The Black Dog: Dog Imagery in Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)

The urge to call this post ‘D’ya like dags?’ was palpable but I feel like that would be a little too on-the-nose.

This analysis is for those who are studying Wuthering Heights or have otherwise read it and would like to relive it through a new lens. To note due to the similar names I will call Catherine Earnshaw (Mrs Linton) ‘Catherine’ and her daughter Catherine Linton (Mrs Heathcliff) ‘Cathy’ for clarity.

CW: Abuse

As a classic Gothic novel, Wuthering Heights fully embraces the typical markers of the genre; from the heart-broken, withering woman in white afflicted by madness, through its wind-swept and isolated locale, to the extensive religious imagery – it is almost a textbook example containing most (if not all) Gothic tropes. Of course, there have been dogs* throughout other Gothic horror settings (Dracula, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Woman in Black to name a few), but while reading Wuthering Heights recently, I found they are inescapable.

*From here on I am going to use ‘dogs’ to refer to both the physical and symbolic presence of dogs within the novel.

Dogs often play the part of loyal companions, spectral horrors, vicious attackers and staunch protectors. In the context of Wuthering Heights, dogs are working animals, but in fact they play most of the aforementioned roles and more. Dogs and their traits remain visible, physically and metaphorically, throughout, being used as a metaphor for all manner of situations, characters and moods.

Where others might have analysed this entirely chronologically, I plan to group my findings of similar sentiments into clusters so we might be able to understand the extent to which they are mentioned.

Unwelcome beginnings

As we enter the Heights through the POV of Mr Lockwood, we see an unusual room setting with a bitch and her puppies in plain view within the visitors receiving room. While that is unusual enough and shows to us that this is no ordinary family environment, Lockwood points out that ‘other dogs haunted the recesses’ Pg.3, giving us a sense of danger lurking, just beyond the shadows, adding to the air of unease we feel when presented with the account of this decaying house.

The dogs attack Lockwood not moments later as he is beset upon by ‘half-a-dozen four-footed fiends’. Pg.4 It is unclear as to what causes them to do so, as he seems to provoke them by ‘winking and making faces’ perhaps a warning to our reader not to consider the lack of laughter around the house, or the danger of jests and japes. Lockwood’s plight makes his host anything but sympathetic, giving us an instant impression of Heathcliff as a hardened man.

The same pack of dogs are later used against Lockwood by Joseph (the caretaker) who sets them on him for attempting to leave the estate the following evening. Lockwood refers to them as ‘hairy monsters’ Pg.11 and is thoroughly frightened and wrathful to which his hosts simply laugh. What was forgivable upon first experiences is now irredeemable as Lockwood is forced to remain at the Heights overnight.

Dogs are used many times in this way, to show measure of how welcome or unwelcome someone is as a guest. We see this especially when Catherine (Earnshaw) returns home and ‘the dogs came bounding up to welcome her’ Pg.36. Again, when Heathcliff returns to Catherine much later and the dog in the garden ‘announce[d], by wag of the tail, that someone approached whom it did not consider a stranger’ Pg.114, and often dogs will physically guard the house from entry or escape, for example when Cathy (Linton) ‘dare not try the doors lest the dogs raise an alarm’ Pg.207.

When Isabella has no other friendly faces around her when staying with Heathcliff and Hareton, she finds comfort in a descendant of her former dog, who ‘pushed its nose against [hers] by way of salute’ Pg.105 and helps her to clean up the mess she made in anger at the aforementioned men of the house. This is all despite Hareton’s attempts to encourage it to attack her a few scenes prior. Pg.100. Hareton is later to be seen ‘hanging a litter of puppies from a chair-back’ Pg.132 clearly in venom at not having not found any allegiance from the dog.

