"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being." (page 102)
This was one of my favorite moments in the novel thus far. It is within these few sentences that Catherine explains her feelings for Edgar and Heathcliff, and it is here where the reader is able to understand what she is feeling without having to guess. I found her metaphors to be quite revealing, and understood afterward that what she felt for Heathcliff was true love whereas what she felt for Linton was merely superficial. Heathcliff is like the other half of herself, and she had been inseparable from him throughout her entire life. Honestly, I couldn't comprehend her actually being able to marry someone else when she had such strong feelings for Heathcliff. When it came down to it, Catherine's decision of who to marry was based on entirely different premises. Tempted by wealth and social status, Catherine married Linton because he was rich, handsome, young, and cheerful. Essentially, she married him for all the wrong reasons. At one point she tried to defend her position for Heathcliff's sake, saying that if she were to marry Edgar she could aid Heathcliff is rising from her brother's power. I, on the other hand, saw this as a blatant lie and a weak excuse to do what was easier rather than what was right.
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