathy is later in the story married with Linton Heathcliff and after that with Hareton. Cathy is almost the same as her mother. And just like Catherine, Heathcliff torments her.
Isabella is Edgar's sister. She loves Heathcliff and they get married. They get a son: Linton Heathcliff.
Linton Heathcliff is a worthless, bad-tempered boy and bad in spirit. On top of that, he is also a coward.
Hindley Earnshaw is Catherine’s brother. He hates Heathcliff and beats him. Hindley is later married to Frances.
Frances is a young fresh girl, rather thin but eyes as bright as diamonds. She died of lung disease.
Hareton Earnshaw is Hindley's son. He is born in June 1778, in the story is he a young man. He has lost his rights in Wuthering Heights.
Mr Lockwood is kind and polite, but he's curious.
Mrs Dean (Ellen) is the housekeeper of Mr Lockwood. She was servant in Thrushcross Grange for 18 years and was formerly servant at Wuthering Heights. She tells the story.

Joseph is a servant on Wuthering Heights. He is an old disagree-able man.
Zillah is a cook at Wuthering Heights. She is a big, strong woman.

4.Situaties: There are many situations in this book. One of the most touching is when Heathcliff and Catherine meet again, then he says:
''You teach me how cruel you've been - cruel and false! Why did you scorn me?
Why were you false to your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this! You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry, and force me to do the same - it is your punishment. You loved me - then what right had you to leave me? Because misery, and degradation, and death could not have parted us, you, of your own will, did it! I have not broken your heart - you have broken it, and in breaking it, you have broken mine. It is only the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? Would you want to live with your soul in the grave?''
''Let me alone,'' wept Catherine. ''If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. You left me too, but I forgive you. Forgive me!''
''It is hard, but I forgive you what you have done to me. I love my murderer - but yours! How can I?''
The words: ''I have not broken your heart - you have broken it, and in
breaking it, you have broken mine,'' are, what I think of it, very well said
by Heathcliff.
He uses very straightforward, maybe a bit rude words in his speech, unlikely
to Catherine who acts like the weeping and helpless lady.
This part of the story is a typical example of the difference between men and

women, men are the boss, and women are a bit like slaves. The sentence:
''Yes, you may kiss me, and cry,'' is like Heathcliff has to say what she can
and can't do (making rules).

5.Vertelwijze: Mrs Dean tells the whole story to Mr Lockwood. There are flashbacks used; to be able to tell a story to someone, the events have to be happened first.

C.Op zoek naar de thematiek:
1.Thema: Never ending love. Passion and hate, conflict between individual and society. Jealousy and revenge. Conflict between social classes, loneliness, and the position of a woman in the Victorian Age, Obsession, and dark spirits.

2.Typerende tekstgedeeltes: When Catherine dies after she has given birth to a seven months old baby-girl:
At twelve o'clock that night a second Catherine, a weak, seven months' child, was born; and two hours after, the mother died, having never recovered enough consciousness to miss Heathcliff or to recognise Edgar. Her husband's grief was painful to see, and was greatly increased, in my opinion, by his being left without an heir. In my mind I blamed old Mr Linton for fondly settling his property when Edgar should die, on his own daughter, and not on his son's. Soon after sunrise, I went out, wishing, yet fearing, to find Heathcliff. He was leaning against a tree, his hat off, his hair wet with the morning mist.
''She's dead,'' he said. ''I've not waited for you, to learn that. Put away your handkerchief. She wants none of your tears. How did...'' he struggled with his grief, refusing my sympathy meanwhile with a fierce stare, ''how did she die?'' ''Poor unhappy soul,'' I thought, ''you have a heart and feelings the same as other men!'' I then replied aloud, ''Quietly as a lamb.'' ''And - did she ever mention me?'' ''Her senses never returned. She recognised no one from the time you left her. She lies with a sweet smile on her face, and her last spoken thoughts wandered back to pleasant days of her childhood.'' ''May she wake in torment!'' he cried, with terrible violence. ''Why, she's a liar to the end! I pray one prayer - I repeat it till my tongue stiffens! - Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said that I killed you - haunt me, then! Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only, do not leave me here, where I cannot find you! Oh God, I cannot live without my life!'' He struck his head against the tree trunk, not like a man but like a wild animal. The moment he recovered enough to notice me, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed.

