Wuthering Heights

Character Guide

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Mr. Lockwood

The genteel outsider who rents Thrushcross Grange and narrates much of the novel, curious about his strange landlord and neighbors.

Ellen 'Nelly' Dean (Nelly)

The long-serving housekeeper who narrates the bulk of the family history to Lockwood, having grown up alongside the Earnshaw children.

Heathcliff

A dark-skinned orphan boy brought home by Mr. Earnshaw from Liverpool and raised alongside the Earnshaw children, favored by the father but resented by Hindley.

Catherine Earnshaw (Cathy)

Mr. Earnshaw's spirited, willful daughter who forms an intense bond with Heathcliff on the wild moors surrounding the Heights.

Hindley Earnshaw

Catherine's older brother who despises Heathcliff and, after inheriting Wuthering Heights, degrades him to a servant's status.

Mr. Earnshaw

The elderly owner of Wuthering Heights who brings Heathcliff home and favors him over his own son, causing lasting family strife.

Joseph

A dour, fanatically religious old servant at Wuthering Heights who speaks in thick Yorkshire dialect and disapproves of the children's wildness.

Edgar Linton

The refined, gentle heir of Thrushcross Grange who becomes drawn to Catherine after she is injured near his home.

Isabella Linton

Edgar's sheltered sister, who is fascinated by Heathcliff despite her family's disapproval of him.

Hareton Earnshaw

Hindley's young son, growing up neglected and uneducated at Wuthering Heights under circumstances beyond his control.

Glossary

Wuthering

A Yorkshire dialect word describing the turbulent, blustery weather the Heights is exposed to; the book explains it directly as 'a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult.'

Negus

A warm drink of wine, water, sugar, and spices, served here as a comfort to the injured young Catherine at the Lintons'.

Lascar

A period term for a sailor from India or South Asia; used speculatively by the Lintons to guess at Heathcliff's unknown origins.

Penetralium

A mock-grand Latin term Lockwood uses jokingly for the interior or 'inner sanctum' of the Heights farmhouse.

Kirk

A dialect/Scottish-influenced term for a church, referenced regarding the local chapel attendance.

Whinstone

A hard, dark volcanic rock; used as a simile by Nelly to describe Heathcliff's unyielding harshness.

Dunnock

A small hedge-sparrow; used metaphorically to describe Hareton being pushed out of his rightful place, like an abandoned fledgling.

Changeling

A folklore term for a fairy child secretly swapped for a human one; used by Lockwood to half-jokingly describe the ghostly Catherine of his dream.

Curate

A junior clergyman assisting a parish priest, referenced as the tutor/moral supervisor the Earnshaw children evade.

Moor-game

Grouse or other game birds native to the moors, whose nests and eggs the characters hunt for on the hills around the Heights and Grange.

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