twentieth of March

The twentieth of March stands as one of the most densely charged dates in Wuthering Heights, a day that simultaneously marks a beginning and an ending. It is the anniversary of Catherine Earnshaw's death, a fact that shapes the emotional landscape of the novel's second generation, and it is the day on which her daughter, Catherine Linton (younger), first steps beyond the safe confines of Thrushcross Grange onto the moor, setting in motion the chain of events that will lead to her imprisonment and forced marriage. The date thus functions as a hinge between the novel's two great movements: the tragic love of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, and the tortured romance of their children and heirs.

A Day of Mourning and Solitude

For Edgar Linton, the twentieth of March is a day of private grief. On the anniversary of his wife's death, he invariably spends the day alone in the library at Thrushcross Grange, and at dusk walks as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he frequently prolongs his stay beyond midnight. The household observes no signs of rejoicing on this date, and Catherine Linton (younger) is thrown on her own resources for amusement. This annual ritual of solitary mourning creates a vacuum in the young Catherine's life, leaving her restless and seeking distraction on the very day her father is most withdrawn.

The Moorland Expedition

On the twentieth of March, when Catherine Linton (younger) has reached sixteen, she comes down dressed for going out and asks Ellen Dean to accompany her on a ramble to the edge of the moor. Mr. Linton has given her leave, provided they go only a short distance and return within the hour. Catherine declares she knows where she wishes to go: to a colony of moor-game she wants to see, to discover whether they have made their nests yet. Ellen Dean warns that the birds do not breed on the edge of the moor and that the spot must be a good distance up, but Catherine's determination is already fixed. This seemingly innocent excursion, born of a desire to escape the oppressive stillness of a house in mourning, becomes the catalyst for her introduction to Linton Heathcliff and the beginning of her captivity.

The Date's Recurrence in the Narrative of Loss

The twentieth of March is not merely a date of action but a date of haunting. It is the anniversary of Catherine Earnshaw's death, and the novel repeatedly returns to the imagery of the dead and the longing for reunion. Heathcliff's desperate prayer, uttered at the news of her death, that she might not rest as long as he is living, and his later confession of his attempt to open her coffin, both resonate with the date's association with death and the refusal to let go. The date thus becomes a point of convergence for the novel's central themes of mourning, memory, and the supernatural persistence of the beloved.

A Day of Contrasts

The twentieth of March embodies a stark contrast between the living and the dead, between the past and the present. While Edgar Linton mourns his lost wife, his daughter sets out to discover new life in the form of moor-game nests. The date is described as a beautiful spring day, a time of renewal, yet it is also the anniversary of a death. This tension between the promise of new beginnings and the weight of past loss is central to the novel's structure, and the twentieth of March encapsulates it perfectly. It is a day on which the dead are remembered and the living take their first steps toward a future that will be shaped by the past's unresolved passions.