Story Enneagram of “Wuthering Heights” (the novel)

Is this a compelling story? It’s been made into many film versions, so the obvious answer is yes. But why? It tells of unbelievable cruelty. Somehow showrunners have twisted this plot into a romantic drama with Heathcliff as a hero. Let’s see what the book actually says.

ONE

Introduce the players and the two house locations. We are approximately six months before the present day.

The tenant of Thrushcross Grange (TG), Mr. Lockwood, is our entrance point. He walks over to visit his landlord Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights (WH). We meet some very unhappy people: Young Catherine (Cathi) and the rustic Hareton.

TWO

Lockwood returns the next day and becomes caught by a snowstorm and is forced to stay overnight. No one will help or take pity on him. Finally the housekeeper Zillah finds him a place to rest. This is Catherine’s room when she was a child. Lockwood sleeps in her cupboard bed and encounters her ghost. When Heathcliff finds him there he kicks him out and begs Catherine to come to him.

THREE

Lockwood, who caught a cold from his adventures in the snow, is bedridden. Nelly Dean, the housekeeper at TG and an old family servant at WH, entertains him with the story of Heathcliff, which is the majority of the book. Let the history begin . . .

FOUR

The Old Master Earnshaw, father of Catherine and her brother Hindley, brings home a strange, dark child he found begging in the city. Hindley beats him on the sly, but Catherine becomes close to Heathcliff, the gypsy boy. Eventually Hindley, eight years their senior, is sent to college. The Old Master dies.

Hindley returns with a wife and takes command of WH. He turns Heathcliff into a servant who lives in the barn. However, Heathcliff and Catherine constantly escape to wander the moors together.

One evening, Catherine and Heathcliff sneak a look through the windows at TG, home of the Lintons. Compared to the dark, dirty homestead of WH, TG is light, clean, and sophisticated. The son Edgar, like the house, is the opposite of Heathcliff in every way. Catherine, who was injured by the guard dog, stays with them for a number of weeks while she recuperates.

When she returns, she’s clean and beautifully dressed. Her wild manners have been softened. To her Heathcliff now looks filthy. Nelly encourages him to wash up, which he does, but Hindley humiliates him in front of the Lintons.

Nelly jumps ahead to the summer of 1778, 23 years before the present day.

Hindley’s son Hareton is born, but the mother, who was consumptive from the beginning, dies. Nelly must nurse the baby with sugar milk. Hindley, who genuinely loved his wife, falls apart. He will never be the same. Heathcliff becomes more demonic.

Catherine, now the beauty of the county at 15, entertains Edgar. He and Heathcliff both want to win Catherine, but she prefers Edgar and accepts his marriage proposal. Heathcliff overhears Catherine asking Nelly’s opinion. (Remember, Nelly is only 22 at this point.) Hurt, Heathcliff leaves, missing the part when Catherine explains that she loves him. “Nelly, I am Heathcliff.” When she can’t find Heathcliff Catherine waits in the cold rain and becomes sick. (He doesn’t return for years.) The Lintons take her home to recover and the elderly couple catch her illness and die. Three years later Catherine and Edgar are married. Hindley orders Nelly to follow her mistress to TG. Although Nelly loves Hareton, now 5, like a son, she’s forced to leave him alone with his inattentive father.

Heathcliff returns. Now begins the love triangle. Edgar is jealous but he’s also so mild and so in love with Catherine that he doesn’t do much. Heathcliff is brutally envious. Catherine, who never recovered all of her health after the illness, wants to have both men, one as husband and one as soulmate. Nelly, trusted by both sides, prefers Edgar, detests Catherine, and feels a companionship with Heathcliff because they were raised together. (Never does Nelly express a romantic interest; she is always a manager and confidante.)

Edgar’s sister Isabella, 18, becomes fascinated with Heathcliff. He’s a Byronic hero to her, and the others are beastly for warning her away from him. Catherine, mocking Isabella, reveals her crush on Heathcliff to him. He only ever has eyes for Catherine and has no problem being cruel to Isabella.

For revenge on Edgar, Heathcliff courts Isabella. Edgar and Heathcliff fight. Catherine makes herself ill from the frenzy and tension. She locks herself in her room without eating for two days. Nelly, who judges Catherine to be overly dramatic, ignores her and doesn’t tell Edgar. When Catherine asks for water on the third day, her mind has begun to wander. Her physical and mental health are compromised and she won’t recover. Meanwhile, Isabella has eloped with Heathcliff. Two months pass.

