Wuthering Heights is a novel in which Emily Bronte highlights the nature of duality between her twin juxtaposed generations she’s created. The first generation, composed of Edgar Linton, Heathcliff, and Catherine Earnshaw, is responsible for perpetuating certain qualities in the second generation (Linton, Cathy, and Hareton).

Each character of the first generation develops a counterpart within the second, allowing for fulfillment to finally be achieved after they have passed. Catherine, obviously resurrected in the form of Cathy, had been struggling with an eternal conflict. She could not choose which life she wanted to lead: whether to be with the wealthy and sophisticated Edgar or to be with the confident and brutish Heathcliff. She died feeling dissatisfaction with the choices she had made. She wished she could have instead lived as Catherine Heathcliff. As Cathy Linton was acted as this reincarnation, she ends up in the same predicament, kept suspended between two men (Linton Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw). She becomes Catherine Heathcliff but finds that Linton doesn’t actually represent her love. Ultimately, she finds herself in love with Hareton, who acts as the true counterpart of Heathcliff, and the cycle is broken as the two soulmates are finally united. Just as Catherine had always desired to be with her one true love.

It’s funny how the three names of Catherine end up portraying a related, but an entirely different cycle. The changes from Catherine Earnshaw to Catherine Linton to Catherine Heathcliff of the first generation, and then from Catherine Linton to Catherine Heathcliff to Catherine Earnshaw in the second, portray Cathy’s ultimate desire to reign as her own individual. Both Cathy’s were extremely strong-willed, the second-generation Cathy possibly even more so than her mother, and taking a man’s name at all had ultimately sullied their characters. But in the end, the Catherines were able to take back their original title of Earnshaw, and everything was how it should be. The twin-souls were united, and Cathy became her own person.