Wuthering Heights Topic Tracking: Supernatural

Chapter 3

Supernatural 1: Waking from a violent dream, Mr. Lockwood, who is sleeping in Catherine's bed, sees a ghost. It is a young girl who calls herself Catherine Linton. Mr. Lockwood will not let her in, even though she complains she has been wandering twenty years. It was about twenty years ago that Catherine Linton died, and Heathcliff begged her to haunt him until he died.

Chapter 9

Supernatural 2: Nelly, who claims not to believe in ghosts, does have some superstitions. She does not like to hear other people's dreams, and she refuses to hear Catherine's. Catherine suggests that it was a bad dream, maybe a prophecy. Catherine tells Nelly that she dreamed she was in heaven, and unhappy there. But Nelly stops her then, refusing to hear more. Catherine and Heathcliff are tightly connected, and Heathcliff has said that his heaven is not the religious kind, but an eternity with Catherine. Perhaps she is of the same opinion, and her dream foretold their sad end.

Supernatural 3: The night of Heathcliff's departure there is a terrible storm. Full of sorrow and guilt, Catherine refused to come inside from the drenching rain. Either the wailing winds or the thunderstorm broke a nearby tree in half, the sound terrifying Nelly and Joseph. Joseph thought the storm was a sign of the end, and Nelly wondered for once if Joseph was right.

Chapter 11

Supernatural 4: One day when passing the road to Wuthering Heights, Nelly had a vision. Thinking about Hindley, she saw his young face, with his eyes staring into hers. She suddenly felt a need to go to the Heights, and make sure he was all right. Upon reaching the gates, she saw a boy who matched her phantom. It was Hareton, Hindley's son, whom she had cared for before moving to the Grange.

Chapter 15

Supernatural 5: After the fight between Heathcliff and Edgar, Catherine became mad. After her illness receded, she became listless, quiet, and pale. Her hair she wore loose down her back, and the calmness left by her illness made her beautiful in a strange, ghostly way.

Chapter 16

Supernatural 6: Heathcliff has guessed that Catherine is dead even before Nelly tells him. He is greatly troubled by the fact that she never regained consciousness enough to ask for him before she died. Feeling cheated and alone, he begged and prayed that she would not be at peace. Since he cannot rest without her, he wants her ghost to haunt him until he dies. Unlike Linton, who is sorrowful but accepting of his wife's death, Heathcliff selfishly hopes that Catherine will have no peace without him.

Chapter 17

Supernatural 7: After Catherine's death, Isabella escapes to the Grange. She wants to leave Heathcliff, who has become mad since Catherine's death. He refuses all company, spending most of his time by the Grange. He is so interested in the dead that Isabella calls him a goblin. She is no longer sure if she married a man, a devil, or a ghost.

Chapter 29

Supernatural 8: Heathcliff, with no respect for the dead, had the gravedigger open Catherine's coffin while he was preparing Edgar's. The coffin was opened, and Catherine's face looked the same as the day she died, nearly twenty years ago.

Desperate to be with her in death, he knocked out one side of her coffin, with the instructions that one side of his be knocked out too, so that they might lie together for eternity. He tells Nelly that without this measure, he would likely haunt them all.

Heathcliff also confessed to Nelly that right after Catherine's death he almost dug her up. He wanted to hold her again, and he had begun to dig when he heard a sigh nearby, and felt a warm breath at his ear. He was certain it was Cathy, not in the grave, but on earth! After that time he was constantly looking for her, and always expected to see her wherever he went. But though he often thought he felt her, she did not show herself again.

Chapter 34

Supernatural 9: Heathcliff has been talking to Nelly about his approaching death. He has been acting strangely, refusing food and company. When Nelly came inside one night, she found him leaning out the window, intent on his cherished moors. The fire was low and the room was dark. And when Nelly's candle revealed his face, his frightful features made her think he was a ghost.

She thinks about his unknown origins, and wonders if he is human or monster.

Supernatural 10: The next morning, Nelly was alone with Heathcliff during breakfast. He asked Nelly if they were alone, as his eyes fix on a person whom Nelly can't see. He is looking outside the house, and seemed troubled by what the ghost told him. Nelly saw nothing and tried again to get him to eat.

After a late-night walk on the moors, Nelly hears Heathcliff come inside. He is addressing Catherine, and speaking to her as though she were alive and present. The closer Heathcliff grows to death, the more contact he seems to have with Catherine's ghost.

Supernatural 11: Heathcliff gives another clue of Catherine's haunting when he tells Cathy that even if everyone else hated him, there was still one who would want his company, chasing him always.

When Nelly enters Heathcliff's room, his eyes seem to look intensely at her, and his lips to smile. But he is dead, and the window to the moors is wide open. His face looks so strangely happy that Nelly tries to close his eyes, but they will not. His expression of joy seems frozen for all eternity.

Supernatural 12: Many townspeople believe Heathcliff is a ghost, and some claim to have met him along the moors, by the church, or in Wuthering Heights. Joseph also believes he has seen Heathcliff and Catherine looking out her window on rainy nights. One day, Nelly met a terrified shepherd, who was only a young boy. He claimed to have seen Heathcliff and a woman, who would not let him pass on the road. Nelly tries not to believe, but she still does not go out alone at night, or stay alone in the house if she can avoid it.