Catherine's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following her death. until then, her coffin lay uncovered in the largest room downstairs. Edgar spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian, while Heathcliff, as only I knew, watched, equally sleepless, outside. On the Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master extremely tired from watching, had gone to rest for an hour or two, I went and opened one of the windows, to give Heathcliff to say a last goodbye. That he had silently done so, I knew, when later I noticed on the floor a curl of fair hair, torn from the little heart-shaped gold box that hung on a chain round Catherine's neck. It was her husband's, and Heathcliff had thrown it out and replaced it by black hair of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them together. Mr Earnshaw was invited to attend the body of his sister to the grave, but he never came. Isabella was not asked. Catherine was laid in the earth, to the surprise of the villagers, neither in the church with the Linton family, nor outside with her own relations. Her grave was dug on a green slope in a corner of the churchyard where the wall is so low that wild plants have climbed over it from the moor.
I found this very touching, especially when they watched her day and night.
And when miss Dean twists their curls of hair together.

3.Verband titel en thema: Wuthering Heights is the name of the house that the Earnshaws build in 1500.'Wuthering' is a local word, used to describe the wildness of the weather in this lonely part of Yorkshire in time of storm. 'Heights' means the house was on the hills. Wuthering Heights is one of the houses where the story is set.

D.Plaats in de literatuurgeschiedenis:
1.Eerste publicatie: 1847

2.De schrijver: Emily Brontë was a member of a very unusual family who lived in the early part of the 19th century in a village in Northern England where their father was the vicar. Two of her sisters died as children and her only brother died when he was just over 30; the three remaining sisters all became famous writers. Her only novel, Wuthering Heights, which was criticised severely when it was published, is now considered one of the most important and original English novels of the 19th century.
As children, the sisters had very little contact with other families outside the village; they spend much of their time walking on the surrounding moors. They and their brother made stories for each other of imaginary people living in imaginary countries who did wild and exiting things; this imaginary world, which became a way escaping from the village in which they lived, was especially important for Emily, even when she was an adult. Another way of escaping from the dull real world was through reading; because they had few chances of seeing new books, most of the novels and poetry they read had been

written earlier in the century, when writers put great importance on feelings (especially powerful and dramatic feelings) and on nature (especially wild and beautiful nature).
Their own novels were influenced by the books they had read and the stories they had invented as children; they were very different from the other, more 'polite' novels being written in the 1840's, and although early critics agreed that Wuthering Heights was very powerful, they also describe this as rough and disgusting. When it became known that a woman had written the novel (Emily published it under another name) it was considered especially shocking.

3.Tijdvak: The book is written in the Victorian Age. An age when industry comes up and a new upper class is created. This class is not accepted by the old upper class. Heathcliff becomes rich and mannered, but the family still doesn’t accept him. One aspect of the book says something about the position of women in those days. Catherine Earnshaw represents the dilemma of a lot of women in that time. Marry someone you love, or marry for the sake of your position, reputation and honour of the family.

4.Typerend werk? Wuthering Heights is the only book Emily has written. Therefore I cannot tell if it is a typical work.

5.Typerend tijdvak? Yes, besides the leading (old upper-) class, a new class is created (new upper class). They have become rich with industries and are not accepted by the nobility rank.

4.Beoordeling
1.I liked Catherine because she was a very honest child and truly loved Heathcliff. It’s a shame that they couldn’t be together.

2.My favourite passage is the one that Catherine's father (Mr. Earnshaw, the old master of Wuthering heights) went to Liverpool and he asks his children what they want to have. Catherine asks for a whip and Hindley asks for a fiddle. But three days later Mr. Earnshaw returns with a broken fiddle and without a whip, he only had a little boy, who was just big enough to "walk and talk".

3.In the beginning I liked Heathcliff but when he grows older he’s getting more and more bitter. Because he couldn’t get Catherine, he threatens her daughter Cathy and forces her to marry his son Linton.


4. I’ve seen the movie and I think you cannot compare it with the book because certain, vital, scene’s are left out because it would make the movie too long.

5.I liked the theme because it is something that no one can live without. It has been here since the beginning of times and will last forever (if you can find the one person that is right for you).

6.The language wasn’t very difficult; I understood almost everything that was written. Including the details.

7.I really love this book, it isn’t so difficult and you can learn a lot from it about the human nature.

8.I would recommend it for people who love intrigues and complicated situations/affairs.