‘Moral teething’: Brutality, monstrosity and dogs in Wuthering Heights

Abstract: In Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, the continuous presence of dogs has generally been regarded by most critics as a symbol of the brutality existing both in the characters and the world they inhabit. However, it is clear that the dog-like nature of Hareton Earnshaw and Heathcliff there is a complexity and a power to the dog figure in this narrative that needs to be explored. As creatures that are continuously associated with boundaries and limits in the novel, vicious dogs are aligned with a movement between the two houses of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, therefore becoming beings of transgression. In doing this, they appear as creatures of violation and intrusion, almost fundamentally monstrous. In order to connect transgression and monstrosity, there will be an examination of Cohen’s fifth thesis of monstrosity: the monster as the transgression of the borders of the possible. It is this connection between dogs and monstrosity in the narrative that might give some insight into one of the most discussed issues of the novel: the monstrosity of Heathcliff. The supposedly unfathomable monstrosity will therefore be investigated through classic tropes Brontë herself would be familiar with: the guard dog, the stray dog, the servant dog, the sadistic/suffering dog, the feral dog and the mourning dog. Throughout the investigation into these images will be a constant comparison between the brutal dog nature of Hareton and the monstrous sadistic dog nature of Heathcliff. Ultimately, it will become clear that their relationship with their mistresses, Catherine and Cathy, are what separate them as dog figures, with Hareton growing to own his status as a man, and Heathcliff pining to death. Thus the image of the dog sheds insight not only on violence and brutality, but the far more complex themes of monstrosity and dominance.

There is rarely an important scene without a dog in Wuthering Heights. Dogs are constantly

skulking in the recesses of rooms and at the borders of property. The actual and symbolic

brutality associated with these dogs has already received considerable attention from

critics. This paper argues that this limited interpretation of the dogs’ function ignores an

important dimension of their behaviour and, more critically, that of their canine-like

masters. The essay aims to demonstrate that by imbuing her main protagonist with a dog-

like nature (a ‘doghood’), Brontë created an authentic Victorian literary monster in

Heathcliff. The paper explores how the use of classic tropes such as the guard dog, the stray

dog, the servant dog, the sadistic/suffering dog, the feral dog and the mourning dog, allows

a deep consideration of monstrosity and its transgressions.

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The genesis of this monstrosity is found in the novel’s brutality which dogs symbolise. Dogs

are present in the worst moments of violence within the narrative, and, disregarding the

“petted things” (p.47) associated with the Lintons, the majority of them are large and

vicious. This is clearly shown in their sinister names, like Throttler, Gnasher, Skulker or Wolf

(Edwards, 2014). In fact, the first act of violence is committed by dogs. Lockwood, when he

enters the Heights, attempts to pet a bitch pointer, is greeted by a snarl and is eventually

attacked by “half-a-dozen four-footed fiends” (p.5). Heathcliff’s offers a half-hearted

apology: “Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am willing to

own, hardly know how to receive them” (p.6). This scene of a brutal animal snapping back at

something it regards as weak and foolish sets the tone for violence in the novel. But, more

importantly, it shows that Heathcliff identifies himself with the dog.

This identification is compounded in the novel’s second scene of violence. Lockwood grabs a

lantern, and Joseph sets Gnasher and Wolf on him: “...two hairy monsters flew at my throat,

bearing down on me...while a mingled guffaw, from Heathcliff and Hareton, put the

copestone on my rage and humiliation” (p.15). The dogs do not harm Lockwood, but it is the

actions of their “malignant masters” (p.16) that are more important. Hareton now joins

Heathcliff as a symbol of dog-like brutality, one who enjoys a comedy of violence enacted on

those considered weaker than them. Hareton’s and Heathcliff’s amusement is contrasted

strongly with Lockwood’s terror. This suggests strongly that they are outside the boundaries

of his society.

The existence and transgression of boundaries is at the core of the concept of monstrosity.

