Wuthering Heights

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 12th grade April 2001

download word file, 4 pages 0.0

Downloaded 10 times

Why Catherine Marries Edgar and not Healthcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights Only the truly fortunate know a love so powerful that it could outlast death it's self. In Brontë's Wuthering Heights, it is obvious to all there is a considerable amount of passionate love between Healthcliff and Catherine so there is much confusion over why Catherine marries Edgar and not Healthcliff. However, I think that we can take Catherine at her word and discover that the underlying reason she chooses Edgar is her decision to in a real sense, "˜have it all.' Catherine has all she could want socially with Edgar, his proper courtship, the respect he holds, and finally the security. However in Healthcliff, Catherine has all she could want romantically, her ideal hero in the castle, a soul mate, and a love that she feels would actually outlast death itself. Finding herself in such a dilemma, it is of little wonder readers of this novel have been confused with her decision.

Catherine's love is like a person on a raft that comes to a fork in the river, one way being rough and full of dangers, the other way being smooth sailing all the way home. Catherine, being like most average people, wanted to take the easy way, that being Edgar's type of (r) omantic. To start with, Edgar offers her the proper courtship in order to win her hand, by treating her like a lady in a way any women would love. Edgar shows Catherine next, the difference between her home with it at its present state not a happy place to be as Nelly puts it, "˜ "¦you will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home"¦' and then there is his home, "˜"¦a wealthy respectable one"¦'where there are parties, smiling faces, the respect of the...