25.6k views
5 votes
Which part of this passage from chapter 6 of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights illustrates that Hindley’s wife did not belong to the upper class?

Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and—a thing that amazed us, and set the neighbours gossiping right and left—he brought a wife with him. {What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father}.
She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own account. Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold, appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the mourners. I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly—"Are they gone yet?" Then she began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to see black; and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell a-weeping—and when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn’t know; but she felt so afraid of dying! I imagined her as little likely to die as myself. She was rather thin, but young, and fresh-complexioned, and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds. I did remark, to be sure, that mounting the stairs made her breathe very quick; that the least sudden noise set her all in a quiver, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I knew nothing of what these symptoms portended, and had no impulse to sympathise with her. We don’t in general take to foreigners here, Mr. Lockwood, unless they take to us first.

User TChadwick
by
5.8k points

2 Answers

4 votes

The part of this passage from chapter 6 of Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" that illustrates that Hindley’s wife did not belong to the upper class is:

"What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father"

Hindley's choice to not reveal his wife's background shows that she does not come from a wealthy or important family, because if she was part of the upper class, he would not have had reasons to hide their marriage from his father and all the other people in his life.

User Afgan
by
6.4k points
2 votes
What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father.
User Hobbyist
by
6.5k points