Catherine's Inner War

Follows Catherine Earnshaw's internal conflict between love and ambition, and the self-destructive consequences of trying to live two lives at once.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

The Two Natures

A Double Soul Acting a Part Catherine learns to be a lady with the Lintons and a savage at home, adopting what Nelly calls a double character without meaning to deceive. Her surface becomes a mask that hides the war beneath. A House Divided The two selfhoods begin to tear her apart: she cannot abandon Heathcliff, yet she cannot be a beggar with him. The consciousness of this contradiction will poison her marriage and her health.

The Confession of the Fracture

A Soul Rendered Visible The Rock and the Foliage Catherine explains that her love for Edgar is like foliage, changed by time, while her love for Heathcliff is like the eternal rocks beneath. She declares that she is Heathcliff, and that every thought of separation is impracticable. A Truth Too Heavy to Bear Yet she has already accepted Edgar, and the wisdom of her own confession cannot save her. The fracture between what she knows and what she does is the deepest wound of her life.

The Body Betrays the Mind

Starvation as Rebellion A Fist Against the World Catherine's three-day fast is a war against her own body, a desperate attempt to control a fate that has escaped her. Her raving in the fever reveals a mind that has retreated to childhood memories of the Heights. The Delirium's Truth In her madness she is free to confess what waking life forbids: that her home is with Heathcliff and that she longs to escape the false paradise of the Grange. The inner war finally destroys the peace she sought to preserve.

The Deathbed Accusation

Two Broken Hearts Blame Without End Catherine tells Heathcliff that he and Edgar have broken her heart, and that she cares nothing for his suffering since she suffered first. He answers that she did not merely break his heart but her own, and that she will have her murderer in the grave. A Truce of Despair Their last words to each other are accusations that function as declarations of undying commitment. The war within Catherine ends only with her death, leaving its unresolved combat to haunt both men.

Catherine's adolescence, as she moves between the Heights and the Grange

the night she tells Nelly she is Heathcliff

the weeks after Heathcliff's return and the Grange quarrel

the final interview between Catherine and Heathcliff