Wuthering Heights

The book opens in 1801, with Mr. Lockwood, a tenant passing through the north of England. He has rented Thrushcross Grange and goes to visit his landlord, Heathcliff, who lives in an isolated house high on the moor, called Wuthering Heights. There he finds a rough man, a cold house and people who receive him badly.

Trapped by a snowstorm, Lockwood is forced to spend the night there. He sleeps in an old room, covered with scribbles by someone named Catherine on the walls and in the books, and at night he believes he sees a girl crying at the window, begging to be let in. Heathcliff, hearing it, loses control and throws open the window, calling out for her.

This opening works as a promise: something terrible happened in that house, and the ghost is a sign that the past isn't over. The rest of the novel explains what it was.

Curious, Lockwood asks the housekeeper at the Grange, Nelly Dean, what happened there. Nelly has lived in both houses since childhood and knows everything. She tells the story over the weeks while he recovers from an illness, and most of the book is her voice, heard by him and passed on to us.

There are two houses at the center of the plot. Wuthering Heights, up high, is a harsh place of wind and conflict. Thrushcross Grange, in the valley, is elegant, calm and civilized. They work as two worlds, one wild and one refined, and the story is about people who move between them.

It's worth noting that everything arrives filtered. Lockwood listens to Nelly, Nelly judges what she saw, and the reader always gets a second- or third-hand version. It's like gossip from the oldest neighbor on the block: plenty of truth, but plenty of opinion too.

Years earlier, Mr. Earnshaw, the owner of the Heights, returns from a trip to Liverpool with an orphan boy, poor and dirty, whom he found on the streets. He names him Heathcliff and starts treating him like a son. The boy, dark-skinned and of unknown origin, stands out for being quiet and tough.

The legitimate son, Hindley, feels jealous and mistreats the newcomer. The daughter, Catherine, on the other hand, grows attached to him. When their father dies, Hindley inherits the house and demotes Heathcliff to a servant, with no schooling and no pay, humiliating him every day.

It's a familiar scene: the son of the house and the hired hand, the one who gets what's left over because he's an outsider. The seed of the book's revenge is planted there, in years of contempt.

There's a detail of domestic cruelty: Hindley forbids him to study, forces him to work in the fields and threatens him with physical punishment. Heathcliff endures it in silence, and Catherine, in secret, shares with him the little affection she can.