A pleasant suggestion"" (19). This shows how Catherine does not want to stay in the confines of the house. Also, as a child, Catherine is described as "a wild, wicked little slip " that was "never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her cold, saucy look, and her ready words. " (39) At a time when girls were expected to submit to the will of their fathers and brothers, Catherine challenged all and went about her life in a way that felt natural. As her father is upon his deathbed, he asks his daughter, "Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?' And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, "Why cannot you always be a good man, father?"" (39). .
Catherine won't allow herself to be controlled by the patriarchal constraints her father tries to impose, and implies her awareness that the social system in which men dominate is unjust and hypocritical. This shows that Catherine is the direct opposite of what a woman should act like during this time period, in "Wuthering Heights." .
Additionally, Catherine never lets herself be controlled by the men in the novel. As a child, she rebels against her father and later her brother, while she has Heathcliff completely in her own control: "the boy would do her bidding in anything. "(38) Later, when she has moved to Thrushcross Grange and married Edgar Linton, Catherine again has the upper hand in the relationship. In reverse of standard gender roles, Linton is the obedient personality, who fulfills Catherine's every whim and demand. Catherine never actually expresses the desire to be a good, respectable wife and raise a family, as society (and Edgar Linton) encourages. Likewise, Edgar's sister, a woman more sophisticated and cultivated that Catherine, surrenders control and power to Catherine. Nelly Dean remembers, "They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.