The document summarizes key repetitive elements and cycles within Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights: 1) There is a cycle of names and family lineages, with the Earnshaw name beginning and ending the pattern. 2) Many of the main characters are motherless from a young age, repeating the theme of lost mothers. 3) Heathcliff's abuse of Hareton mirrors the earlier mistreatment Heathcliff received from Hindley, continuing the cycle of abuse and revenge. 4) The frail Linton family line stands in contrast to the hardier Earnshaws and repeats themes of sickness and early death. 5) Catherine and Heathcliff reference sharing a

1. Repetition, Duplicates, and
Doppelgängers
Amy McFarland, Beth Ransom, and
Konrad Dunbar

2. Cycle of Catherines
• Catherine I: born Earnshaw, dies Linton (never
Heathcliff because marrying him would
“degrade” her)
• Catherine II: born Linton, becomes Heathcliff,
and then will become Earnshaw
• The cycle begins and ends with Earnshaw.

3. Repetition of motherless children
• Heathcliff’s an apparent orphan
• Cathy and Hareton’s mothers die immediately
after childbirth
• Catherine, Hindley, and Linton’s mothers die
when they’re young
• Every main (non-narrator) character except
Edgar and Isabella Linton is essentially
motherless

4. Cycle of abuse/ Heathcliff’s revenge
• Hindley’s mistreatment of Heathcliff is
intentionally mimicked in Heathcliff’s abuse
of Hareton
– Heathcliff feels successful: “…And [Hareton will]
never be able to emerge from his bathos of
coarseness and ignorance. I’ve got him faster than
his scandal of a father secured me, and lower; for
he takes pride in his brutishness.”

5. Cycle of abuse/ Heathcliff’s revenge
• Result of Heathcliff raising Hareton that way:
“Hareton [seems] a personification of my youth....
the ghost of my immortal love, of my wild
endeavors to hold my right, my degradation, my
pride, my happiness, and my anguish”
– Heathcliff (in some ways) creates a duplicate of
himself

6. Lintons
• Frail/sickly/die young
• Linton Heathcliff is described as “a pale,
delicate, effeminate boy, who might have
been taken for [Edgar’s] younger brother, so
strong was the resemblance…”

7. Catherine as doppelgänger
• Definition of doppelgänger: A ghostly double of a living
person, especially one that haunts its fleshly counterpart.
(from freedictionary.com)
• Catherine and Heathcliff each reference the idea
that they share a soul, or are the same person (“I
am Heathcliff”, “would you like to live with your
soul in the grave?”)
• Catherine haunts Heathcliff: “She has disturbed
me, night and day, through eighteen years-
incessantly- remorselessly- till yesternight…”

8. Sources
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
• Woodford, Donna C. "An overview of Wuthering Heights." Literature
Resource Center. Detroit: Gale, Literature Resource Center. Gale. Baltimore
County Public Schools. 12 Oct. 2010
<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=bcps>.