"Cliff Notes - Wuthering Heights" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

His revenge is thus a horrible deflection of his love for
Cathy, and his greatest crime--and the source of all his later
ones--is not to forgive her on her deathbed. It is only when he
finds himself reconciled to her spirit that he abandons his
cruelty toward Hareton and the younger Cathy.

^^^^^^^^^^
WUTHERING HEIGHTS: CATHERINE EARNSHAW, LATER MRS.
EDGAR LINTON

There are, in a sense, two Catherines: the one who roams
wildly over the moors with Heathcliff, who races him barefoot
when she loses her shoes in a bog; and the one who returns from
Thrushcross Grange a lady, afraid that the dogs, and Heathcliff
too, might soil her grand new dress. There is Heathcliff's
Catherine, and there is Edgar's Catherine. They are not
mutually exclusive, of course; even the wild Catherine is
educated (unlike the young Heathcliff), and even the dressed-up
Catherine is saucy and indulgent (unlike Edgar Linton).

You can see Catherine as either untrue to her own untamed
nature, through pride or ignorance, or genuinely torn between
two ways of being.

She herself admits that Heathcliff is "more herself" than she
is, and that Edgar is as different from her "as a moonbeam from
lightning or frost from fire." Catherine's acceptance of Edgar's
proposal, then, is a betrayal of Heathcliff and of herself. Why
does she do it? Ellen says she's proud, and perhaps Cathy does
want to be a great lady. Or perhaps Cathy's true desire is to
free Heathcliff from Hindley's clutches. If so, her plan is
foolish; neither Heathcliff nor Edgar would have gone along with
it.

On the other hand, there is much evidence that Cathy is truly
in conflict. She tells Ellen that Heathcliff's return has
reconciled her to God and humanity; yet she describes him to
Isabella as a "pitiless, wolfish man." When she tells Ellen of
Edgar's proposal, she wonders whether Heathcliff even knows what
being in love is, and despite the unconscious cruelty of the
question, you wonder, too. His love seems so much larger, so
much wilder, than human love.

If Cathy married Edgar for reasons other than love--ambition,
or a desire to help Heathcliff--why doesn't she declare her love
for Heathcliff on her deathbed? In that scene her passion is
obvious, but it's as complicated as ever.

In a more conventional novel Catherine would be the heroine.