Sheep

Sheep are a constant, unremarkable presence in the landscape and daily labor of Wuthering Heights, yet they also appear at key moments as objects of care, symbols of innocence, and markers of the boundary between the wild moors and the domestic sphere. Their bleating, their vulnerability to the elements, and their role in the farm economy ground the novel's Gothic intensity in the tangible realities of northern English hill-farming, while their occasional appearance in moments of crisis or supernatural suggestion deepens their thematic resonance.

Sheep as Farm Animals and Landscape Features

The sheep at Wuthering Heights are first and foremost livestock, part of the working farm. Heathcliff gives Hareton Earnshaw a practical order to "drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch" during a snowstorm, warning that "they'll be covered if left in the fold all night" . This instruction places sheep within the daily rhythm of the farm, where their protection from the harsh weather is a routine responsibility. The sheep are also present in the landscape that Lockwood observes: the "gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun" and the "stunted firs at the end of the house" speak to the exposed, windswept terrain where sheep graze . The carved date "1500" and the name "Hareton Earnshaw" over the door link the house and its land to a long history of sheep farming, a heritage that Hareton himself embodies.

Sheep in Moments of Crisis and Vulnerability

Sheep appear at moments of heightened tension, often as vulnerable creatures needing protection. During the same snowstorm that traps Lockwood at Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff's command to shelter the sheep underscores the practical dangers of the moorland environment . Later, Joseph is described milking cows by lantern light , a scene that, while not directly about sheep, evokes the same pastoral labor that defines life at the Heights. The vulnerability of sheep is also echoed in the novel's language: Catherine Earnshaw, in her delirium, speaks of being "enclosed in the oak-panelled bed at home" and recalls a childhood misery arising from "the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff" . The image of a lamb, innocent and dependent, resonates with the novel's themes of orphanhood and neglect.

Sheep and the Supernatural

Sheep are also present in the novel's most explicitly supernatural moment. After Heathcliff's death, a local boy encounters what he believes to be the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw on the moor. Nelly Dean recounts: "I was going to the Grange one evening... I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided." The boy explains, "There's Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t' nab... and I darnut pass 'em" . The sheep and lambs, refusing to move past the apparition, become unwitting witnesses to the supernatural, their natural fear mirroring the human terror of the unknown. This scene, set on the moor where the living and dead seem to mingle, uses the sheep's instinctive reaction to validate the ghostly presence, grounding the supernatural in the tangible behavior of animals.

Sheep as Symbols of Innocence and Sacrifice

The lamb, in particular, functions as a symbol of innocence and vulnerability. Heathcliff, in his grief over Catherine's death, cries out, "Why, she's a liar to the end!... Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then!" . His anguish, while not directly about sheep, evokes the image of a sacrificial lamb, a creature whose death is both a loss and a burden. The "little boy with a sheep and two lambs" who sees the ghosts is himself a figure of pastoral innocence, his terror a reminder of the enduring power of the moors' legends. The sheep, in their mute vulnerability, become a counterpoint to the novel's violent passions, a symbol of the natural world that continues its cycles of birth and death regardless of human drama.

Sheep and the Cycle of Life and Death

The sheep's presence at the novel's end, in the form of the boy's flock, connects to the broader theme of life and death on the moors. The sheep graze on the graves in the churchyard, as Lockwood notes: "I distinguished a moor-sheep cropping the short turf on the graves" . This image of a sheep calmly eating grass over the buried dead is a quiet, almost indifferent reminder of nature's continuity. The sheep, like the heath and the weather, outlast the human characters, their simple existence a foil to the tortured passions of the Earnshaws and Lintons. The novel's final image of the three headstones—Edgar Linton's, Catherine's, and Heathcliff's—on the "green slope" where "heath and bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor" is completed by the sheep that crop the turf, a living presence that both nourishes and is nourished by the dead.