Cohen (1996, p.12) suggests that monstrosity polices the borders of the possible. That is,

the monster is one that guards the certain social spaces (geographic, sexual, intellectual,

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moral), and acts as a warning for those who wish to transgress these boundaries. Cohen

explains this further, stating that the monster is an ally of Foucault’s ‘society of panopticon’

(Foucault, 1990, p.47, cf. Cohen, 1996, p.14). The monster is an embodiment of the

practices that must not be committed, therefore enforcing cultural codes of regulation.

However, while the monster at the peripheries appears to be an ally of society at first, its

transgressive nature means that it is constantly on the verge of intrusion, threatening to

overpower societal norms.

When Lockwood enters the Heights, he is crossing into a den that houses these trangressive

creatures. Heathcliff commands Lockwood to “walk in!” which is “uttered with closed teeth”

(p.1), just as later, Hareton tracked him “in the office of a watchdog” (p.297). Immediately,

the notion of thresholds and boundaries are associated with the canine, in particularly,

guard dogs. In their role, guard dogs are functional creatures, they serve to create a sense of

separate spheres, which are integral to this novel especially and are symbolised in

Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange (Clark, 1996, p.93). The separateness of these

houses has often been emphasised, but less attention has been devoted to the clearest

signifiers of this separation. Any movement between the properties must go through the

dogs on the peripheries. Therefore, the guard dogs of Wuthering Heights are our first

indication that, far from being simple metaphors for brutality, dogs will become of the most

significant plot drivers of the novel.

This is apparent in one of the novel’s most violent scenes – the attack on Cathy by the

bulldog, Skulker, at Thrushcross Grange. This is the first time that a dog is directly involved

in the transgression of boundaries. Heathcliff and Cathy are peering through a window, a

threshold to the Grange. The animalistic noises that they make are a direct threat to the

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supposed “society” in existence within. Therefore, the Grange’s own monster is unleashed

in order to tame these wild young creatures. Heathcliff continually refers to Cathy’s stoicism

in the clutches of this ferocious animal, signifying perhaps her willingness to be dragged

from the liminal boundary she shared with him into the Grange, while Heathcliff is left on

the peripheries with Skulker, simply another “frightful thing!” (p.48). Thrushcross Grange is,

as Krielkamp (2005, p.102) states, “a sorting house for animals.”

This is not the only occasion which the transgressive guard dog both defends and intrudes

on boundaries. Both Cathy and her daughter are brought into the opposite houses due to

dogs, and both are dragged into marriages for which they are unprepared (Caesar, 2005,

p.150). Young Catherine and Nelly, out with their dogs, encounter Heathcliff and his own

dogs. He brings Catherine and Nelly back to the Heights, and ultimately imprisons them until

Catherine marries Linton. This element of dogs spiriting young girls away from their homes

to a place where they are confronted with unwanted burgeoning sexuality, evokes a kind of

folk-tale discourse, with the canine character playing the role of the monster. Something

deeply sinister occurs on these boundaries and within this sub-world of guard dogs.

Unlike Hareton, who is initially one and the same as the guard dogs of his house, Heathcliff

originally cannot help but disturb boundaries (Lodine-Chaffey, 2013, p.207). He is a stray

dog, picked up starving from the streets of Liverpool by Mr Earnshaw. The ambiguity of his

status renders him unable to fit in anywhere. The stray, or lost dog is a poignant and

enduring symbol within Victorian fiction. As Kete (1994, p.19, cf. Krielkamp, 2005, p.99)

notes, it is often symptomatic of oncoming modernism, where boundaries of morality, class

and sexuality become blurred and break down. The stray dog is the animal of

fragmentation, a dislocated creature that belongs to nowhere.

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This is even clearer when we consider how deeply Wuthering Heights is concerned with

lineage (Davies, 1994, p.103). Generation and origin are important features of every

character in both houses. Even the dogs that patrol the borders of the properties are given a

specific genealogy. For example, Isabella notes that Throttler, Hareton’s dog, is the son of

Skulker, the guard dog of the Grange (p.144). This connection, as Clark, (1996, p.98) has

argued, anticipates Hareton Earnshaw as the master of both houses. His sense of lineage, as

the heir to the ancient Earnshaw family, has been reinforced by Joseph, the groundskeeper.

