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| Character | Heathcliff???? | |
|---|---|---|
| Gender | Male | |
| Age Range(s) | Adult (36-50) | |
| Type of monologue / Character is | In love, Descriptive, Depressed, Frustrated, Insecure, Delusional, Reminiscing life story/Telling a story | |
| Type | Dramatic | |
| Year | 1847 | |
| Period | 19th Century | |
| Genre | Romance, Family, Drama | |
| Description | Heathcliff tells Nelly how Catherine's ghost has tormented him for the last 18 years.. | |
| Location | Chapter XXIX | |
Summary
The narrator of the story are Mr. Lockwood, a man who arrives in a manor in Yorkshire at the beginning of the story, and Nelly, a maid who has worked in the manor for many years and who tells Lockwood the story of the family who lived there, the Earnshaws, and the Lintons, their neighbours.
The main focus of the story is the passionate and ill-fated love between Heathcliff, the dark skinned adopted son of the Earnshaws, and Catherine, the young daughter of Mr. Earnshaws. Catherine, because of class issues and so ends up marrying the rich and uptight neighbour Edgar Linton to Heathcliff's chagrin. Heathcliff wants revenge bad and, after leaving the family and coming back wealthy, goes after the Lintons and Catherine with a vengeance. He also marries Edgar's sister Isabella and has a son, Linton, that he treats like crap. Eventually Catherine dies after having given birth to young Catherine. Edgar dies as well eventually and Nelly nurses young Catherine. Eventually young Catherine and Linton become lovers as Heathcliff forces his son to seduce Catherine and make his vengeance complete.
This monologue comes in chapter 29, right after Edgar's death. Young Catherine moves in with Heathcliff as both her parents are dead and Nelly asks Heathcliff for a job in order to stay close to Catherine. Surprising Nelly, Heathcliff confesses how his obsession for Catherine continued after her death. He tells her how he even tried to open the coffin where she was buried to get her in his arms again. Her ghost has tormented him for the last 18 years. He expresses his frustration of being able to feel her presence but never able to reach her...
The main focus of the story is the passionate and ill-fated love between Heathcliff, the dark skinned adopted son of the Earnshaws, and Catherine, the young daughter of Mr. Earnshaws. Catherine, because of class issues and so ends up marrying the rich and uptight neighbour Edgar Linton to Heathcliff's chagrin. Heathcliff wants revenge bad and, after leaving the family and coming back wealthy, goes after the Lintons and Catherine with a vengeance. He also marries Edgar's sister Isabella and has a son, Linton, that he treats like crap. Eventually Catherine dies after having given birth to young Catherine. Edgar dies as well eventually and Nelly nurses young Catherine. Eventually young Catherine and Linton become lovers as Heathcliff forces his son to seduce Catherine and make his vengeance complete.
This monologue comes in chapter 29, right after Edgar's death. Young Catherine moves in with Heathcliff as both her parents are dead and Nelly asks Heathcliff for a job in order to stay close to Catherine. Surprising Nelly, Heathcliff confesses how his obsession for Catherine continued after her death. He tells her how he even tried to open the coffin where she was buried to get her in his arms again. Her ghost has tormented him for the last 18 years. He expresses his frustration of being able to feel her presence but never able to reach her...
Written by Administrator
| Excerpt |
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| HEATHCLIFF: "It began oddly. You know I was wild after she died; and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit! I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, and do, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow. In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter - all round was solitary. I didn't fear that her fool of a husband would wander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring them there. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, I said to myself - 'I'll have her in my arms again! If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills ME; and if she be motionless, it is sleep." I got a spade from the tool-house, and began to delve with all my might - it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on the point of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down. "If I can only get this off," I muttered, "I wish they may shovel in the earth over us both!" and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There was another sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb. I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled. Her presence was with me: it remained while I re-filled the grave, and led me home. You may laugh, if you will; but I was sure I should see her there. I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her. Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door. It was fastened; and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my wife opposed my entrance. I remember stopping to kick the breath out of him, and then hurrying up-stairs, to my room and hers. I looked round impatiently - I felt her by me - I could almost see her, and yet I could not! I ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning - from the fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse! I had not one. She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me! And, since then, sometimes more and sometimes less, I've been the sport of that intolerable torture! Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to the feebleness of Linton's. When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemed that on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I should meet her coming in. When I went from home I hastened to return; she must be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain! And when I slept in her chamber - I was beaten out of that. I couldn't lie there; for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids to see. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night - to be always disappointed! It racked me! I've often groaned aloud, till that old rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing the fiend inside of me. Now, since I've seen her, I'm pacified - a little. It was a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteen years!" |
