each other (i.e., Heathcliff and Edgar), especially as I felt that….we should all be drivenasunder for nobody knows how long…. I’ll try to break their hearts by breakingmy own (155).This is a woman who is becoming insane, if not evil. She is driven to hurt those who are hurting her, just as Heathcliff tries to hurt Edgar. The love between Heathcliff and Catherine even at this point in the novel seems clearly hopeless. Heathcliff is not sane enough to see reality, to let go of the past, and to love a woman who loves him in a healthy way. He is out of control. He cannot resist following his angry emotions. And Catherine does not have the mental or emotional skills to see Heathcliff for what he is and to get out of the relationship. She is tied to him, for better or worse, just as he is tied to her. Her goodness is not strong enough to stand up to his evil. The only hope she has to save herself is to leave him and never have anything to do with him again, but she is not strong enough to take such a step. Catherine becomes sick and weak as she tries to deal with the madness and evil brought into her life by Heathcliff. When Heathcliff comes to her on her sickbed, she shows him, and us; how far down she has sunk into the darkness. Long gone is the sweet, loving, warm and playful girl who we met at the beginning of the book. Her love for Heathcliff is destroying her, and turning her into a person who wants to do harm in return for the harm, which has been done to her. When Nelly comes to see her, she sees Catherine as one doomed to decay “the flash of her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness.” And when Heathcliff comes to see her, it is clear to Nelly that Heathcliff sees Catherine dying as well: “The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there--- she was fated, sure to die” (193-194).If Heathclif...
