Pointer

The Pointer is a breed of dog that appears at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, serving as a working animal and a marker of the domestic disorder that pervades the Heights. Its presence in the narrative underscores the rough, untamed atmosphere of the Earnshaw household and the casual cruelty that characterizes life there.

Identity and Role at Wuthering Heights

The Pointer is one of several dogs that inhabit Wuthering Heights, a household where animals are not kept as pampered pets but as functional, often aggressive, creatures. When Lockwood first visits, he observes a "huge, liver-coloured bitch pointer, surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies" reposing in an arch under the dresser, while other dogs haunt other recesses of the room. This scene establishes the Pointer as part of the domestic furniture, a living component of the house's rough-hewn interior. The dogs are not trained for companionship; Heathcliff warns Lockwood that the bitch "is not accustomed to be spoiled—not kept for a pet," and she later attacks him, requiring the housekeeper Zillah to intervene with a frying pan. The Pointer thus embodies the inhospitable, barely controlled environment of the Heights, where even the animals are hostile to strangers.

The Pointer as a Working Animal

Unlike the pampered lapdogs of Thrushcross Grange, the Pointer at Wuthering Heights is a working dog, used for hunting and guarding. Years later, when the young Catherine Linton embarks on her secret ride to Penistone Crags, she takes with her "a large hound and a couple of pointers" to personate camels in her Arabian-merchant fantasy. One of these pointers, named Charlie, returns with a "swelled head and bleeding ear" after a fight with Hareton Earnshaw's dogs, revealing the violent encounters that occur between the animals of the two households. The Pointer's role as a hunting companion is further emphasized when Hareton, described as a "well-made, athletic youth," spends his time "lounging among the moors after rabbits and game" with his dogs. The Pointer is thus integrated into the daily labor and leisure of the farm, a tool for survival rather than an object of affection.

The Pointer and the Theme of Degradation

The treatment of the Pointer reflects the broader degradation of the Earnshaw line under Hindley's and later Heathcliff's rule. When Heathcliff first arrives at Wuthering Heights as a child, he is described as a "dirty, ragged, black-haired child" who is immediately compared to a dog by the household. Hindley later calls him a "dog" and threatens him with an iron weight. This dehumanizing language links Heathcliff to the animals of the house, including the Pointer, suggesting that both are subject to the same brutal hierarchy. The Pointer's lack of sentimental value—its status as a tool rather than a companion—mirrors the way Heathcliff himself is treated as a useful but despised object. Later, when Heathcliff gains power, he reverses this dynamic, treating Hareton with the same contempt he once suffered, and the Pointer remains a silent witness to this cycle of cruelty.

The Pointer as a Contrast to Thrushcross Grange

The Pointer's rough existence at Wuthering Heights stands in stark contrast to the domesticated animals of Thrushcross Grange. When Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff spy on the Linton children, they see a "little dog, shaking its paw and yelping" on the table, which the children have nearly pulled in two between them. This pampered, quarrelsome pet is the opposite of the fierce, independent Pointer. The contrast highlights the difference between the two households: the Grange represents civilized, if petty, domesticity, while the Heights embodies raw, untamed nature. The Pointer, with its loyalty to its master and its capacity for violence, belongs to the world of the moors, not the drawing-room.

Narrative Significance

The Pointer serves as a minor but telling detail in the novel's exploration of class, cruelty, and the natural world. Its presence at key moments—Lockwood's first visit, Catherine's secret ride, and Hareton's daily life—reinforces the novel's themes of wildness and domestication. The Pointer is never sentimentalized; it is a creature of the moors, as harsh and unyielding as the landscape itself. Its role is to remind the reader that at Wuthering Heights, even the dogs are part of the struggle for survival, and that the line between human and animal is often blurred.