78 pages • 2-hour read
Wuthering Heights
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Book Club Questions
General Impressions
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of child abuse.
Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.
1. What emotions did you experience while reading Wuthering Heights? How do these compare to your reactions to other Gothic romances, like Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre?
2. How does the novel’s frame narrative structure—with Lockwood and Nelly Dean as narrators—affect your understanding of the events? Which narrator did you find more reliable and/or relatable, and why?
Personal Reflection and Connection
Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.
1. Have you ever witnessed a relationship that seemed to bring out both the best and worst in two people? How does this compare to Catherine and Heathcliff’s dynamic?
2. Consider how social class affects the characters’ choices and relationships. When have you observed social expectations influencing important life decisions?
3. How do you relate to the theme of revenge versus forgiveness that runs throughout the novel? Have you experienced situations where you had to choose between these paths?
4. The younger generation ultimately breaks free from their parents’ destructive patterns. What do you think enables some people to overcome difficult family histories?
Societal and Cultural Context
Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.
1. How does the novel’s treatment of social class and marriage reflect Victorian values? Does the novel’s central relationship still have relevance in the contemporary world?
2. What does the book suggest about the nature versus nurture debate through its portrayal of characters like Heathcliff and the younger Catherine?
3. How does the novel’s portrayal of women’s roles and choices reflect 19th-century norms? To what extent does social class shape those norms?
Literary Analysis
Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.
1. How does the parallel structure of the two generations serve the novel’s broader themes?
2. Analyze the role of ghosts and the supernatural in the novel. How do these elements enhance the story’s exploration of love and revenge?
3. How do the contrasting settings of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange reflect the novel’s central conflicts?
4. What purpose does Joseph’s difficult Yorkshire dialect serve in the novel?
5. Examine how weather and nature function as both setting and metaphor throughout the story.
6. The moors also play a significant role in the novel’s atmosphere. How does this wild, untamed landscape reflect or influence the characters’ behaviors and relationships?
7. How does Brontë use physical appearance to reflect or contrast with characters’ inner natures?
Creative Engagement
Encourage imaginative and creative connections to the book.
1. If you were to adapt this story to a contemporary setting, what modern elements would parallel the social and economic barriers that separate the characters?
2. Imagine you had a chance to speak to one of the characters who does not serve as a narrator. Which character would you want to hear recount their version of events, and how might their perspective change our understanding of the story?
3. If you could write an additional chapter set 10 years after the novel’s conclusion, what would you envision for the surviving characters?
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