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| Character | Catherine???? | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Female | |
| Age Range(s) | Young Adult (20-35), Adult (36-50) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | Scolding, Neurotic, Depressed, Lamenting, Delusional, Reminiscing life story/Telling a story, Pondering/Pensive | |
| Type | Dramatic | |
| Year | 1847 | |
| Period | 19th Century | |
| Genre | Romance, Family, Drama | |
| Description | Catherine rants about her childhood and how she became Mrs. Linton | |
| Details | Chapter 12 | |
Summary
The story takes place in the beginning of the 19th century and its main focus is the passionate love between Heathcliff and Catherine. The narrators are Mr. Lockwood, a gentleman who in the beginning of the story arrives in a manor in Yorkshire, Thrushcross Grange, and rents it from Heathcliff, a mysterious wealthy man who leaves in Wuthering Heights. The other narrator is Nelly, the housemaid. As he arrives in the manor, Lockwood falls sick and asks Nelly to tell him the story of the families that lived in Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, the Earnshaws and the Lintons.
Nelly tells him Heathcliff was a poor little boy who was adopted by Mr. Earnshaw. Mr. Earnshaw had a daughter, Catherine, and a son, Hindley, who strongly dislike Heathcliff as he joins their family. With time, however, Catherine and Heathcliff become inseparable. As they grow, Mr. Earnshaw ends up preferring Heathcliff over his own son.
After Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights and starts treating Heathcliff as a common laborer to get revenge. Catherine, after meeting her rich neighbor Edgar Linton, even if she loves Heathcliff, becomes interested in him and eventually marries him. Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights and returns after several years as a wealthy man. Even if Hindley dies soon after, he decides to seek revenge. He mistreats Hareton, Hindley's son, and sets his sights on Isabella Linton, Edgar's sister, for her wealth. Catherine soon realizes Heathcliff's intentions and confronts him in the kitchen. Edgar soon arrives and the three have a confrontation. Edgar is humiliated as he is intimidated by the stronger Heathcliff, but eventually the servants arrive and Heathcliff is forced to leave.
Edgar confronts Catherine and asks her to choose between him or Heathcliff. Catherine, frustrated and upset, locks herself in her room, refusing to eat or see anybody. Eventually she lets her servant Nelly inside and in this monologue, a delusional Catherine/Mrs. Linton addresses Nelly as she rants about he going insane, talks about her childhood and regrets having married Edgar...
Nelly tells him Heathcliff was a poor little boy who was adopted by Mr. Earnshaw. Mr. Earnshaw had a daughter, Catherine, and a son, Hindley, who strongly dislike Heathcliff as he joins their family. With time, however, Catherine and Heathcliff become inseparable. As they grow, Mr. Earnshaw ends up preferring Heathcliff over his own son.
After Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley inherits Wuthering Heights and starts treating Heathcliff as a common laborer to get revenge. Catherine, after meeting her rich neighbor Edgar Linton, even if she loves Heathcliff, becomes interested in him and eventually marries him. Heathcliff leaves Wuthering Heights and returns after several years as a wealthy man. Even if Hindley dies soon after, he decides to seek revenge. He mistreats Hareton, Hindley's son, and sets his sights on Isabella Linton, Edgar's sister, for her wealth. Catherine soon realizes Heathcliff's intentions and confronts him in the kitchen. Edgar soon arrives and the three have a confrontation. Edgar is humiliated as he is intimidated by the stronger Heathcliff, but eventually the servants arrive and Heathcliff is forced to leave.
Edgar confronts Catherine and asks her to choose between him or Heathcliff. Catherine, frustrated and upset, locks herself in her room, refusing to eat or see anybody. Eventually she lets her servant Nelly inside and in this monologue, a delusional Catherine/Mrs. Linton addresses Nelly as she rants about he going insane, talks about her childhood and regrets having married Edgar...
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
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| CATHERINE: "How long is it since I shut myself in here?.... It seems a weary number of hours ... it must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled, and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this room desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to Edgar how certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in teasing me! I had no command of tongue, or brain, and he did not guess my agony, perhaps: it barely left me sense to try to escape from him and his voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it began to be dawn, and, Nelly, I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay there, with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oak-panelled bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which, just waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that they had been at all. I was a child; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff. I was laid alone, for the first time; and, rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside: it struck the table-top! I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say why I felt so wildly wretched: it must have been temporary derangement; for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years old I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Shake your head as you will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me! You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open! Quick, why don't you move?" |
