Heathcliff and Catherine are in love as children and for a brief moment, they are happy. It is then thwarted when Catherine marries Edgar. From then on, nothing but pain and conflict is produced from love.
The way Emily Bronte has developed this love theme throughout Wuthering Heights is unusual as she has shown true love between two characters but it only resulting in torment and unhappiness for everyone until after death. She has done this to show the power of love and the effects and emotions it produces.
Many themes are portrayed in Wuthering Heights, such as revenge and the supernatural but love is the most significant as it helps to develop the majority of issues, hence giving the story structure. For example, we can see that the issue of conflict between Heathcliff and Edgar was a result of love. Because Catherine's marriage to Edgar was not love based, it naturally produced a deep hatred between the two men, causing problems to develop.
Love is also important to the text because other themes revolve around it, for example in this case, Bronte used the theme of revenge, when Heathcliff manipulated Isabella into marrying him, purely just to spite Edgar. .
Love also influenced elements of character's personalities, for example, Heathcliff became callous and cruel when he and Cathy could not be together and young Cathy shows loyalty and kindness when she falls in love with Hareton.
The novel was very controversial for its time, which was partially due to the kind of love Bronte used. She did not describe the expected and traditional love story, which was safe, gentle and civilised, but a real, harsh love, which destroyed lives. .
We can see this destruction when Heathcliff inflicts his harsh mood on all concerned by using violence and vengeance to solve his problems. By doing this, he made his and everyone else's lives miserable until he died. However, Heathcliff's and Catherine's love was indeed passionate, so much in fact that they felt like one person.