When Lockwood mistakes Hareton as Heathcliff’s son, he appears horrified to be considered

as the son of a stray dog: “My name is Hareton Earnshaw…and I’d counsel you to respect

it!” (p.12). That Hareton “growls” this proud statement, reinforces both his image as a dog

and as a descendent of a long line of Earnshaws. He is, regardless of his supposed brutal and

low nature, a pure-bred dog.

Hareton’s innate pedigree pride is contrasted strongly with the “under-bred pride” of

Heathcliff (p.3). Heathcliff is brought into the Heights without any indication of parentage.

Therefore, we must take Isabella’s question “Is Mr Heathcliff a man?” (p.136) almost

literally. Issues of Heathcliff’s animalism have been lately disregarded in favour of

discussions on his race. However, this paper, like Krielkamp (2005, p.98), argues that the

issue of Heathcliff’s race is a red herring. Critics, such as Meyer (1996, p.97) that insist on

Heathcliff as belonging to a particular culture fail to capture the true nature of his

transgressions. To place him within a race is to give him a sense of origin, but it is in fact his

rootlessness that gives him the potential for monstrosity. Nelly’s vague description of

Heathcliff’s ethnicity is overridden by Hindley’s cry of “Off, dog!” (p.37). Since he cannot fit

into the family, he exists on the borders, as an ally, a pet dog. Like the pet dog, he is given a

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single name and is doted on by Mr Earnshaw. However, Heathcliff the stray ultimately

rejects his pet status in favour of a ‘doghood’ which is far more violent, sinister, and

ultimately bound up with Cathy. His lack of pedigree provides us with an origin of the

monster, an aberration in a society so consumed with lineage.

While his stray status provides an explanation of the origin of Heathcliff’s monstrosity, it is

his relationship with Cathy that drives his transgressions. Critics such as Tytler (2013, p.320)

have noted that the novel has an abundance of masters and servants. This theme is

particularly important in relation to the mistress and her dog. Brontë herself owned a

mastiff named Keeper. Gaskell (1857, p.250) tells a famous, yet distrubing, anecdote of

Emily disciplining Keeper for sleeping on the bed. She viciously beat him until his head

swells, and then cares for his injuries immediately. Gaskell disregards the strangeness of this

scene in favour of focusing on how “the generous beast held against her no grudge” (1857,

p.251). However, considered alongside Wuthering Heights, Gaskell misses the point. The

violence Emily exhibits is not extractible from the love she shows. As Edwards (2014) notes,

she and Keeper spoke the same language. This gives us a blueprint for the language

between mistress and dog in the novel.

Cathy Earnshaw is identified early in the novel as a master figure, always enjoying, as Nelly

notes, playing the “little mistress” (p.40). She demands a whip, a universal symbol of

mastery, as a gift from her father’s travels. However, her father presents Heathcliff as a

substitute for the whip, who is something over which and through which she can exercise

domination (Gubar, 2000, p.294). Cathy’s first actions towards Heathcliff are to grin and spit

at him, a clear attempt to break-in her whip. From this moment on, Heathcliff is a devoted

companion to Cathy, his place at her feet and laying his head on her lap like a dog (p.40). To

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Heathcliff “...she is so immeasurably superior to them [the Lintons] – to everybody on earth,

is she not?” (p.49). While the emotions of the relationship will always be complex, the

power-structure is clear.

