Chapter XIV Practice Quiz — Wuthering Heights
by Emily Bronte — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter XIV
What message does Edgar Linton send to Isabella through Nelly?
Edgar refuses to write or visit, but sends his love, forgiveness, and a wish that Isabella persuade Heathcliff to leave the country. He declares their communication shall not exist.
What does Nelly observe about the condition of Wuthering Heights when she arrives?
The formerly cheerful house is dreary and dismal, with a pervading spirit of neglect. The hearth is unswept and the tables unwiped.
How does Isabella look when Nelly visits the Heights?
Isabella looks wan and listless. Her hair is uncurled, some locks hanging lankly down, and she has not changed her dress since the evening before.
How does Heathcliff appear when Nelly visits?
Heathcliff has never looked better. He appears so well that a stranger would take him for a born and bred gentleman, while Isabella looks like a slattern.
What does Heathcliff demand from Nelly regarding Catherine?
Heathcliff demands that Nelly arrange a secret meeting with Catherine. He wants Nelly to carry a letter to Catherine and inform him of Edgar's next absence from home.
How does Heathcliff threaten Nelly to get her cooperation?
He threatens to hold her prisoner at Wuthering Heights until morning, to haunt the Grange garden every night, to knock down Edgar if he meets him, and to threaten the servants with pistols.
What does Nelly ultimately agree to do for Heathcliff?
After refusing fifty times, Nelly agrees to carry a letter from Heathcliff to Catherine and to let him know when Edgar is away from home so he can visit.
What revelation does Isabella make about why Heathcliff married her?
Isabella reveals that Heathcliff married her on purpose to obtain power over Edgar. She begs Nelly not to tell Edgar or Catherine about this.
What does Heathcliff say about Isabella's expectations when they married?
He says Isabella "abandoned them under a delusion," picturing him as a hero of romance and expecting unlimited indulgences from his chivalrous devotion. He considers her irrational for forming a fabulous notion of his character.
How does Isabella describe Heathcliff when she finally speaks out?
Isabella calls him "a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being!" Her eyes sparkle irefully, confirming the full success of Heathcliff's efforts to make himself detested.
What does Heathcliff say after forcing Isabella from the room?
He mutters: "I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain."
How does Nelly justify her decision to cooperate with Heathcliff?
She believes she prevented another violent explosion, hopes the visit might create a favorable crisis in Catherine's mental illness, and remembers Edgar's rebuke about carrying tales between the households.
How does Chapter 14 contrast Heathcliff's love with Edgar's love?
Heathcliff dismisses Edgar's love as based on mere "duty and humanity," while his own is elemental and boundless. He claims Edgar's love in eighty years could not match his in a day, and that Catherine's heart, like the sea, is too vast for Edgar's shallow affection.
What does the reversal of appearances between Heathcliff and Isabella symbolize?
It symbolizes the upheaval of the social order. The former stable boy now looks like a gentleman while the refined lady appears as a slattern, showing that class and breeding are superficial markers that can be overturned by force of will and circumstance.
How does Chapter 14 explore the theme of power and control?
Heathcliff exerts control over Isabella through emotional cruelty, over Nelly through threats and coercion, and seeks access to Catherine to maintain his emotional dominance. His legal awareness in keeping Isabella from having grounds for separation shows calculated use of institutional power.
What moral dilemma does Nelly face in this chapter?
Nelly must choose between loyalty to her employer Edgar, who forbids contact, and the threat of violence from Heathcliff if she refuses. She also weighs whether seeing Heathcliff might help Catherine's recovery, making her decision morally ambiguous rather than simply coerced.
Who says: "If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day"?
Heathcliff says this about Edgar Linton, arguing that Edgar's limited nature makes him incapable of the kind of boundless, elemental love that Heathcliff feels for Catherine.
What does Heathcliff mean when he says "the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough"?
He means Catherine's whole affection is as vast as the sea and cannot possibly be contained within Edgar's shallow capacity for love, which he compares to a mere horse-trough. It is one of the novel's most powerful metaphors for the contrast between passionate and conventional love.
What is the significance of Heathcliff's declaration: "I have no pity! I have no pity!"?
Spoken after forcing Isabella from the room, this declaration reveals Heathcliff's self-awareness about his cruelty. He describes his sadism as "moral teething"—a compulsive, almost involuntary process where others' suffering increases his desire to inflict more pain.
What does Isabella mean when she says Heathcliff is "a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being"?
Isabella strips away any romantic view of Heathcliff, declaring him inhuman. Her words serve as a counterpoint to Heathcliff's own grand rhetoric about love, forcing the reader to reconcile his passionate devotion to Catherine with his deliberate cruelty to everyone else.
What metaphor does Heathcliff use to describe Edgar's capacity for love versus Catherine's?
The sea versus the horse-trough. Heathcliff says the sea could as readily be contained in a horse-trough as Catherine's whole affection could be monopolized by Edgar. This elemental metaphor elevates the Heathcliff-Catherine bond to something natural and immeasurable.
How does Brontë use the setting of Wuthering Heights in this chapter to reflect character states?
The house's decay—dreary, dismal, neglected hearth and dirty tables—mirrors Isabella's deterioration under Heathcliff's cruelty. Meanwhile, Heathcliff's improved appearance amid the squalor reflects his thriving on power and anticipation of seeing Catherine.
What does "slattern" mean in the context of this chapter?
A slattern is an untidy, slovenly woman. Nelly uses this word to describe how Isabella now appears—a stark contrast to her former refined, well-kept appearance at Thrushcross Grange.
What does "brach" mean when Heathcliff calls Isabella a "pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach"?
A brach is an archaic term for a female hound or bitch. Heathcliff uses it as a degrading insult to dehumanize Isabella, comparing her to a dog—one of the novel's recurring animal images used to blur boundaries between human and bestial nature.