Wuthering Heights | Themes

Good versus Evil

• An exploration of religious-based ideas of good

and evil create the primary theme in Wuthering
Heights, and the themes of judgment versus pity,
love and obsession, and violence and revenge,
which are also religiously rooted, support it. The
four lesser themes indicate individual choices,
which add up to either good or evil. Pity, humility,
love and forgiveness—the opposite of revenge—
add up to choosing good; judgment, pride,
obsession, and violence add up to choosing evil.
• The first half of the novel explores the idea of
natural inclinations toward one or the other—
good or evil—through a repetition and
juxtaposition of devil and angel imagery and
biblical references as the narrator, Mrs. Dean,
wonders if Heathcliff and Cathy are, or will turn
out to be, good or evil. During this section,
Brontë explores how an environment might
influence characters toward good or evil. Ideas of
freewill and personal choice to suffer begin in the
middle of the narrative around the time when
Hindley renounces God and spirals into villainy.
• Once Brontë's complex argument is in place and ideas
of natural character tendencies, role of environment,
and freewill are established, the second half of the
novel shows individual characters, who lean toward the
good—Catherine, Isabella, Hareton, Edgar, and Mrs.
Dean—battling evil represented by Heathcliff. Then the
theme culminates with Heathcliff's ultimate choice
between good and evil. His choice locks him out of
heaven and casts him into a hellish state, condemned
to spiritually wander the moors with Cathy, who also
rejected heaven and religion when she was alive.
• Mrs. Dean's character is the representative of the
good qualities of love, pity, humility, and
forgiveness. Heathcliff and Cathy represent the
evil choices of violence, revenge, pride,
selfishness, judgment, and obsession. Joseph's
character stands in the middle, representing
religious hypocrisy, as he believes he is good, but
having no qualities of love or the good
established in the novel (pity, humility) serves to
create an environment on the side of evil instead
of good.
 Judgment versus Pity

• Brontë differentiates between biblical judgment, as

reserved for the divine, and personal judgment
between individuals, which is always accompanied with
a choice between judgment and pity. Generally, a lack
of pity leads to pain, injustice, and suffering for the
person judged, making the thematic statement that to
judge others is harmful to them, unjust, and not a right
reserved for human beings. Repeatedly, the reader is
provoked to feel pity over judgment for the characters,
even Heathcliff and Hindley, and shown the disturbing
results of an absence of pity, such as Linton's treatment
of Catherine and his ensuing horrible death.
• Commentary on class distinctions is woven into
the judgment versus pity theme. The servants are
always expected to feel sympathy for their
masters. Masters are inclined to judge, and are
usually portrayed to lack pity. When servants lack
pity at times—Zillah toward Catherine and Mrs.
Dean toward Cathy—the judged characters
devolve into mean-spirited, selfish, or destructive
behavior, demonstrating the ill of judgment and
the benevolent power of pity.
• Pride versus humility is a thematic extension of judgment
versus pity: the prideful are judgmental and the humble are
sympathetic, or in other words, capable of pity. However,
the results are different in that judgment injures the judged
individual, the individual acted upon, whereas pride brings
sorrow to the prideful, the individual taking wrong action.
Further, humility, manifested in serving and doing one's
duty, brings reward to the humble, whereas pity is not
linked to reward. The conclusion of the theme plays out in
Catherine's story line; having completed her duty in caring
for the dying, once she is humble enough to drop her pride
toward Hareton, she is rewarded by having Thrushcross
Grange and happiness restored to her with the added
bonus of love.
 Violence and Revenge

• Through Hindley and Heathcliff's relationship, Brontë begins a

complex argument about the effects of physical violence. Her first
point is to show how abuse creates abusive, vengeful individuals
when they do not forgive and turn violent to lessen their pain.
Isabella represents the wise individual who understands the true
nature of violence and its consequences. She delivers the message
for the theme when she says violence wounds the person who
chooses it. Next, through Linton's relationship with Heathcliff,
Brontë shows how apathy is created by violence and the fear of
violence, again, by a desire to avoid pain. Through Hareton and
Linton, Brontë demonstrates how neglect and apathy can be
violent. In this way, attributes, such as the ones Heathcliff hates—
duty, compassion, charity, and kindness—become opposites of
violence, actions with which to fight the evils of violence and
revenge.
 Love and Obsession

• In the first half of Wuthering Heights, through

Heathcliff and Cathy, Brontë suggests that to
go against one's heart and soul is against love
and equivalent to death, since Cathy dies for
making the wrong choice. Then she shows
how making love an obsession by choosing
human love over Godly, heavenly love
becomes love turned evil and idolatrous—
with several references to Cathy and Heathcliff
making each other an "idol."
• This is the core of the love and obsession theme;
it requires the entirety of the novel to make its
point. However, Brontë explores other facets of
love throughout. Mr. Lockwood represents
superficial attitudes toward love, beneath which
lurks cowardice. Isabella represents delusional,
false love, also idolatrous, which she escapes by
seeing that what she thought was love was
actually violence and hatred. Catherine and
Hareton represent love's power to overcome
pride and evil, laden with the idea that to love
moderately leads to happiness.
 Belonging

• The setting of the two opposing households, Wuthering

Heights and Thrushcross Grange, combined with the
symbolism of the moors between them and Cathy's
wandering ghost highlights the devastating isolation
individuals feel while searching and seeking a sense of
belonging. Human beings, Brontë demonstrates through
this theme, must align with their true destinies, whether
they—figuratively speaking—encounter walls they must
climb over, discover windows and doors barred and locked,
or set out on a journey to explore. They innately know
where they belong; visions, presentiments, and dreams will
guide them, and the development of a good character will
lead them to the persons and places in which they can at
last feel a sense of peace and unity.