This power-structure becomes a problem when Cathy returns from Thrushcross Grange with

a new social status. She baulks at the dogs that run to greet her, for fear that they might

“fawn upon her splendid garments” (p.51). In her absence, Heathcliff has been lowered to

nothing more than a dirty farm-dog in Hindley’s care. Cathy berates him for his hygiene, and

glances at her dress to see if he has sullied it, as one of the dogs might have. However, while

Heathcliff is visibly horrified by his mistress’s change, like a devoted dog, he attempts to

reconcile himself with her outlook. He demands: “Nelly, make me decent, I’m going to be

good” (p.55). However, when the Lintons visit the Heights and Edgar comments on

Heathcliff’s animalistic appearance, Heathcliff reacts violently, Cathy has a curious way of

admonishing Edgar: “...now you’ve spoilt your visit, and he’ll be flogged – I hate him to be

flogged! I can’t eat my dinner” (p.58). That her dinner and the Linton’s visit has been spoilt

are placed directly beside Heathcliff’s punishment. Cathy agrees with Heathcliff: she has

priority and she is the superior in the relationship.

This superiority is clearer in her famous speech to Nelly, when Cathy states that “it would

degrade me to marry Heathcliff” (p.79). This speech is usually regarded as among the most

unique expressions of love in literature. However, if we consider it within the context of a

mistress speaking about her dog, it becomes less a speech about soul-mates and more a

piece of discourse on dominance. When Nelly discusses the possibility of them separating if

she marries Edgar, Cathy scoffs at the idea, saying that it is “impracticable” (p.83). Yet she

also says that “What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here?” (p.82).

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The word “our” is strikingly absent from the speech. Any mention of Heathcliff is prefixed

with a personal suffix. Therefore perhaps, the infamous declaration that “I am Heathcliff” is

a pathologically egotistical remark of absorption (Thormahlsen, 1997, p.186). It is a speech

that is drenched in a language of domination and superiority.

This language of dominance and egotism is noticeably absent in Hareton and Catherine’s

relationship. At first we are confronted with a snide, young Catherine who is amused at

Hareton’s ‘low’ status, teasing him about his dog-like behaviour (p.311). He is often

connected to servitude, and like the other dogs that of the house, appears when

commanded. Catherine is initially confused about the ambiguity of Hareton’s status. When

she realises that Hareton’s father is no longer the master of the Heights, she demands him

to fetch her horse. Hareton growls that “I’ll see thee damned before I be thy servant!”

(p.194). Once again, this is the growled proclamation of proud independence of a dog that

refuses any language of domination which Catherine is trying to impose on him. Nelly notes

that Catherine and Linton’s mockery of Hareton was “bad breeding” (p.250). This negates

any kind of natural superiority that the mistress has over Hareton. In fact, it is Hareton who

provides the most compelling form of affection in the relationship, offering her a terrier

puppy as a gesture of goodwill (p.195). This rare appearance of a harmless dog, without the

trappings of a frantic lapdog, signifies a kind of healthiness that is non-existent in Cathy’s

and Heathcliff’s relationship. While the attempted domination by Catherine is followed

separately by an affectionate gesture from Hareton, the language and action that exists

between Heathcliff and Cathy suggest intrinsically linked domination and love. This will, as

we shall see, have tragic consequences from which Hareton and Cathy escape.

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These tragic consequences are obvious in the language of Cathy’s so-called ‘madness’

speech. Instead of a simple descent into madness, it might be argued that this is a collapse

of Cathy’s previously indomitable ego (Gubar, 2000). She glances at herself in the mirror and

cries “Is that Catherine Linton? He imagines me in a pet – in play” (p.121). She is horrified to

realise that Edgar is attempting to exercise the same dominance over Mrs Catherine Linton

that Mistress Catherine Earnshaw exerts over Heathcliff. She has realised that she might

have been degraded in marriage after all. Here we might turn to Davises’s (1994, p.136)

comments regarding Cathy’s horror at the feathers that she pulls from her pillow. Cathy

insists they must be those of the lapwings that she commanded Heathcliff not to shoot

when they were children. Davies insists that this delusion is brought on by her fear that

Heathcliff, once her beloved protector, is now a destroyer. This is an underestimation of the

awareness Cathy has of the power structure in the relationship. What truly horrifies Cathy is

the fact that she may have lost control of Heathcliff. Even though she made Heathcliff

promise he would never shoot another lapwing again, she begins to doubt her own mastery

for the first time in her life. Looking in the mirror, she wails “I’m afraid of being alone!”

