Catherine Love Heathcliff example essay topic

In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte tells the story of a love affair that takes place two times in the story; first with Heathcliff, Catherine, and Edgar and then with the next generation of children, Hareton, Cathy, and Linton. In the first generation there is the presence of love but there is also a strong underlying current of hate and the want for revenge. In the second generation there is no need for revenge and the affair is left to who can love who by their parents' wishes. In the first generation Heathcliff has so much hate building up inside him that he loses the battle over Catherine to Edgar because he is too busy trying to scheme of ways to get back at Hindley.

This loss is also accounted for by Catherine's selfishness in her want to become a member of the Grange and to have live that sort of lifestyle. It is because of this that she rules out the possibility of marrying Heathcliff and stays with Edgar instead. She thinks of Heathcliff as barbaric and doesn't see and profit in marrying him. Heathcliff at one point in time was caring and kind towards people until his loss of Catherine. At the end of the book when Catherine's soul finally finds Heathcliff the reader sees that he is extremely joyful. Because of Edgar's wealth Catherine chooses to stay with him, even though her love for Heathcliff is obvious.

The next generation of lovers is completely controlled by their parents. Cathy has no idea that she has a cousin named Hareton because Edgar does not want her to meet her uncle. Heathcliff has such a tremendous desire to control both of the estates that Edgar knows that he will try to scheme up a way to inherit Cathy's estate. He has already weaseled his way into Isabella's share. Cathy and Hareton finally meet and they begin to hit it off just as Catherine and Heathcliff did when they first met. But just like Catherine did to Heathcliff, Cathy treats Hareton like he is a servant and he becomes upset.

Hareton is a very caring and kind boy unlike his real father. He shows the same compassion that Heathcliff had shown him growing up. Next the third lover of the second generation comes in, Linton, the son of Heathcliff and Isabella, is very spoiled. He goes to live at the Heights and Cathy begins to feel for him because she feels sorry for him and his weakness.

Heathcliff immediately thinks of a way to use his son as a pawn and does exactly what Edgar had expected him to do. Eventually he forces Cathy to marry Linton and therefore will seize control of the grange when Cathy receives it from her father. Linton dies and Cathy becomes very isolated, soon she begins to realize that she could be good friends with Hareton and is persistent in demolishing his hate for her. She succeeds and the two fall in love.

At the end of the book, it all comes together that Heathcliff had played his cards in such a way that everyone was eventually dependant on him and he had sought revenge on everyone he had wanted to. Hindley's son was dependant on him, he had control of Wuthering Heights, and he now had two different routes to owning Thrush cross Grange. Because of Heathcliff's want for the ownerships of the two estates, different love affairs could take place, meaning that because of his want there were restrictions and situations that caused the love triangle between the children of the second generation to vary. The reason that the love affairs in the first generation didn't work was because they were more material; everyone had something that someone else wanted. Heathcliff loved Catherine and wanted to be with her, and Catherine love Heathcliff but wanted to be with Edgar for his wealth. That is why the true love didn't work in the first generation.

At first Cathy loved Linton and Linton supposedly loved Cathy but later she finds out that he wanted her inheritance. In the second generation the true love was between Cathy and Hareton and the reason it was true was because neither of them had anything, everything they had was taken away by Heathcliff and yet they still managed to love each other. At the end of the story the reader realizes that Wuthering Heights was just an extra long soap opera.