Mr. Lockwood is the frame narrator and a new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, a property managed by a landlord called Heathcliff. His pressing curiosity about Wuthering Heights emphasizes his status as an outsider who is looking in. Nelly Dean, the housekeeper, provides him with the backstory that explains Heathcliff’s dark moods and violent behaviors, as well as the odd manner of other residents of the household. Mr. Lockwood writes Nelly’s story about Wuthering Heights down in a journal that makes up the bulk of the novel.

Lockwood is a gentleman and contemptuous of those he considers beneath him (e.g., Hareton). His narration also reveals a tendency toward self-absorption and fancifulness, as he is keen to see romantic possibilities in Cathy despite her coldness toward him. He is thus a mildly unreliable narrator whose voice introduces key thematic concerns like attitudes toward class.

As housekeeper and observer of all the goings-on at Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean tells Lockwood the entire story, which he records in his journal. She has a deep understanding of what happens from both the Earnshaw perspective and the Linton point of view. 

Though Nelly presents herself as a pragmatic observer of events, her emotions are as strong as those of other characters in the novel. Though Nelly expresses some sympathy for Heathcliff during his childhood days, she has a largely negative view of him that persists as Heathcliff matures; likewise, she is often skeptical of Catherine’s moods and airs. By contrast, she loves Cathy like a daughter and has a soft spot for Hareton. These prejudices make her a less than fully reliable narrator, as does her involvement in the novel’s action.

Catherine, headstrong and rebellious from childhood and all the way through to her death as a young adult, dies long before Nelly Dean tells her story to Mr. Lockwood. She and her father are alike in their attachment to and fondness for Heathcliff, and in her childhood days, Catherine and Heathcliff are inseparable. 

Cathy is a dynamic character, and her arc drives much of the novel’s tragedy. When she and Heathcliff are temporarily separated, she adopts the airs and graces of the well-to-do Lintons while also developing a taste for wealth and luxury. This transformation leaves Heathcliff confused and disoriented. Her marriage to Edgar breaks Heathcliff’s heart, as he overhears her reject him as too impoverished, uneducated, and low-born to marry. 

Though devastated by Heathcliff’s departure, Catherine never fully reckons with her responsibility for the deterioration of the relationship, even blaming him for her death. Her ghost’s refusal to return to visit Heathcliff, despite his demands for her to haunt him, is implied to be an act of vengeance. Nevertheless, this cruel and vindictive streak is part of what binds her to Heathcliff, as they share basic temperamental similarities.

Hindley is Catherine’s older brother, and his behavior toward his adoptive brother, Heathcliff, is brutal and abusive. He marries Frances, only to lose her when she dies too young, which only embitters him further and exacerbates his tendencies toward self-destructive behaviors like drinking and gambling, which end up being his ruin. Heathcliff swears revenge against Hindley, and he manages to exact revenge both against Hindley and Hindley’s son, Hareton Earnshaw.

Heathcliff is the novel’s central protagonist, driving most of the action. Mr. Earnshaw brings him to Wuthering Heights from Liverpool as a child. He is described as having dark skin, and his racial otherness is one of many reasons why he is not widely accepted in the Earnshaw family or in the village of Gimmerton. 

Heathcliff’s status as an outcast, his disdain for social convention, and his moody temperament make him a Byronic hero. His potential for violence is matched by his potential for love of Catherine, and the intensity with which he exhibits both is one of Heathcliff’s most defining features. Heathcliff’s childhood attachment to Catherine haunts him in his adult life, even after her death; his story is the novel’s principal example of The Dark Side of Enduring Love, as bitterness and grief drive him to revenge and finally to his own death. The abuse he experiences as a child contextualizes the abuse he later perpetrates against his wife, his son, etc., though Nelly also suggests an inherent propensity for violence.

Heathcliff is also more closely aligned with the natural world than any other character. His name, for instance, refers to two natural features, one of which (a heath) is very similar to the moors of the novel’s setting. Heathcliff’s characterization as wild and brutal thus symbolically develops the theme of Nature’s Resistance to Cultivation.

Edgar, of the Linton family who live at Thrushcross Grange, is a gentlemanly and handsome man who superficially—based on class—makes a good match for Catherine Earnshaw. His fair hair and eyes and his sensitivity are in stark contrast to Heathcliff’s dark features and his strength, which sparks Heathcliff’s jealousy when he is young and competitive. Edgar is a largely passive partner to Catherine, as evidenced by the fact that he tolerates her attachment to Heathcliff for some time. This emphasizes his role as a foil to Heathcliff, whose passion and fierceness go unmatched. When his sister, Isabella, marries Heathcliff, Edgar disowns her, but he shows unyielding loyalty to his daughter, Cathy, despite her defiance and her insistence on disobeying him even on his deathbed.

Isabella is Edgar’s sister, and when she becomes fascinated by Heathcliff, Heathcliff takes advantage of her interest in him to punish Edgar Linton. She eventually chooses marriage to Heathcliff over a relationship with her brother, which suggests her feelings for Heathcliff are real, if short-lived; the marriage is abusive, and she quickly becomes estranged from her husband. She bears a son named Linton Heathcliff and dies years later, never having told Linton about his father—a fact that suggests both her hatred and fear of the man she married.

As the only child of Heathcliff and Isabella, Linton arrives at Wuthering Heights frightened of the man who is his father. Born to Isabella during her time in London, Linton has never known Heathcliff. The harshness with which Heathcliff treats his son is reminiscent of the harsh treatment Heathcliff received from Hindley Earnshaw, an unfortunate reminder that history often repeats itself. Similarly, Cathy Heathcliff at first dotes on her cousin, recalling Catherine’s infatuation with Edgar. However, Heathcliff’s meddling spoils their friendship even as he schemes to have the cousins marry. Linton does secure the hand of Cathy but dies not long after. He leaves Thrushcross Grange to his father, making Cathy essentially destitute and reliant on Heathcliff.

The daughter of Edgar Linton and Catherine, Cathy has inherited some of her mother’s feisty personality, but she is a gentler version of Catherine, reflecting her close relationship with her father. (In fact, she never knew her mother, who died on the day she was born.) Cathy’s kind treatment of Linton, and later of Hareton, foreshadows her centrality in breaking a pattern of ruinous emotion instigated by her mother and Heathcliff’s ill-fated love, and her eventual relationship with Hareton embodies The Existence of Hope in a Younger Generation.

The son of Hindley Earnshaw and his unfortunate wife, Frances, Hareton bears a physical resemblance to his aunt Catherine that tortures Heathcliff. Hareton receives only abusive treatment from Heathcliff, but he manages to rise above this injustice and grow up into a resilient and reliable young man. 

Much as Cathy takes after her mother, Hareton’s characterization owes something to Heathcliff; he, too, grows up as an outcast and can be surly and jealous at times. However, his relationship with Cathy is completely different from the love affair between Catherine and Heathcliff that dominates the novel. Less intense and immediate, it reflects mutual respect, understanding, and compassion. It therefore brings symbolic closure by functioning as a reprise of Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship—but a reprise that tempers the more destructive aspects of that love.