(p.123). For, a master cannot operate as a master without a servant to reinforce the class

boundary, just as society cannot solidify without a monster against which to identify itself

against.

Heathcliff, for all his devotion, recognises this. He understands that he can never see himself

outside of their relationship, as he wails that he “cannot live without my soul!” (p.167).

Cathy, on the other hand, was able to make a choice apart from the relationship and

achieved a separate life with Edgar: “…nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have

parted us, you, of your own will, did it” (p.161). Furthermore, Heathcliff understands that

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Cathy’s language of dominance and affection has had a profound and negative effect on

him, as he tells her “I love my murderer – but yours! How can I?” (p.161). Here we are given

a snapshot into the workings of Heathcliff’s psychology. He cannot love himself; this is

impossible for a dog whose entire love is infused with servitude and loyalty to its master.

The true torment of Heathcliff is that he sees the effect of separation on his mistress and,

like a neglected dog, blames himself for it.

Yi-Fu Tuan (1984, p.2, cf. Adams, 2000, p.6) argues that “Dominance may be cruel and

exploitative…What is produces is the victim. On the other hand, dominance may be

combined with affection, and what it produces is the pet.” Contrary to Adams’ opinion

(2000, p.7) we shall see that this theory is not acted out in Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff has

rejected his pet status and neither Earnshaw’s affection nor Hindley’s dominance has

reduced him to one. Cathy’s domination and affection has rendered him something else

entirely: a monster. Her chaotic transgression of language barriers between affection and

dominance has developed Heathcliff’s brutish ‘doghood’ into something that is far more

sinister and directs him to a wilful violation of a society which he despises.

Hareton barely escapes this training in transgression. Under his father’s treatement “…in

one he ran the chance of being squeezed and kissed to death, and in the other of being

flung into the fire, or dashed against the wall” (p.73). With Hindley’s premature death,

Hareton avoids a relationship that would have rendered him something closer to the

monstrosity that Heathcliff exhibits. Instead, Heathcliff, when rearing the child, almost

ignores him, entrusting his upbringing to Joseph. Heathcliff notes their similarities in dog-

like orphanhood, and in refusing to elevate him to a pet, he unwittingly gives Hareton a

straighter road to travel. Through a relationship of dominance and affection, Heathcliff

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becomes enmeshed in a kind of chaotic status and therefore can only exist on the

borderlines of society. In contrast, Hareton’s simple outlook and a clear separation of

dominance and affection allow him to ascend through society.

However, there comes a point when the violence and transgressions are no longer acted out

on the dog, and the dog begins to act it out on others (Duthie, 1986, p.232). Here, we are

moving from the origins of ‘doghood’ and its potential monstrosity, to the monstrous acts of

transgression themselves. These acts are embodied in both the sadistic and suffering dog. At

the time of writing Wuthering Heights, Brontë was reading a great deal of what might be

referred to as “dog anecdotes” and “anti-vivisectionist literature” in the Chambers

Edinburgh Journal (Krielkamp, 2005, p.94). This is important if we consider that there are

three instances of so-called dog torture within the novel (Surridge, 1999, p.169). The first

occurs in Thrushcross Grange, when the lapdog Isabella and Edgar are fighting over is

“nearly pulled in two between them” (p.46). This is the clearest instance of vivisection in the

novel, as the two Lintons almost split a dog in half. While critics such as Surridge (1999,

p.165) have focused on this scene as a comment on the overall brutality of society, it is not

often remarked that, to the children, the dog is a piece of property, and once almost torn in

half, is wanted by neither. Heathcliff understands this, and sees that the aim was to simply

“hold a heap of warm hair” (p.46). While this is an act of vivisection by the children, it is not

an act of wilful sadism.

