Love in Wuthering Heights

Imagine a love in which you share the soul of another, where life itself wouldn’t be worth living without this person. What would end a love like that, or is that love forever? In Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights, she portrays love as never ending. In the book Catherine and Heathcliff love is eternal, not even ended by death itself. She shows this throughout the novel, by showing time and death couldn’t dull their love, how they see the other person as themselves, and how their love for each other was so deep and true. The conflict involving love in this book is what had made it a classic and why we enjoy it, and can still relate to this day. The concept of everlasting love is something everyone strives for, and it is why we enjoying reading Wuthering Heights so thoroughly. Brontë makes the point evident early on in the novel when Lockwood sees the ghost of Catherine. “"Come in! come in!" he sobbed. "Cathy, do come. Oh, do – once more! Oh! My heart's darling, hear me this time – Catherine, at last!"” (3) This quote shows how even after years of being away from her how much Heathcliff loves Catherine and how he longs to be with her once more. Years of separation hasn’t even faded the love he feels for her at all. His love for her is love that not even death can hinder, and just a glimpse of Catherine would alleviate the pain and suffering Heathcliff has felt so long from the separation of his love. “You said I killed you--haunt me, then!...Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!” (6) Heathcliff wishes that even in death she will not leave him. He prays she will haunt him, so he will never have to go without seeing her. His love for her will not, even by death itself, be dulled. The thought of living his life without her is terrifying and he can’t imagine life without her. In the quote, "If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger." (9) Catherine displays that without Heathcliff she would have no reason to live, and if it were only her and Heathcliff in the world together, she would be perfectly happy. This love for each other is what creates makes Wuthering Heights such an interesting story; the thought of forbidden love will always grab our hearts and minds. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…” (9) In this quote it shows how she believes she exists within Heathcliff, and that they are the same being. She knows that her love for him is like nothing else she has ever felt, and she realizes that being with him would change her life and what she’s used to. She makes her plan to marry Edgar and use his money to make Heathcliff into a gentleman so she can always be with him. While this is unrealistic all she thought about was it was a way she could be rich and still have Heathcliff close to her. When Heathcliff exclaims, “I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” (16) He mirrors what Catherine had said in the above quote. They both feel as if they are part of each other and couldn’t exist without on another. While they have a strange way of showing their love, they are always bickering and rather spiteful toward each other they truly feel something real for each other. “He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being…” (9), once more Catherine exemplifies how her feelings for Heathcliff and how she sees herself as a part of herself. To Catherine, she and Heathcliff are the same person, and nothing will ever keep them apart, their love will last forever. "Are you possessed with a devil," he pursued, savagely, “to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!" (15) Catherine proceeds to torment Heathcliff up until the day she dies, and on afterward. While this is the only time Heathcliff truly confronts Catherine on her behavior he still talk about how much he cares for her. Even though she being mean and spiteful, blaming him for her death, he still wants her to know how much her loves her, and how he would never be able to forget her. When Catherine dies, Heathcliff is crushed. He loves her like he loves life itself, and then on, nothing else matter expect revenge on the people who kept her away from him. His life revolved around her, I’m sure even when he is away she is never far from his thoughts. They loved each other, the conflict in the story between Catherine and Heathcliff’s love for each other is why it continues to be such a popular love story, we all want that love. A love like Heathcliff has for Catherine, a love that last forever, which withstands everything, even death itself. "... for what is not connected with her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped in the flags! In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day—I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!" (33)
Even after Catherine is gone, he can’t escape her, he see her everywhere in everything. Every person reminds him of his dear Catherine. His life is a miserable place, worse than hell without her. Heathcliff wishes only to once again be with his love. Love like is only once and a lifetime and it never goes away. It’s true, and it takes over the body and the mind and controls you. Love in plays a large role in Wuthering Heights, and Brontë proves that love is eternal. Catherine and Heathcliff go through many trials and through it all they never stops loving each other. How can a love like that not be forever?