Summary
Lockwood is shown to a room to sleep which used to belong to Cathy's mother, Catherine. He has a restless night and is apparently woken by a tree branch tapping on the window. As he reaches out to stop it, his wrist is grasped by a cold hand, the ghost of Catherine. He wakes and rouses Heathcliff. Unable to sleep, he moves downstairs until Heathcliff escorts him back to Thrushcross Grange.
Analysis
It is very important that the ghost of Catherine Linton (who is not perhaps simply a figment of Lockwood's imagination) appears as a child. Of course Lockwood thinks of her as a child, since he had just read parts of her early diary, but Heathcliff also seems to find it natural that she appeared in the form she had when they were children together. Rather than progressing from childhood on to a maturer age with its different values, Heathcliff and Catherine never really "grew up." That is to say, everything emotionally important that ever happened in their lives either took place in childhood or follows directly from commitments made then. They never essentially outgrew their solidarity against the oppressive forces of adult authority and religion which is described in Catherine's diary. Thus the ghost of Catherine Linton (and that is her married name) tries to return to her childhood sanctuary, which Heathcliff has kept in its original state. The dominion of linear time is challenged.
It might be relevant here to remember that Emily Brontë kept up the imaginary world created when she was very young well into her early twenties, and hated to leave the home of her childhood.
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