Edgar Linton's Decline

Follows Edgar Linton from pampered Grange heir through his devastating marriage to Catherine to his long, quiet dying.

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The Petted Lamb

A Soft Nest The Spoilt Child Edgar Linton grows up in the crimson warmth of Thrushcross Grange, weeping over a yelping dog and shrinking from the fierce vagabond who spies through the window. He is everything Heathcliff is not: gentle, handsome, and utterly unequipped for violence. A World Without Edges His parents' indulgence and his sister's companionship make him a creature of comfort, but his encounter with Catherine Earnshaw draws him out of that charmed circle into a life he cannot control.

The Doomed Suitor

The Lamb's Pursuit Steps Toward a Trap Edgar visits Wuthering Heights secretly, enduring insults from Hindley and contempt from Heathcliff, and wins Catherine by his patient gentleness and his promise of a comfortable world. His aunt is burnt away by her spirit, but he sees only the lady she has learned to be. A Love on False Grounds Catherine loves Edgar as she loves the furniture of the Grange: for the comfort he represents. Edgar, in turn, has no idea of the depths of her attachment to the foundling, and so enters a marriage whose foundations are a secret tragedy.

The Husband's Humiliation

A Blow and a Faint The Coward's Courage Edgar, finally confronting Heathcliff, strikes him in the throat, then retreats when Catherine locks the door and mocks him. The scene strips him of every pretense of manly authority, leaving him a trembling ruin before his wife's contempt. A Marriage Fractured The quarrel pushes Catherine into her fatal illness and Edgar into a cold distance. His forgiveness of her and his hatred of Heathcliff become the twin poles of the rest of his life.

The Widower's Asceticism

A Solitary Shrine Father and Hermit Edgar Linton withdraws into his park, giving up his magistracy and church attendance, and dedicates himself to his daughter Cathy and to the grave of her mother. He reads to the child, teaches her, and fills his days with her sunny presence. A Tender Melancholy Unlike Hindley, he does not curse God or drown himself; he resigns himself to loss and builds a quiet world around its memory. Nelly finds his courage higher than the wilder man's because it is founded on trust rather than despair.

The Deathbed Bliss

Going to Her A Death of Silence Edgar, already failing, receives his lost daughter back just before he dies, and gazes at her with dilated eyes of ecstasy. His last words are that he is going to Catherine, and that his darling will come to them both. A Life Measured by Love He dies without a struggle, his soul departing in a moment of complete joy. The quiet man who was never strong enough for the world's violence has passed from a gentle life to a gentle death, his last thought fixed not on revenge but on reunion.

Edgar's childhood at Thrushcross Grange

the years of Edgar's courtship of Catherine

the day of the quarrel with Heathcliff at the Grange

the twelve years after Catherine's death

the autumn of 1801, after Cathy's escape from Wuthering Heights