94 pages • 3 hours read
Emily BrontëWuthering Heights
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1847A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 10-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
For four weeks, Lockwood has been ill, and Heathcliff has sent him “a brace of grouse” (65). Nelly continues the story while supervising Lockwood’s medication regime.
Six months into the marriage between Catherine and Edgar, all is well, until Heathcliff returns to Wuthering Heights unexpectedly. He is a changed man; “[h]e had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man; beside whom, my master seemed quite slender and youth-like” (69). Soon, Edgar feels jealous of Catherine’s enthusiasm over Heathcliff’s return. She is so moved by his appearance that she “could neither eat nor drink,” and Catherine later reports to Nelly that when she praised Heathcliff to Edgar, “he, either for a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry” (70). Heathcliff has explained his reason for returning to Wuthering Heights to Catherine, who explains to Nelly that Heathcliff has “a wish to install himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together” (71).
Heathcliff takes advantage of his proximity to Thrushcross Grange by coming to visit often, and soon, Isabella Linton develops “a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the tolerated guest” (72). Catherine in turn mocks Isabella for her desire for Heathcliff, pointing out cruelly that Isabella’s inheritance is the most appealing of her qualities to a man like Heathcliff, who does nothing but “sit up all night together [with Hindley] [...] [and] play and drink” (75). A confrontation between Isabella,Catherine, Heathcliff leads him to wonder why Catherine has been “teasing the creature in that manner” (77). She reveals Isabella’s affection for Heathcliff, and he attempts to “dismiss the matter, as [she] advise[s]” (77).
Chapter 11 Summary
Nelly confesses a chronic anxiety about the goings-on at Wuthering Heights, describing a visit she made to see Hareton, “myHareton, not altered greatly since I left him, ten months since” (79). Hareton curses at her, having learned some bad habits from the man he calls “[d]evil daddy” (79). When Heathcliff appears, Nelly runs away.
The next time Heathcliff comes to Thrushcross Grange, Nelly observes him secretly interacting with Isabella: “supposing himself unseen, the scoundrel had the impudence to embrace her” (80). Nelly quickly tells Catherine what she has seen, and Catherine shouts to Heathcliff that he “must let Isabella alone” (81), which angers Heathcliff: “I’m not your husband:you needn’t be jealous of me!” (81). Catherine and Heathcliff argue bitterly, until he “hung his head, somewhat cowed by her violent rating apparently” (82), and when Edgar appears, Catherine provokes him as well. Soon, Edgar is overcome, and “humiliation overcame him completely” (83) as Heathcliff makes his escape. Later, Edgar confronts Catherine and insists that she choose between him and Heathcliff,which causes Catherine to “lay dashing her head against the arm of the sofa” (86). The next morning, Catherine refuses to come downstairs, and Edgar and Isabella discuss Heathcliff; Edgar is clear about his feelings and warns Isabella that “if she were so insane as to encourage that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of relationship between herself and him” (86).
Chapter 12 Summary
Isabella, heartsick and miserable, “moped about the park and garden” (87), while Catherine refuses to eat meals with Edgar. Nelly brings Catherine tea and toast, only to listen to Catherine raving about her impending death, mumbling at one point, “No, I’ll not die—he’d be glad—he does not love me at all—he would never miss me!” (87). In her delirium, Catherine misunderstands Nelly, who responds thinking that Catherine is talking about Edgar. Catherine sees a vision of a face in the mirror and reports having nightmares, maintaining that “the whole last seven years of [her]life grew a blank” (91). As her fever intensifies, Catherine begs to open a window and be outdoors; eventually, she believes she sees a light in her old bedroom across the moors at Wuthering Heights and interprets it as a summons from Heathcliff. Edgar finally comes to see Catherine, and he is astonished to realize how ill she is. Nelly, “resolving to seek medical aid on [her]own responsibility,” goes for a doctor, explaining to him the origins of Catherine’s illness: “She was struck during a tempest of passion with a kind of fit” (94). The doctor reports having seen Isabella Linton with Heathcliff the night before, pressing Nelly to “urge Mr. Linton to look sharp” (95). The doctor advises Edgar to keep Catherine in a state of “perfect and constant tranquility” (95), a difficult thing to accomplish once one of the servants announces that Isabella has run away with Heathcliff.
Chapter 13 Summary
Under Edgar’s tender care, Catherine recovers from her delirium and fever just in time for the spring snow melt, but she still talks of her death nearing. Nelly reports that “[w]e knew she was really better, and, therefore, decided that the long confinement to a single place produced much of this despondency” (98). Catherine is pregnant, which lifts Edgar’s spirits.
Edgar receives a note from Isabella announcing her marriage to Heathcliff. In a letter to Nelly, Isabella wonders if “Mr. Heathcliff [is] a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil?” (99). She goes on in her letter to describe horrible conditions at Wuthering Heights, where Joseph and Hareton live in filth “on that inhospitable hearth” (101). Isabella describes a disturbing encounter with Hindley, who is now in debt to Heathcliff and threatening to kill him:“I will have it back: and I’ll have his gold too: and then his blood: and hell shall have his soul!” (103). Isabella closes the letter to Nelly with a mention of Catherine’s illness.Heathcliff blames Edgar for causing it, and he desires to punish Isabella, who “should be Edgar’s proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him” (106). With regret and an exclamation of hatred against her husband, Isabella begs Nelly not to tell anyone at the Grange of her distress.
Chapters 10-13 Analysis
Isabella’s sudden infatuation with Heathcliff is odd, but not entirely unrequited. Although Heathcliff uses Isabella as a way of exacting revenge on Catherine and Edgar, Isabella’s attraction to him is not as simple as it seems. There is an attention-seeking element to Isabella’s attachment to Heathcliff, timed perfectly to coincide with Catherine’s simultaneous juggling of her husband’s affections and Heathcliff’s. Isabella’s need to be a part of the drama heightens the emotional stress of life at Thrushcross Grange, and Catherine collapses physically under the toll of it.
Edgar is characterized as an emotional and sensitive man, loving and tender, but easily threatened by Heathcliff’s menacing masculinity. When Edgar makes an ultimatum to his sister, it seems vapid, and so it makes sense when Isabella defies her brother for an elopement with the unstoppable Heathcliff. Unfortunately, her fantasies of living a passionate life with Heathcliff are impossible to achieve, and she writes to her brother disappointed in the realities of Heathcliff’s character and motivations.
Heathcliff’s need for revenge gathers momentum in these chapters, as his interest in Isabella has a lot to do with her proximity to the Linton family property of Thrushcross Grange. Even though Hindley, and Wuthering Heights, is the main object of Heathcliff’s scheming, Edgar Linton has made an enemy of Heathcliff by marrying Catherine and stealing her away from Heathcliff. Somehow, only the thought of owning the two properties that belong to his two enemies soothes Heathcliff, so he continues to do whatever he needs to do to bring them closer to him.
