Editor's Choice
Do you agree with the handling and conclusion of Wuthering Heights?
Quick answer:
The conclusion of Wuthering Heights is generally seen as satisfying and justified. While the novel's tragic elements, such as the doomed love of Catherine and Heathcliff, reflect the constraints of social status in the 18th century, the marriage of Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw offers resolution and unity. This ending provides poetic justice and closure, showing that while not everyone gets what they want, healing and happiness are still possible.
In order to form an opinion about the plot development and conclusion of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, you must first examine the author's purpose and message to decide whether the story teaches the reader a valuable lesson. Unlike many stories in which the protagonists live happily ever after, Bronte’s novel is a romance that ends tragically when Catherine and Heathcliff, two friends who are raised together in late 18th-century England, fall in love, but are not able to marry because of Heathcliff’s lower social status. How does the plot reflect the time period? Does social status play a part in who we choose to marry today?
To some critics, Bronte’s novel seems uber-tragic. Not only do the two lovers not end up together, but the story line continues after they both marry other people and Heathcliff manipulates the lives of their own partners and children to seek revenge, inadvertently...
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leading to the misery and death of his beloved Catherine and later himself. Do you think this is realistic or too exaggerated? Why the author's need for so much pain and suffering for generations?
Ultimately though, in my opinion, the bittersweet ending is satisfying and justified. While it may seem tragic that Heathcliff does not succeed in (forcibly) marrying Catherine's daughter to his son (to make up for his own doomed love story), she does end up choosing to marry Hareton for love and not money, in spite of Heathcliff’s attempts to prevent this by turning him into his servant. To me, this ending serves a poetic justice, revealing that while we can’t always get what we want, we often get what we deserve. A wrong is still made right, although not exactly as Heathcliff had planned or could have foreseen. Now it’s time for you to decide: do you think this ending was satisfying and well-deserved? What other questions does this story and its conclusion bring to mind? Answering these questions will help you form your opinion about the novel.
I do agree with Emily Bronte's handling of the end of Wuthering Heights. The marriage of Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw ends the estrangement and quarrel between the two families that began with Heathcliff's elopement. It brings unity and a new beginning.
We have been through a good deal of emotional upheaval and anguish in this novel. The reader is likely emotionally wrung out by the end. Heathcliff certainly is, saying he has lost the will to fight so will not try to wreak revenge on both families by ruining the match.
Allowing this young couple to marry provides the happy ending the earlier couple, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, were denied. This marriage gives a satisfying sense of closure to the novel, illustrating that wounds can heal and life does not have to be one tragedy after another.