Isabella asks Nelly to visit her at WH. Hareton is now a wild and aggressive child. Hindley looks like a hermit. He’s lost all his fortune gambling with Heathcliff. The house is dirty and horrific.

Heathcliff insists that Nelly arrange a meeting between him and Catherine. Nelly fears that any confrontation will kill Catherine, but she acquiesces. While Edgar is at church, Heathcliff comes to TG. He’s shocked at Catherine’s health. She chastises him for his robustness. He doesn’t want to be so strong. How can he live with his soul in the grave?

SWITCH

Catherine’s daughter Cathi is born that night. Two hours afterwards, Catherine dies.

“May you not rest as long as I live! Haunt me,” Heathcliff says.

FIVE

Nelly again nurses an infant, this time Cathi. Meanwhile Isabella, who’s experienced Heathcliff’s brutality, escapes. She runs to TG and Nelly, telling her of the violence between Heathcliff and Hindley. From there she takes a carriage to London and soon gives birth to her son Linton. We see no more of Isabella.

Edgar retreats from the world after Catherine’s death. He leaves the house to visit her gravesite, and he tenderly loves their daughter.

Hindley dies, possibly at Heathcliff’s hand. His son Hareton is left with nothing; Hindley gambled the estate away to Heathcliff. Nelly wants to take Hareton and raise him, but Heathcliff has found an interest in children. If Nelly takes Hareton, Heathcliff will insist on taking Linton. Nelly gives up. Twelve years pass.

Cathi grows up beautiful, vivacious, spoiled, and tender hearted. Secluded to TG, she longs to walk to Penistone Crags and visit the Fairy Cave.

Isabella dies. Edgar travels to London to take guardianship over Linton and bring him home. While he’s gone, Cathi tricks Nelly and leaves the property. When Nelly tracks her down later, she’s at WH.

Thirteen-year old Cathi chats with eighteen-year old Hareton, having no idea that he’s her cousin. When she learns of their connection, Cathi is repulsed. He’s so crude-looking. Although handsome, Hareton has been treated as a servant by Heathcliff. He’s never learned to read or write. As Cathi and Nelly head home Nelly hears how Cathi, searching for the Crags, mistakenly ended up at the WH gate. Hareton escorted her to the Crags, showing her that Fairy Cave, and brought her home after.

Edgar returns with the sickly Linton, six months younger than Cathi, who treats him like a pet. That evening, though, Heathcliff sends for his son. Edgar and Nelly have no choice but to send him to WH.

Cathi’s 16th birthday. She tricks Nelly into walking close to WH with her. They meet Heathcliff who brings them home. It’s one of Linton’s stronger days and Heathcliff wants the two young people to marry. Under his breath to Nelly, Heathcliff wishes that Hareton were his son. He doesn’t think Linton will live to see 18. He even pushes Hareton and Cathi together. Heathcliff sees himself in Hareton’s potential and crude upbringing, which he promoted as revenge against Hindley. When Cathi realizes that Hareton can’t read she joins with Linton in mocking him.

Cathi and Linton write secret letters to each other until Nelly finds them and burns them.

When Edgar becomes ill and can no longer walk the property with Cathi, she goes out with Nelly instead. They meet Heathcliff, who wants Cathi to resume writing. Linton is making himself sick with pining. Come to WH and visit while I am away and see for yourself, he says.

Linton, ill, sits by the fire and complains. Nelly is annoyed by him, but Cathi again makes him her pet. She secretly visits him, singing to him and playing games. One evening Hareton meets her at the gate and takes her pony for stabling. He tells her he can now read the inscription over the door lintel, but she mocks him. When Linton joins in, he and Hareton have an argument. Linton, coughing from it, begins to spew blood. Hareton immediately carries him upstairs to rest and cries when Cathi won’t stop weeping. When Cathi leaves, Hareton meets her at the gate and tries to apologize, but she whips him and rides away.

Told all of this by Cathi, Nelly immediately takes the story to Edgar, who forbids Cathi from going again to WH.

Here Nelly interrupts her tale. This was a year ago, she tells Lockwood.

Edgar, anticipating his death, agrees to let Linton and Cathi meet halfway. Linton looks ill. Heathcliff pulls Nelly aside and asks if Edgar’s dying. He’s not sure who will pass first, Edgar or Linton. He tricks Cathi into escorting Linton back to WH. When there, Heathcliff locks Nelly in a bedroom and forbids them from leaving. He intends for Cathi and Linton to marry in the morning. Nelly, isolated, is locked up for five days.

