Bulldog

The Bulldog appears throughout Wuthering Heights as a recurring emblem of brute force, class hostility, and the violent undercurrents of domestic life. More than a mere animal, the bulldog marks pivotal moments of confrontation and power reversal, from the childhood attack that separates Catherine Earnshaw from Heathcliff to the menacing presence that greets Isabella Linton at the Heights. Its appearances trace a line of continuity between generations, linking the Earnshaw household's savage guardianship to the Grange's more refined but equally guarded world.

The Attack at Thrushcross Grange

The bulldog's most consequential appearance occurs during the childhood expedition to Thrushcross Grange. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, having run from the Heights to the Grange park, creep through a broken hedge and plant themselves on a flower-plot under the drawing-room window, where they spy on Edgar Linton and Isabella Linton at their Sunday evening leisure. When the Lintons hear the intruders' laughter, they raise an alarm, and the children flee. As Heathcliff urges Catherine on, she falls, whispering, "Run, Heathcliff, run! They have let the bull-dog loose, and he holds me!" The devil has seized her ankle. Heathcliff, hearing the dog's abominable snorting, vociferates curses and thrusts a stone between its jaws, trying with all his might to cram it down its throat. A servant named Robert arrives with a lantern, shouting, "Keep fast, Skulker, keep fast!" but changes his note when he sees the dog's game. The dog is throttled off, its huge, purple tongue hanging half a foot out of its mouth, its pendent lips streaming with bloody slaver. The man takes Catherine up; she is sick, not from fear but from pain. This attack, carried out by the bulldog named Skulker, precipitates Catherine's entry into the Grange, where she is cared for and ultimately drawn into the Lintons' world, setting the course for her marriage to Edgar Linton and her separation from Heathcliff.

Skulker's Legacy: Throttler at the Heights

The bulldog's line continues into the next generation. Throttler, whom Isabella Linton encounters at Wuthering Heights, is recognized as a son of the old Skulker. It had spent its whelphood at the Grange and was given by Edgar Linton to Hindley Earnshaw. When Isabella first arrives at the Heights, she finds a ruffianly child by the fire, strong in limb and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his mouth. This is Hareton Earnshaw, and when she attempts to make friends with him, he responds with an oath and a threat to set Throttler on her if she does not "frame off." Whispering "Hey, Throttler, lad!" the little wretch rouses the half-bred bulldog from its lair in a corner, asking authoritatively, "Now, wilt thou be ganging?" Isabella, loving her life, steps over the threshold to wait until the others enter. The dog's presence here signals the brutalization of Hareton under Hindley's neglect and Heathcliff's later tyranny, as well as the hostility that greets Isabella in her new home.

Throttler's Recognition of Catherine Linton

Throttler later plays a gentler but still telling role when Catherine Linton (the younger Catherine) finds herself at Wuthering Heights. After she flings her tray and its contents on the ground in a fit of vexation, she sits at the stairs'-head, hides her face in her hands, and cries. Joseph scolds her, predicting the master will tumble over the broken pots. Left in the dark, Catherine reflects on the necessity of smothering her pride and choking her wrath. An unexpected aid appears in the shape of Throttler, whom she now recognizes as a son of the old Skulker. She fancies it knows her: it pushes its nose against hers by way of salute, and then hastens to devour the porridge she has spilled, while she gropes from step to step collecting the shattered earthenware and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with her pocket-handkerchief. The dog's recognition of Catherine, a creature of the Grange, momentarily bridges the divide between the two households, even as its presence in the Heights underscores how far she has fallen into a world of coarse domesticity. When Hindley Earnshaw's tread is heard in the passage, Throttler tucks in his tail and presses to the wall, but his endeavour to avoid him is unsuccessful, as Catherine guesses by a scutter down-stairs and a prolonged, piteous yelping. The dog, like Catherine herself, is subject to Hindley's brutality.

The Canine Guardians of Wuthering Heights

The bulldog is part of a broader canine menagerie that guards Wuthering Heights with jealous ferocity. When Mr. Lockwood first visits the Heights, he attempts to caress the canine mother, who has left her nursery and is sneaking wolfishly to the back of his legs, her lip curled up and her white teeth watering for a snatch. His caress provokes a long, guttural gnarl. Heathcliff growls in unison, "You'd better let the dog alone. She's not accustomed to be spoiled—not kept for a pet." Striding to a side door, he shouts for Joseph, who mumbles indistinctly in the depths of the cellar. Left vis-à-vis the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep-dogs who share with her a jealous guardianship over all his movements, Lockwood sits still, but indulges in winking and making faces at the trio. Some turn of his physiognomy so irritates the bitch that she suddenly breaks into a fury and leaps on his knees. He flings her back and hastens to interpose the table between them, rousing the whole hive: half-a-dozen four-footed fiends of various sizes and ages issue from hidden dens to the common centre. Lockwood feels his heels and coat-laps peculiar subjects of assault. This scene establishes the Heights as a place where even the animals are hostile to strangers, reflecting the household's isolation and its master's aversion to social intercourse.

The Bulldog as Symbol of Brutality and Degradation

The bulldog's symbolic weight extends beyond its literal appearances. The comparison of humans to dogs recurs throughout the novel as a marker of degradation and social hierarchy. Catherine Linton later observes of Hareton, "He's just like a dog, is he not, Ellen? or a cart-horse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally! What a blank, dreary mind he must have!" This dehumanizing comparison echoes the treatment of Heathcliff himself, who is repeatedly figured as a dog or brute by those who consider themselves his superiors. The bulldog, with its tenacious grip and brutal strength, embodies the raw, unrefined force that the Lintons' civilization seeks to subdue and that the Heights' inhabitants both wield and suffer. Skulker's attack on Catherine, and Throttler's later presence at the Heights, mark the points where the two worlds collide, and where the violence lurking beneath the surface of both households breaks through. The bulldog is thus not merely an animal but a concentrated image of the novel's central tensions: between nature and civilization, between the moors and the Grange, between the passionate brutality of the Earnshaws and the refined cruelty of the Lintons.