Dogs & Devestation

[BatmanAoD]

Twice in this book (when Heathcliff elopes with Isabella and again shortly thereafter), characters take a dog or a bunch of dogs, wrap them up in a blanket or something, and hang them from some kind of hook. I have searched google, sparknotes, and cliffnotes for an explanation of why this is, but found nothing. Do they want to leave the dogs to starve? Why don't they just kill the dogs?

Also, at the beginning of Chapter 32, Lockwood writes that he "was invited to devastate the moors of a friend." Is this some sort of clever way to say he's going hunting, or something of the sort? I can't find any meaning of the word "devastate" that seems to fit.

Thanks.

[PaulT]

I am only aware of one point at which a dog is hanged although it is mentioned twice, once when Ellen finds Isabella's dog and frees it in chapter 12, and once when Heathcliff himself describes it in chapter 14. I think Heathcliff does it because he despises Isabella and her family, and deliberately does something which will pain her the most. He may also want to see how far he could go with her without her turning.

Yes, "devastate" is Lockwood's pretentious way of saying game shooting (meaning "reduce in population"). His manner of speech is very ostentatious and you can read this in the first few chapters. It was probably Emily's way of differentiating between Ellen's narrative and Lockwood's.

[BatmanAoD]

Thanks for your input. Your explanation for the hanging of Isabella's dog makes sense, I think, but when Isabella escapes from the Heights (Chapter 17), she knocks over Hareton, who is "hanging a litter of puppies from a chairback in the doorway." This seems utterly ludicrous. I can't remember how old Hareton is at this point in the novel, though, so it might just be something he does because he's a little kid and doesn't know better.

[PaulT]

I'd forgotten that bit. I think it was to indicate how cruel and uncivilised Hareton had become with only Hindley and Heathcliff as guides. Hareton is nearly six at this point and has had no female guidance since Ellen left him the year before.

[sarahlouise]

I could be wrong be I thought that, as was said above, Heathcliff hangs Isobella's dog truly because he despises her and also if you remember when he and Cathy first set eyes on the Linton's at the Grange her and Edgar were fighting over the puppy and he when reiterating this to Nelly speaks of how patheitic he saw it... so the hanging of the dog, for me, is symbolic of not only how he hates Isobella but how he hates Edgar also, which is effectively why he marries her to begin with; to seek revenge on Edgar.

[ThePurpleSmurf]

I think that the reason Bronte includes Hareton hanging the litter of puppies is a reflection of Heathcliff's previous attempt of Isabella's- he's become a role model for him at this point and the sadism would have been adopted by him, even at such a young age. (I know it's unlikely Hareton would know about the incident) I just think Bronte's trying to show Heathcliff's influence over him through that brief detail.

[Onzalvin]

Heathcliff also has a cruel past in conjunction with the killing of animals...

Somewhere in the beginning, when Cathy was at the Grange, he put a wire mesh on a birds' nest, so the little youngsters would die: their parent couldn't feed 'em...