Similarly, we are presented with a second picture of supposed dog-torture. Isabella

mentions that in her escape from the Heights, she “knocked over Hareton, who was hanging

a litter of puppies from a chair-back in the door-way” (p.181). Critics such as Caeser (2005,

p.150) have noted how disturbing it is for a child to be hanging dogs, and places it directly

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within the monstrous scene of violence that Heathcliff has created. However, if we consider

Hareton’s status of ‘doghood’ at this point, we must consider that he is being reared as

Joseph’s farm hand, as a functional, working dog. A necessary job of his would have been to

hang puppies and kittens as a means of animal population control on the land (Goff, 1984,

p.498). Once again, what is brutal vivisection is not a sadistic act.

When we consider Heathcliff’s ‘doghood’ however, this sadism emerges. Unlike the Lintons

and Hareton, Heathcliff anthropomorphises the dogs he tortures, throwing kicks at dogs

that are always named. Furthermore, he represents vivisection as an experiment of

pleasure: “It's odd what a savage feeling I have to anything that seems afraid of me! Had I

been born where laws are less strict and tastes less dainty, I should treat myself to a slow

vivisection of those two, as an evening's amusement” (p.270). It is here that we are given

the clearest picture of Heathcliff’s sadistic tendencies. Unlike many characters in the novel,

Heathcliff understands how much a weak dog can feel or hurt, and exploits this for his own

amusement.

This is clearest when Heathcliff hangs Isabella’s spaniel Fanny. Critics such as Adams (2000,

p.6) have commented that, Heathcliff is here showing his contempt for the useless lapdog, a

symbol of the superfluous richness of the Grange. However, the dog is perhaps a scapegoat

for Isabella (Krielkamp, 2005, p.91). Heathcliff is enacting all of his cruelty on a species of

animal he has proclaimed kinship with in order to cause further pain to his wife. Heathcliff

explains his motivations to Nelly: “I have no pity! I have no pity! The worms writhe, the

more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething, and I grind with greater

energy, in proportion to the increase of pain” (p.152). Heathcliff is giving us an insight into

the knowing monstrosity of his sadistic actions, as he insists on a weakness and humanity in

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everything he tortures. His “moral teething” is then a literal snapping bite at society, just as

his dogs once snarled at Lockwood. Yet Nelly, in a rare moment of tact, asks the questions

“Do you understand what the word pity means?...Did you ever feel a touch of it in your

life?”. It is clear that both are aware that this “moral teething”, this development of

monstrosity, did not appear in a vacuum, and that pity is not a word found in the vocabulary

of dominance and affection. For a dog like Heathcliff, it breeds only monstrosity and sadism.

It is this monstrosity and dependence on his mistress that eventually renders Heathcliff

feral. When Nelly moves to separate the newly reunited Heathcliff and Catherine, he

famously “gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy

jealousy” (p.160). Nelly nervously notes that she does not feel as if she was with someone

even of the same species as her. In many ways, she is correct, for his distressed state finally

reveals the “ferocity that lurked yet in the depressed brows” (p.95). Heathcliff’s new feral

nature is further compounded when he learns of Catherine’s death: “... lifting up his eyes,

howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and

spears” (p.167).

Yet these feral reactions are simply an extension of the kind of violent behaviour in which

Cathy has trained. Cathy enjoys the power that she exerts over such a “wolfish” man. For

example, when Cathy and Heathcliff discuss the possibility of him marrying Isabella, she

playfully says “I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize her and

devour her up” (p.106). Other times however, Cathy goads Heathcliff, viciously encouraging

the most dangerous aspects of his ‘doghood’ to burst through. She says to Edgar: “…I wish

Heathcliff may flog you sick, for daring to think an evil thought of me…Heathcliff would as

soon lift a finger at you as the king would march his army against a colony of mice” (p.151).

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She even compares her husband to “a sucking leveret”, a direct form of prey to Heathcliff’s

dog. It is clear that Heathcliff is still the whip her father bought, and Cathy is ready and

willing to flog her own husband.

With Cathy dead then, Heathcliff’s violence and sadism loses whatever direction it might

have had and becomes far more chaotic and feral. As Lodine-Chaffey (2013, p.215) points

out, his animal nature renders him savage and loving beyond what humans can understand.

