94 pages 3 hours read

Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1847

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Chapters 28-31

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 28 Summary

Zillah, a servant at Wuthering Heights,tells Nelly that she and Cathy are believed to have drowned according to the Gimmerton village gossip. Zillah also maintains that Edgar is still living. Nelly takes advantage of her opportunity to escape the room and finds Linton, who is unwilling to cooperate with Nelly and tell her where Cathy’s room is: “He says I’m not to be soft with Catherine. She’s my wife, and it’s shameful that she should wish to leave me!” (202). Linton reports that his father is talking with the court about Thrushcross Grange, as “everything [Cathy] has is [Linton’s]” (203). Nelly decides to escape Wuthering Heights and goes back to the Grange to find help. She finds Edgar, “who lay an image of sadness, and resignation, waiting his death” (204). Nelly tells Edgar about their imprisonment, saying that “Heathcliff forced[her]to go in: which was not quite true” (204). Edgar decides to change his will, but he is too late, and word arrives that Cathy is too ill to return home to the Grange. Cathy arrives home, and after calming herself, she goes to see her father. Within hours, with Cathy at his side, “[h]e died blissfully[...]it was so entirely without a struggle” (206).