Chapter 28

Synopsis

Narrator: Nelly. 

Zillah releases Nelly who had been supposed drowned in the marsh. Linton has married Cathy and is behaving very selfishly. Nelly returns to Thrushcross Grange and tells Edgar what has happened. Cathy returns just in time for Edgar’s death, having managed to persuade Linton to let her go. He dies before managing to put Cathy’s property in trust, which would protect it from Heathcliff’s grasp if Linton should die. The lawyer is in Heathcliff’s control. 

Commentary

Heathcliff seems to be in complete control. The story is moving swiftly towards its conclusion. In one of Linton’s few impressive actions (which he suffers for), he deliberately leaves Cathy’s door unlocked, enabling her to escape. She does so through her mother’s old room, climbing through the fragile barrier of the window and down the tree that so frightened Lockwood in Chapter 3 Places and events repeat and connect across time.

Linton lay on the settle…: in the conversation which follows, Linton shows a selfishness almost beyond belief. As well as this being his natural character, he has been thoroughly infected by Wuthering Heights and by Heathcliff.

Crushed it with his foot: Heathcliff cannot face up to any reminder of the past; this action symbolises how he uses violence to try to erase painful memories.

two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on the other uncle … wrenched it off the chain, and crushed it with his foot.: Heathcliff’s destruction of Edgar’s portrait from Cathy’s locket echoes his removing of Edgar’s hair from Catherine’s locket.

winked: here means shut both eyes.

He thought of Catherine; for he murmured her name.: Nelly assumes Edgar wants his daughter, but since he has always referred to her as Cathy since the death of her mother, it seems he is thinking of Catherine his wife.

I am going to her: Edgar does not mean this in quite the same way that Heathcliff expects to be reunited with Catherine after death.

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