Differentiating between men and women

Within Lockwood’s initial stay at the Heights we are introduced to Cathy, who is about as charming and warm on first meeting as the male hosts we’ve encountered. When Heathcliff returns to the living room he begins what is described by Lockwood as a ‘cat-and-dog combat’ Pg.21 with Cathy. Cats will use claws and hiss when agitated, whereas dogs might use barking and snarling, but both can be provoked to violence. With this metaphor we see a distinction between the masculine and feminine, a parallel between the acts between the genders within the household and the savagery committed by both animals.

Other examples are littered throughout the text; Hindley threatens to crop the hair of a young Hareton, saying that a shorter haircut ‘makes a dog fiercer’ Pg.52; in later years, Heathcliff calls Hindley a ‘toothless hound’ Pg.129; Linton (Heathcliff’s son with Isabella Linton) is seen retreating from a room ‘exactly as a spaniel might’ Pg.198, perhaps with a tail between his legs. Heathcliff says that despite his appearance to the former, Linton can be a ‘little tyrant’ who will ‘torture any number of cats if their teeth be drawn…’Pg.199; something we know to be a metaphor for the treatment of women due to the context of us just witnessing his treatment of Cathy.

The phrase ‘a dog-in-the-manger’Pg.74 is used against Catherine by her sister-in-law, Isabella, when they start to argue over Heathcliff. This idiom falls outside of the cat-and-dog, women-and-men parallels but by definition within the footnote means ‘someone who will not use what is wanted by someone else, but will not surrender it to that person.’ Catherine quickly recoups the status of ‘cat’ when she informs Heathcliff that her and Isabella were ‘quarrelling like cats’, effervescing that she ‘won’t be named a dog in the manger again’. Pg.76. Soon after, she refers to Isabella in a similarly feline way calling her ‘a tigress’, with a ‘vixen face’ and ‘talons’Pg.77; likening her, not to a domestic animal, but a wild and dangerous one.

Women are also often seen ‘making pets’ of their children or family members with Nelly calling a wild and carefree young Cathy ‘my pet, my delight’ as she ‘runs like a young greyhound’ across the moors. Pg.154 who just before had ‘resolved to make a pet of her little cousin [Linton]’Pg.146. Here we see women as being naturally nurturing compared to the men in the novel who are rarely seen to pet or coddle despite showing care and affection.

Showing contempt for class differences

As we know, Heathcliff is an outsider. He comes to the Heights as a rescued child of unknown origin, loved by his adoptive father (Mr Earnshaw) almost above his own biological children. This means the family dynamic shifts throughout the years, as Mr Earnshaw passes away and Heathcliff is reduced to his former status of ‘outsider’ within the family.

Nelly (our main narrator) calls young Heathcliff a lamb when he is unwell, noting how he is silent and uncomplaining, but also how he quickly fulfils the role of ‘dog’ thrust upon him by his adopted brother, Hindley within the same page Pg.27, highlighting his descent into wildness and savagery. Nelly is similarly treated badly by Hindley; giving a clear view of how he views those of lower classes than himself. She describes Hindley ‘pulling me back by the skin of my neck, like a dog.’ Pg.52. It is important to note this action is unforgivable against anyone, but in treating Nelly and Heathcliff in similar ways it shows further that he believes they sit at equally low levels in the social hierarchy.

Heathcliff is described quite regularly to have dirty and doglike qualities, perhaps in an attempt to further ‘other’ him and highlight his reduced place in society, and to showcase his painful and tumultuous moods. We see as a teenager that Nelly encourages Heathcliff to alter his physicality by amending his moods. Nelly tells him to not ‘get the expression of a vicious cur’ Pg.40, lest his bad nature alter his outward appearance. Unfortunately, Nelly’s warnings prove ineffective as Heathcliff finds it difficult to suffer through Hindley’s verbal abuse. Therefore we see him ‘sink beneath his former level’, acquire a ‘slouching gait’ and ‘unsociable moroseness.’ Pg.48.

