The ghost of Catherine Earnshaw is a symbol of the past and the futility of any attempt to change the past. Catherine ghost’s presence outside her bedroom window during the snowstorm that forces Lockwood to stay overnight is evidence of the lingering nature of the past. Even an outsider like Lockwood must somehow experience the chaos and pain that dominates Wuthering Heights, which stands as a large monument to the abuses suffered by all who lived there.

The ghost, in its disembodied form, also represents the futility of anyone’s effort to alter the past, especially as memory becomes less reliable as the years pass by. Heathcliff desperately wants Catherine to appear to him in ghost form, but she appears only to others, as Lockwood reports the night of the snowstorm. This phenomenon is a painful reminder to Heathcliff that, even in death and despite their passionate attachment to each other, Catherine was never really his at any point. Interestingly, however, the ghost of Catherine might be a figment of Lockwood’s active imagination rather than an unambiguous supernatural sighting, so Heathcliff’s disappointment may be pointless.