Wuthering Heights

Chapter 12 Summary
Key Characters: * Catherine * Nelly * Edgar Linton * Heathcliff * Isabella
Summary of key events:
In the result of Catherine starving herself for days, she enters a delirious state and believes that she is dying. With Nelly nurturing her, she talks obsessively about death, and rants on about her childhood memories with Heathcliff on the moors. The hysterical Catherine believes that she is back at Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff and Joseph, and then proceeds to enter a petrified state on the notion that the room is haunted and tells Nelly she in fact is scared of being alone, which goes to show she is scared in her own home. The most important part of this chapter is that in her hysteric state, Catherine begins talking to the illusory Heathcliff saying that even though she will die; her spirit will never be at rest until she can be with him. This goes to show that no matter what differences separate the pair, they will always share an ‘undying love’ for one another. In this chapter we also discover that Heathcliff and Isabella Linton elope, which infuriates Edgar Linton (Catherine’s husband) as he despises Heathcliff and is jealous of Catherine’s deep feelings for him. After hearing this Edgar says Isabella is only his sister in name, not because he disowned her, but because she disowned him. From here on, we can only foresee that Catherine’s illness is going to become worse, and the tone of the novel is going to become obscure. A lot of the text is feverish in the way it is provided, and it suggests that Catherine’s antics are going to reach a new extreme, and the line will be drawn between her madness and sanity.
Themes:
* Love * Death and Afterlife * Mortality * Ghosts * Moors (as a symbol)
Quotes:
* Pg 123: ‘Oh Nelly, the room is haunted, I’m afraid of being alone’. * Pg 124: ‘Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her spirit, our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child’. * Pg