Wuthering Heights

• Lockwood, a new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, visits his landlord Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights. It's hostile, strange, and haunted • He encounters Catherine's ghost at the window — clawing to get in. Heathcliff's anguished reaction reveals a lifetime of obsession • Nelly Dean narrates the real story: Heathcliff, a foundling, was brought to Wuthering Heights as a child. He and Catherine Earnshaw became inseparable • Catherine's brother Hindley torments Heathcliff after their father dies. Heathcliff is degraded to a servant • Catherine declares: "I AM Heathcliff" — their connection is identity, not romance. But she marries Edgar Linton (gentle, wealthy, civilized) for social position • "It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now" — Catherine's fatal choice. Heathcliff overhears the first part and vanishes • Three years later, Heathcliff returns — wealthy, polished, and consumed by revenge • He systematically destroys both families: marries Isabella Linton (to torment Edgar), gambles Hindley into ruin, takes possession of Wuthering Heights • Catherine, torn between Heathcliff and Edgar, goes mad and dies giving birth to her daughter (also Catherine) • Heathcliff's revenge extends to the next generation: he forces young Cathy to marry his sickly son Linton, controlling both estates • But Heathcliff begins to see Catherine's ghost everywhere. He stops eating, stops caring about revenge. Dies — possibly of supernatural longing • Young Cathy and Hareton (Hindley's degraded son) fall in love. The cycle of destruction ends with this redemptive union • The moors: vast, wild, indifferent to human suffering. The landscape IS the novel's emotional register