When released, Nelly sees that Linton wallows by the fire while his wife Cathi is locked in the upstairs bedroom. Nelly’s allowed to return home; Edgar is near death. Linton finally agrees to unlock Cathi so she can see her father. Before Edgar can rewrite his will, he dies. The lawyer arrives and fires everyone at TG.

Heathcliff arrives to bring Cathi back to WH where she will work for her supper. TG is to be let. While waiting for Cathi to pack, Heathcliff stares at Catherine’s portrait and tells Nelly that he bribed the sexton during Edgar’s burial. He opened Catherine’s casket and looked at her dead, unaltered face. Although he’s begged Catherine to visit him for 18 years, this is the first time he’s seen her.

Again Nelly interrupts her story to update Lockwood. Six weeks ago she met Zillah in town. Linton is dead. His property is legally Heathcliff’s, and Cathi is destitute. Although Hareton is kind to her, Cathi is bitter. She speaks harshly to everyone and Heathcliff beats her.

SIX

And that’s all Nelly knows. The narration switches to Lockwood, who has decided to go back to London.

SEVEN

He visits WH, intending to settle his rent with Heathcliff. He tries to slip a note from Nelly to Cathi, but she’s too defensive and brushes it away. She continues to mock Hareton for his stumbling attempts to read. Lockwood’s sympathy (and through him, ours) goes to Hareton.

It’s now 1802, about six months later, and the present day when Lockwood returns to WH.

EIGHT

It’s summertime, and the moors glow with an amber beauty. Nelly sews in the doorway while Hareton and Cathi happily flirt inside. Everything is changed. Heathcliff is dead.

Nelly updates Lockwood on the past six months.

Heathcliff asks her to come to WH to tend to Cathi so he doesn’t have to look at her. The two women with Hareton set up a sitting parlor where the three can gather in the evenings. Cathi reads aloud to them. She makes the first move, apologizing to Hareton. They become allies and friends. Nelly anticipates the day they will marry.

Weary of it all, Heathcliff leaves them alone. He’s begun seeing Catherine. Her ghost is with him always now. He stops eating.

Nelly finds him in Catherine’s panel bed, the lattice window open to the cold rain. He’s dead. His sneering smile and wide eyes are unsettling. Only Hareton, who feels as if he’s lost a father, sits with him and weeps.

NINE

To the scandal of the neighborhood, Heathcliff is buried as he wished. He lies next to Catherine, on the opposite side from Edgar. Villagers say that two spirits walk the moors.

Lockwood, in the last moment of the novel, visits the graveyard where the dead rest quietly.

CRITICAL NOTES

It’s a tidy Enneagram. The Three and the Six are bookends: Nelly’s tale of the past begins and it ends. The Seven is Lockwood’s random decision to visit WH, which leads to us hearing the end of the story, and his summation at the Nine. It’s a very interesting choice. Lockwood seems superfluous; he’s a plot device. Yet here he sits at crucial beats. He can’t be dispatched. And he’s a strange character. As somewhat of a dandy, he thinks Cathi will fall in love with him. His impression of himself, which we only ever see through his eyes (no other character finds him important enough to form an opinion about), is delusional.

The introduction of Catherine’s ghost at the Two -- the spirit that Heathcliff seeks -- becomes a tangible force at the Eight. After looking at the corpse of Catherine, Heathcliff begins to see/imagine her spirit, which leads to his death. The supernatural attachment causes him to ignore eating and sleep. His body decays.

What makes the novel tricky is that the other aspect of the Eight -- the romance of Cathi and Hareton -- isn’t present before the Switch. We don’t have two separate novels, though. Heathcliff and Nelly span both storylines. Their wants -- Heathcliff’s to enact revenge, Nelly’s to maintain the family -- come to fruition. (Although Heathcliff’s objective is ultimately foiled.) Any retelling of this novel would need to focus on these two characters. They are the glue.

This is a story about cruelty and violence, possibly even evil. All is redeemed in the end by our charming lovebirds, but the majority of the activity at Wuthering Heights is repugnant. Love wins, but it’s brutalized before we get there. It’s necessary to see the romantic side of the Eight to counterbalance the persistent torture. I suspect that showrunners don’t have time for Cathi/Hareton; and, to be fair, Heathcliff and Catherine (as a ghost) do own the Two/Eight. However, the book ends with the living generation. The older generation and its perversity passes away. Is the book’s Eight -- Heathcliff is reunited with his beloved Catherine -- meant to be heroic? Or is it simply -- shown by Lockwood as he observes the sinking, aging headstones -- about the gentleness of time? Even the demonic Heathcliff ends as a corpse and his machinations die with him. If you stay faithful, as Nelly does, you get the happy ending.