From here onwards we see Heathcliff as a dog in all of his most emotional and ferocious moments. Heathcliff is now, to our narrator at least, ‘fierce, pitiless and wolfish’ and an ‘unreclaimed creature’ Pg.74; ‘only half a man – or not so much.’ Pg.131.

Broken bonds

When Catherine and Heathcliff are initially bonding with one another, we see the purest moment of this young relationship in a scene where ‘she leant against her father’s knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap’ Pg.30; the picture of domestic bliss with Heathcliff in the position of ‘pet’ on the floor, tamed by Catherine. Soon after, the initial rift between Heathcliff and Catherine takes hold when Catherine is physically seized and held by a dog Pg.34. This echoes how Heathcliff describes the events of her being homed elsewhere, as if she is physically being ripped from his side by another, which further spurs the social separation between the two.

This separation is further highlighted by Catherine’s reaction to the welcoming family dogs when she returns to the Heights whereby ‘she dare hardly touch them lest they fawn upon her splendid garments.’ Pg.36. Where she once warmly embraced them (and the occupants of the household), she now seems of a higher social standing than when she left. Cathy wants to distance herself in case she is made dirty by her old relationships and bonds. It should be noted that in the same passages, we are informed by Nelly that Heathcliff becomes increasingly dirty and unwashed almost in protest. Pg.37

When Isabella (Catherine’s sister-in-law) is removed from her brother’s care and spirited away to marry Heathcliff, she leaves her home behind and her bond with her family is severed irreparably. The night this happens Nelly happens across Isabella’s dog, ‘suspended to a handkerchief, and nearly at its last gasp ‘Pg.94; a visual representation of that ruthless removal from her former life. It is later revealed that Heathcliff himself hung the dog in front of her, and though she pleaded for it to stop, she let it happen and went with him anyway. For this, Heathcliff considers Isabella’s enduring love ‘of genuine idiocy’, ‘pitiful’ and ‘the depth of absurdity’ Pg.110 and uses this fact to justify why he continues with his abusive behaviour towards her.

We understand through metaphor, the deep feeling of loss that Heathcliff suffers at the news of Catherine’s death. Nelly tells us that when she faints in his presence during their final meeting, ‘he gnashed at me and foamed like a mad dog… greedy with jealousy’ Pg.117 and when he learns of her death later he ‘howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast’ Pg. 122 – a noise an animal might make in fits of mourning, longing or sorrow. Shortly after, Isabella tells Heathcliff to ‘go stretch… over her grave and die like a faithful dog.’ Pg.129.

Unsettling situations

During the second half of the novel, we see a young Cathy Linton and her relatively blissful young life undisturbed by the, now much older, Heathcliff. The day that she sneaks away to Wuthering Heights, the dogs descend upon the pages, highlighting the myriad ways that this is the beginning of her impending entrapment. Nelly finds Cathy within the Heights without her dogs, which have been bitten and are separated from her, left outside ‘with swelled head and bleeding ear’ Pg.140 foreshadowing the ways she is about to be torn from her family and consequently made to reside at the Heights.

When Cathy makes to leave this first encounter with the Heights, she expresses disdain when she is informed the ill-mannered young man, Hareton, with his look of a servant, is in fact her cousin. Pg.142. Hareton provides her with a ‘terrier whelp’ puppy in an ineffective attempt to mend this unfortunate and awkward beginning. Her other cousin and counterpart in entrapment, Linton, similarly is dragged to the Heights unwillingly, with a ‘friendly sheepdog’ paying attention to him, strongly juxtaposing the unsettling ‘frantic repetition of the words “Don’t leave me! I’ll not stay here! I’ll not stay here!” Pg.152

A short conclusion

To end on a lighter note, when we see Cathy and Hareton growing fond of one another and starting to see eye-to-eye, Cathy teases him saying ‘He’s just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?’ – a double meaning expressing how he just works, eats and sleeps but also her new fondness for his loyalty and his endurance (as the dogs surely endured everyone throughout.)

Page references taken from Wordsworth Classics Edition of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.