Therefore when he is around the object of his desire (Cathy), this devoted animalism is

heightened. Consequently, when she is taken away from him, his language and actions

become more aimlessly violent. When Cathy remains in Thrushcross Grange after the

Skulker incident, he threatens to paint the Grange with Hindley’s blood. When he is

prevented from seeing Cathy by Edgar, he threatens that if Cathy allowed him, Heathcliff

would have “torn his heart out and drunk his blood!” (p.148). As Krielkamp (2005, p.98) this

is a resistant stray who has been dragged within the boundaries of society. He has been

allowed a mistress, therefore, when the mistress is taken away from him (due to both a

concern for societal status and eventual death), Heathcliff is feral in his transgression of the

norms of mourning.

This transgression of mourning is found in the trope of the mourning dog. Isabella bitterly

comments to Heathcliff that if she were him “I’d go stretch myself over her grave and die

like a faithful dog” (p.176). In many ways, this is exactly what Heathcliff does. Through his

extravagant mourning of Cathy’s death, as Krielkamp (2005, p.102) notes, we have an

association between Heathcliff and the mourning dog of Brontë’s dog anecdotes. The

mourning dog is an iconic character in Victorian literature, a symbol of faithfulness that

extends beyond the boundary separating life and death. It is against this boundary that

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Heathcliff commits perhaps his most monstrous act of transgression: Digging up Cathy’s

body. Twice he digs through the earth with his bare hands in order to look upon her face

and was “unspeakably consoled” (p.290). As he is both savage and loving in a way humans

cannot understand, Heathcliff finds consolation in an act of extremity that neither Nelly nor

any of the others around him can comprehend.

However, while Heathcliff is never truly at peace at any point in the novel, he comes to two

important realisations in the last few pages of the novel, when he intrudes upon Hareton

and Catherine quietly reading together. First, he notices that “Hareton’s aspect was the

ghost of my immortal love” (p.342). After a lifetime of seeing only himself and Cathy as one

in the same, Heathcliff finally observes Cathy is someone outside of themselves, someone

whose pedigree bloodline holds him worthy of resembling Cathy’s superiority. Secondly,

Heathcliff seems to understand the biformity of Hareton and Catherine’s relationship. They

are two separate people, and the love of a dog and its mistress has slowly transformed into

a relationship of equals. Heathcliff says that “Five minutes ago, Hareton seemed a

personification of my youth, not a human being…” (p.323). Hareton has transcended his

‘doghood’ and has finally been granted human status by the man who formally insisted on

his dog nature. This realisation is crushing to Heathcliff. His relationship with his mistress is

one without separation, in which the notions of mistress and dog are as closely bound up as

the language of dominance and affection that binds them. Therefore Heathcliff must

complete his monstrosity by connecting with her death in life. When he does die, he orders

the barrier of earth between his and Cathy’s coffins to be removed; therefore rendering

their afterlife devoid of the boundaries he spent his life transgressing.

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In Wuthering Heights, dogs are a metaphor for the brutality that lurks in every corner and

character. However, it is clear, that through the dog-like behaviour of both Heathcliff and

Hareton, there is a power and an importance to the dog figure that should not be ignored.

In a novel that is so concerned with boundaries and limitation, the dog burst forth as a

disrupting force, transgressing social spheres in favour of impulsive animalistic behaviour.

Their violation of boundaries renders them monstrous.

However, while all the dogs of the novel, including Hareton Earnshaw, has the potential to

do this, only Heathcliff truly inhabits his monstrosity. His original status as a stray depicted

him as having no concept of boundaries, while his mistress Cathy’s language pattern of love

and violence trained him to wilfully and sadistically transgress. This dependence on his

mistress, even in her death, renders Heathcliff a mourning dog, and one that commits the

final, and most monstrous act of transgression by attempting to unite with a dead Cathy in

life. The “moral teething” that he so enjoys is therefore a violating bite at society from its

boundaries on which he lurks. Heathcliff, as the true monstrous dog of Wuthering Heights,

serves as trangressive warning to Hareton, who rises above his ‘doghood’ and enters a

relationship of equals.

17

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