Love and Passion

Passion, particularly unnatural passion, is a predominant theme of Wuthering Heights . The first Catherine's devotion to Heathcliff is immediate and absolute, though she will not marry him, because to do so would degrade her. '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." Although there has been at least one Freudian interpretation of the text, the nature of the passion between Catherine and Heathcliff does not appear to be based on sex. David Daiches writes, "Ultimate passion is for her rather a kind of recognition of one's self-one's true and absolute self-in the object of passion." Catherine's passion is contrasted to the coolness of Linton, whose "cold blood cannot be worked into a fever." When he retreats into his library, she explodes, "What in the name of all that...