Chapter XXI Practice Quiz — Wuthering Heights
by Emily Bronte — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter XXI
How old is Cathy Linton at the start of Chapter 21?
Sixteen. The chapter opens on the anniversary of her birth, the twentieth of March.
Why does Edgar Linton spend Cathy's birthday alone?
Cathy's birthday is also the anniversary of her mother Catherine's death. Edgar spends the day in solitary mourning at the library and walks to Gimmerton kirkyard.
How does Cathy end up at Wuthering Heights?
She wanders too far on the moors looking for moor-game nests and strays onto Heathcliff's land, where he intercepts her and lures her inside to see Linton.
What is Heathcliff's stated reason for wanting Cathy and Linton to marry?
He says he wants to prevent property disputes: if they marry, Cathy becomes joint successor with Linton. Without the marriage, the Linton property would pass to Heathcliff, not Cathy.
How has Linton Heathcliff changed since Cathy last saw him?
He has grown taller than Cathy and appears temporarily healthier from fresh air and sun, but he remains languid, frail, and reluctant to exert himself.
What does Hareton fail to do that Cathy and Linton mock him for?
He cannot read the inscription above the door of Wuthering Heights. Linton calls him a "colossal dunce" and they both laugh at his Yorkshire dialect.
What does Heathcliff mean when he calls Hareton "gold put to the use of paving-stones"?
He means Hareton has genuinely fine, first-rate qualities that have been wasted and degraded—deliberately ruined by Heathcliff's own design to mirror Hindley's mistreatment of him.
What does Heathcliff mean when he calls Linton "tin polished to ape a service of silver"?
He means Linton has no real worth or substance but is given a superficial veneer of gentility and refinement that disguises his fundamental weakness.
How does Heathcliff explain his quarrel with Edgar to Cathy?
He tells Cathy that Edgar "thought me too poor to wed his sister, and was grieved that I got her"—a misleading half-truth that omits his own cruelty toward Isabella.
Why does Heathcliff ask Cathy to keep her visit secret?
He says Edgar has a prejudice against him and would put a veto on all future visits. By encouraging secrecy, Heathcliff manipulates Cathy into maintaining contact with Linton against her father's wishes.
How does Edgar react when Cathy tells him about her visit to Wuthering Heights?
He gives her a hasty account of Heathcliff's evil conduct toward Isabella and explains he kept Cathy from Linton to protect her, not out of selfishness. He forbids future visits.
How do Cathy and Linton exchange secret letters?
Through a milk-fetcher boy from the village. Cathy tucks letters into his jacket pocket and retrieves Linton's replies from him each morning.
How does Nelly discover the secret correspondence?
She notices Cathy hiding papers, hovering over a locked drawer, and coming downstairs early. Nelly finds a key that fits the drawer and discovers it is full of love letters from Linton.
What does Nelly do with the letters once she finds them?
She confronts Cathy and threatens to show them to Edgar. When Cathy agrees to stop, Nelly burns the letters in the fire. Cathy darts her hand into the flames to save a few fragments but ultimately surrenders them all.
What does Nelly compare Cathy to when she discovers the letters are gone?
A bird "flying back to a plundered nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones"—expressing "more complete despair" than any bird through her single cry of "Oh!"
What detail about the housekeeper at Wuthering Heights does Nelly mention?
The original housekeeper reported that Linton was sickly, selfish, and that Heathcliff despised him. She left about two years after Linton arrived and was replaced by another who still lives there.
Why does Heathcliff say he covets Hareton "twenty times a day"?
Because Hareton possesses natural strength, loyalty, and spirit—qualities Heathcliff wishes his own son Linton had. Heathcliff says he would have loved Hareton had he been someone else's child.
What theme does the birthday/death-day parallel reinforce?
The cyclical nature of love and loss across generations. Cathy's birth coincides with her mother's death, and on this same day she is drawn into the same destructive orbit of Wuthering Heights that consumed her mother.
How does Nelly describe Cathy as they set out on the moors?
As running like "a young greyhound" with golden ringlets flying, a cheek "as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose," and "eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure." Nelly calls her "a happy creature, and an angel."
What is Hareton's threat to Linton after being mocked?
"If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I would; pitiful lath of a crater!" He retreats in humiliated rage, conscious of being insulted but unable to respond effectively.