Wuthering Heights: “people can have many cousins and of all sorts”

One of the funny things Emily Bronte does in Wuthering Heights is that, instead of writing from the third-person point of view, she creates two first-person narrators and the first one—Mr Lockwood—knows nothing and makes the wrong assumptions about everyone and everything he sees. 

““And who is that Earnshaw: Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr Heathcliff? Are they relations?”

“No; he is the late Mrs Linton’s nephew.”

“The young lady’s cousin, then?”

“Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother’s, the other on the father’s side: Heathcliff married Mr Linton’s sister.”” (ch.4) 

That must be confusing to a first-time reader. It probably doesn’t help that we have a Heathcliff; an Edgar Linton; a Linton Heathcliff; a Catherine Earnshaw (called Cathy by Heathcliff), who becomes Mrs Catherine Linton; a Catherine Linton (generally called Cathy), who would later become Mrs Catherine Earnshaw; etc. Let’s shuffle the names for a laugh, why not. 

Nicole of Bibliographing had a very good blog post, years ago, about the circling of the names. But right now, I’d like to focus on the relations between the characters—the cousins. 

““Softly, Miss,” answered the addressed. “You’ll lose nothing by being civil. Though Mr Hareton, there, be not the master’s son, he’s your cousin: and I was never hired to serve you.”

“He my cousin!” cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh.

“Yes, indeed,” responded her reprover.

“Oh, Ellen! don’t let them say such things,” she pursued in great trouble. “Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London: my cousin is a gentleman’s son. That my—” she stopped, and wept outright; upset at the bare notion of relationship with such a clown.

“Hush, hush!” I whispered; “people can have many cousins and of all sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it; only they needn’t keep their company, if they be disagreeable and bad.”

“He’s not—he’s not my cousin, Ellen!” she went on, gathering fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the idea.” (ch.18) 

For consistency, I have been referring to the elder Catherine as Catherine, and her daughter as Cathy. 

Look at it: Cathy gets married twice; the first time to Linton Heathcliff, her father’s nephew; the second time to Hareton Earnshaw, her mother’s nephew. First cousins both times! (though perhaps less gross than Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park—if we look at it with modern eyes—as they didn’t grow up together). 

Everything is even more disturbing if we consider the possibility that Heathcliff and Catherine are half-siblings. Consider the facts. One day Mr Earnshaw announces he’s going to Liverpool—for what? he doesn’t say, or at least Nelly Dean only says the time is the beginning of harvest—and comes home 3 days later with a boy.  

“… a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it. Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children.” (ch.4) 

I think we can all be sure that there were many “starving, and houseless” kids on the streets of Liverpool at the time—why does Mr Earnshaw bring home this one?  

“He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing all he said (for that matter, he said precious little, and generally the truth), and petting him up far above Cathy, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite.

So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at Mrs Earnshaw’s death, which happened in less than two years after, the young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent’s affections and his privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries.” (ibid.)

This is very different from the case of Tom Jones, found in the house of Squire Allworthy as a baby. It’s also difficult to explain the partiality Mr Earnshaw has for Heathcliff—Nelly uses the words “favourite” and “partiality”—as Heathcliff doesn’t quite have the charisma, the lovable qualities of Tom Jones. 

If Heathcliff is indeed Mr Earnshaw’s illegitimate child, which I think is highly possible, Wuthering Heights is a story of incest, of love between half-siblings. As Catherine says: 

“… Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” (ch.9) 

Maybe you think that because you and he have the same father, Catherine! 

And if this is the case, Cathy and Linton would be even closer than first cousins, sharing three grandparents! 

Crazy book.