Chapter 1
Summary
It is 1801, and the narrator, Mr. Lockwood, relates how he has just returned
from a visit to his new landlord, Mr. Heathcliff. Lockwood, a self-described
misanthropist, is renting Thrushcross Grange in an effort to get away from
society following a failure at love. He had fallen in love with a "real
goddess" (6), but when she returned his affection he acted so coldly she
"persuaded her mamma to decamp." He finds that relative to
Heathcliff, however, he is extremely sociable. Heathcliff, "a dark skinned
gypsy, in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman" (5) treats his visitor
with a minimum of friendliness, and Wuthering
Heights, the farm where Heathcliff lives, is just as foreign and
unfriendly. 'Wuthering' means stormy and windy in the local dialect. As
Lockwood enters, he sees a name carved near the door: Hareton Earnshaw. Dangerous-looking dogs
inhabit the bare and old-fashioned rooms, and threaten to attack Lockwood: when
he calls for help Heathcliff implies that Lockwood had tried to steal
something. The only other inhabitants of Wuthering Heights are an old servant
named Joseph and a cook––neither of whom are
much friendlier than Heathcliff. Despite his rudeness, Lockwood finds himself
drawn to Heathcliff: he describes him as intelligent, proud and morose––an
unlikely farmer. Heathcliff gives Lockwood some wine and invites him to come
again. Although Lockwood suspects this invitation is insincere, he decides he
will return because he is so intrigued by the landlord.
Chapter 2
Summary
Annoyed by the housework being done in the Grange, Lockwood pays a second
visit to Wuthering Heights, arriving there just as snow begins to fall. The
weather is cold, the ground is frozen, and his reception matches the bleak
unfriendliness of the moors. After yelling at the old servant Joseph to open
the door, he is finally let in by a peasant-like young man. The bare kitchen is
warm, and Lockwood assumes that the young and beautiful girl there is Mrs.
Heathcliff. He tries to make conversation but she is consistently scornful and
inhospitable, and he only embarrasses himself. There is "a kind of
desperation" (11) in her eyes. She refuses to make him tea unless
Heathcliff said he could have some. The young man and Heathcliff come in for
tea. The young man behaves boorishly and seems to suspect Lockwood of making
advances to the girl. Heathcliff demands tea "savagely" (12), and
Lockwood decides he doesn't really like him. Trying to make conversation again,
Lockwood gets into trouble first assuming that the girl is Heathcliff's wife,
and then that she is married to the young man, who he supposes to be
Heathcliff's son. He is rudely corrected, and it transpires that the girl is
Heathcliff's daughter-in-law but her husband is dead, as is Heathcliff's wife.
The young man is Hareton Earnshaw. It is snowing hard and Lockwood requests a
guide so he can return home safely, but he is refused: Heathcliff considers it
more important that Hareton take care of the horses. Joseph, who is evidently a
religious fanatic, argues with the girl, who frightens him by pretending to be
a witch. The old servant doesn't like her reading. Lockwood, left stranded and
ignored by all, tries to take a lantern, but Joseph offensively accuses him of
stealing it, and sets dogs on him. Lockwood is humiliated and Heathcliff and
Hareton laugh. The cook, Zillah, takes him in and says he can spend the
night.
Chapter 3
Summary
Zillah quietly shows Lockwood to a chamber which, she says, Heathcliff does
not like to be occupied. She doesn't know why, having only lived there for a
few years. Left alone, Lockwood notices the names "Catherine Earnshaw," "Catherine
Linton," and "Catherine Heathcliff" scrawled over the window
ledge. He leafs through some old books stacked there, and finds that the
margins are covered in handwriting––evidently the child Catherine's diary. He
reads some entries which evoke a time in which Catherine and Heathcliff were
playmates living together as brother and sister, and bullied by Joseph (who
made them listen to sermons) and her older brother Hindley. Apparently
Heathcliff was a 'vagabond' taken in by Catherine's father, raised as one of
the family, but when the father died Hindley made him a servant and threatened
to throw him out, to Catherine's sorrow.
Lockwood then
falls asleep over a religious book, and has a nightmare about a fanatical
preacher leading a violent mob. Lockwood wakes up, hears that a sound in his
dream had really been a branch rubbing against the window, and falls asleep
again. This time he dreams that he wanted to open the window to get rid of the
branch, but when he did, a "little, ice-cold hand" (25) grabbed his
arm, and a voice sobbed "let me in." He asked who it was, and was
answered: "Catherine Linton. I'm come home, I'd lost my way on the moor."
He saw a child's face and, afraid, drew the child's wrist back and forth on the
broken glass of the window so that blood soaked the sheets. Finally he gets
free, and insists that he won't let the creature in, even if it has been lost
for twenty years, as it claims. He wakes up screaming.
Heathcliff
comes in, evidently disturbed and confused, unaware that Lockwood is there.
Lockwood tells him what happened, mentioning the dream and Catherine Linton's
name, which distresses and angers Heathcliff. Lockwood goes to the kitchen, but
on his way he hears Heathcliff at the window, despairingly begging 'Cathy' to
come in "at last" (29). Lockwood is embarrassed by his host's obvious
agony.
Morning
comes: Lockwood witnesses an argument between Heathcliff and the girl, who has
been reading. Heathcliff bullies her, and she resists spiritedly. Heathcliff
walks Lockwood most of the way home in the snow.
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