Why is hareton trying to read

I can read yon, now. I settled his doubts, by suddenly retrieving my gravity and desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton, not him. He reddened--I saw that by the moonlight--dropped his hand from the latch, and skulked off, a picture of mortified vanity. He imagined himself to be as accomplished as Linton, I suppose, because he could spell his own name; and was marvellously discomfited that I didn't think the same. If you had remembered that Hareton was your cousin as much as Master Heathcliff, you would have felt how improper it was to behave in that way.

At least, it was praiseworthy ambition for him to desire to be as accomplished as Linton; and probably he did not learn merely to show off: you had made him ashamed of his ignorance before, I have no doubt; and he wished to remedy it and please you.

To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding. Had you been brought up in his circumstances, would you be less rude? Whenever he looks at something, he sees Catherine in it, and he hears her voice in every sound.

It is mainly an interior phenomenon: if the ghost of Catherine is at work, she has found her home in Heathcliff's mind, and her vocation in distorting his perception and his ability to communicate with the outside world.

In the next few days Heathcliff all but stopped eating, and spent the nights walking outside. Catherine, happily working on her garden, came across him and was surprised to see him looking "very much excited, and wild, and glad" Ellen urged him to eat, and indeed at dinner he took a heaping plate, but abruptly lost interest in food, seemed to be watching something by the window, and went outside.

Hareton followed to ask him what was wrong, and Heathcliff told him to go back to Catherine and not bother him. His heaven, needless to say, was being buried alongside Catherine Earnshaw. Later that evening, Ellen found Heathcliff sitting in the dark with all the windows open. His black eyes and pale face frightened her. Ellen half-wondered if he were a vampire, but told herself that she was foolish, since she had watched him grow up.

The next day he was even more restless and could hardly speak coherently, and stared with fascination at nothing with an "anguished, yet raptured expression" Ellen said he should eat, and get some sleep, but he replied that he could do neither: "My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself" Ellen told him to repent his sins, and he thanked her for the reminder and asked her to make sure that he was buried next to Catherine: "I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued, and uncoveted by me.

Ellen called the doctor, but Heathcliff refused to see him. The next morning she found him dead in his room, by the open window, wet from the rain and cut by the broken window-pane, with his eyes fiercely open and wearing a savage smile. Hareton mourned deeply for him. People claim that his ghost roams the moors with Catherine.

Cathy and Hareton are engaged, and they plan to move to the Grange, leaving Wuthering Heights to Joseph and the ghosts. Lockwood notices on his walk home that the church was falling apart from neglect, and he found the three headstones——Catherine's, Edgar's, and Heathcliff's——covered by varying degrees of heather. He "wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for sleepers in that quiet earth" An essential question for thinking about this novel is: does it end happily or not, and why?

Is the novel on the side of the Grange and civilization, since Catherine and Hareton move there after Heathcliff dies? Or should we miss the passionate intensity of Wuthering Heights? Who wins? It seems at first that the Grange wins, and yet we should remember that Heathcliff achieves his version of heaven as well. Several film versions of Wuthering Heights prefer to delete the whole second half of the novel, ending dramatically with Catherine's death——they find that the restabilizing second half detracts from the romance and power of the first part.

Is this the case? This might lead to the conclusion that civilization really does win, since the marriage of Cathy and Hareton is the final and necessary conclusion to two generations of unrest, and all traces of Heathcliff disappear. In another sense, however, Cathy and Hareton resemble the earlier Catherine and Heathcliff, purified of their wilder and more antisocial elements.

Their marriage could be an echo of the marriage that never took place between Catherine and Heathcliff. This is supported by the fact that the story begins and ends with a Catherine Earnshaw, and that the name Hareton is very similar to Heathcliff. In another reading, one might remember that Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff belonged above all to the natural and immaterial world, whereas the Lintons belonged to a material society.

The reunion in death of the two lovers constitutes their achievement of complete freedom——as far as they are concerned, it hardly matters what happens on earth. Perhaps she eliminated them because she was unwilling to sacrifice the rest of the world for such a wild ideal, whatever its appeal. In this case the ambiguous conclusion of the novel may represent an inner conflict in the author herself. Meantime, our young companion, who sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began to evince symptoms of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had denied himself the treat of Catherine's society for fear of a little fatigue.

His father remarked the restless glances wandering to the window, and the hand irresolutely extended towards his cap. Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth. The lattice was open, and, as he stepped out, I heard Cathy inquiring of her unsociable attendant what was that inscription over the door? Hareton stared up, and scratched his head like a true clown. But I want to know why it is there. I've questioned him twice now, and each time he looked so stupid I think he does not understand me.