“I felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth. A sudden sense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb…Her presence was with me: it remained while I refilled the grave, and led me home” (152). A story about love, death, soulmates, revenge, and hate. These keywords would define the book Wuthering Heights. Written by Emily Brontë, this book is a classic novel in the category of Gothic writing. Because of the setting, Byronic hero, and the supernatural Gothic elements, Wuthering Heights is one of the best books you can choose to read for a Gothic style reading assignment.

The book is set in Wuthering Heights, a creepy house on top of a hill. The place has a very dark image, shrouded in an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. “Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwellings ‘Wuthering’ being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather” (7). Everything is surrounded with the mood of fear, which is a key factor in this Gothic novel. In the beginning of the book, a character encounters a ghost and is half scared to death. Some of the characters, such as Heathcliff, have highly intimidating personalities. A number of other characters live in fear of the oppressive Heathcliff; who in turn is fearful of the supernatural.

Most of the story is focused on Heathcliff, the Byronic hero of the story. He starts off as an abandoned boy who is found and loved by his foster father. Then, after his foster father passes away, he grows deep in his friendship with Catherine, his foster sister and soulmate. Even when everyone else considers Heathcliff as an outcast, and speaks brusquely to him, Catherine loves and cares for him as a friend and soulmate. Heathcliff and Catherine care for each other deeply, until Catherine, in search of social power, accepts the marriage of another man. This event, being able to be deterred, breaks the relationship of the two soulmates and the wound never completely heals. Heathcliff’s intelligence is shown when he lives cleverly revenging the innocent descendants of the ones who had treated him wrong with nobody being able to accost him. He can also be shown as arrogant because he does not take the time to listen to the advice of other characters.

The way Heathcliff is haunted by Catherine’s ghost shows the element of the supernatural:

“Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murders, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!” (Brontë 91)

Heathcliff lives the rest of his life haunted by Catherine’s ghost, just as he wished for. He even goes crazy to the point where he digs up Catherine’s grave, and can almost “feel” her next to him. Also, Heathcliff also goes mad, shuts himself inside living in void, and starves himself to death.

With 177 pages and a lot of hard vocabulary, this book is a lot to read in just two to three weeks, however, it has such an interesting, mysterious, and eventful tale to tell, with a few characters you may grow attached to, that you will find yourself at the end of the book before you know it. This book also portrays the Gothic elements and themes very clearly, such as the setting, Byronic hero, and supernatural. A number of elements that are not listed are shown in the book as well. With all this outstanding Gothic personality, Wuthering Heights will be one of the first books that comes to my mind when I am reminded of the Gothic movement. “I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth” (177).