Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up... on the moors of Northern England on her family's estate called Wuthering Heights. Her mother died when she was young, so her father raised her and her brother, Hindley, on his own. Her family expanded when her father adopted a young boy named Heathcliff after finding him starving and houseless in the streets of Liverpool. She and Heathcliff were inseparable growing up. But Catherine’s brother, Hindley, did not accept Heathcliff into the family; he treated him cruelly like a servant.
Living... with her husband Edgar and daughter in Thrushcross Grange in northern England. Edgar is cheerful, loving, and rich, but he is as different from her as "a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."
Relationship Status... married but in love with Heathcliff. It would have degraded her to marry Heathcliff because they were not of the same social status, so he will never know how much she loves him. As she says, "Whatever our souls are made of, Heathcliff's and mine are the same. He's always, always in my mind."
Challenge... wanting to feel better. She keeps on feeling dizzy and faint.
Personality... evolving. When she was a younger, she was a “wild, wicked slip” – free-spirited and always chatty. But as she has gotten older, she has gotten more emotional. They say her blood rushes into a hell of tumult at a few words.
Get to Know her in...
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When Heathcliff, a poor Gypsy boy, is adopted into wealthy Catherine Earnshaw's family, he and Catherine form a bond that progresses from childhood friendship to teenage passion. Because of Heathcliff's lowly social status, however, Catherine decides she cannot marry him, and instead marries the gentleman Edgar Linton. This sets in motion a chain of events that ravages both the Linton and Earnshaw families with jealousy, revenge, and bitterness, leaving only the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff to haunt the moors.
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A poor boy of unknown origins is rescued from poverty and taken in by the Earnshaw family where he develops an intense relationship with his young foster sister, Cathy.
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The Earnshaws are Yorkshire farmers during the early 19th Century. One day, Mr. Earnshaw returns from a trip to the city, bringing with him a ragged little boy called Heathcliff. Earnshaw's son, Hindley, resents the child, but Heathcliff becomes companion and soulmate to Hindley's sister, Catherine. After her parents die, Cathy and Heathcliff grow up wild and free on the Moors and despite the continued enmity between Hindley and Heathcliff they're happy -- until Cathy meets Edgar Linton, the son of a wealthy neighbor.
