Repetition is a major theme in Wuthering Heights. It plagues of the characters throughout the book, making it seem as if they are doomed to repeat the mistakes of their past forever. This repeating cycle affects multiple generations that live on the manor and ruins many lives, but no one is afflicted more by this vicious repetitious cycle than Heathcliff. Heathcliff's entire adult life is dominated by his sole desire to ruin the lives of those who mad him suffer in his youth. Hence he embarks on a twisted personal vendetta to right the wrongs that he feels has been committed against him.
The first signs that Heathcliff is doomed, or has chosen to live a cycle of misery comes upon his return to Wuthering Heights. On his return, he uses his newly acquired wealth to persuade Hindley into inviting him to stay at Wuthering Heights. This living arrangement is oddly reminiscent of Heathcliff's youth, where Hindley presided over Heathcliff's life, forcing him to live in near servitude. In contrast however, it is Heathcliff that now extracts revenge upon the ailing Hindley, forcing him into debt and corrupting Hareton against his father.
In these first months of Heathcliff's return he works tirelessly to begin his vengeance upon those who had mistreated him in the past. He arranges a living situation that is very similar to the one of his youth, placing himself on the outside of the affairs of Catherine, Edgar and Isabella, as to manipulate them to his will. When Heathcliff does become the master of Wuthering Heights, it is eerily similar to the beginning of the book where he sits and watches the doings of the other children.
The novel again repeats itself with the passing of Hindley that resembles the death of Mr. Earnshaw from the beginning of the story. In both cases the dying men left heirs to be taken care of, and in both cases those whom these tasks befell treated their new charges with contempt and maliciousness. In the first part of the story it is Heathcliff that becomes the charge of Hindley and it is Hindley that starts the chain of abuse. Under Hindley's care Heathcliff is continuously maltreated. He is forced to work in the fields and is given no formal education, all the while receiving both physical and mental abuse from Hindley.
This traumatic childhood experience prompts Heathcliff's similar treatment of Hareton. When Heathcliff takes in Hareton, he treats him in the same harsh manner that Hindley treated Heathcliff. Heathcliff ends Hareton's education and forces him into working the fields. In this fashion Hareton represents a younger Heathcliff, while Heathcliff is transformed into the very monster whom he hated so, Hindley. Emily Bronte skillfully uses the passions of the characters to mislead them and develop them into the very people whom they despise most.
The repetitious cycle of repeating occurrences does not end here. Catherine's daughter, young Catherine, takes after her mother and grows into a headstrong woman that is governed more by feelings than rationale reasoning. Her decisions based off passion cause her to fall in love with, Hareton, strikingly reminiscent of the love that Catherine and Heathcliff shared. Unfortunately for the two young lovers Heathcliff is not willing to allow Hareton, or young Catherine, to achieve happiness while he still lives. Mimicking the actions that Hindley took years before, Heathcliff further spurs Hareton and forces a relationship between his own son Linton and young Catherine.
This forced union finishes Heathcliff's plans for revenge, finally giving him both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, and in a sense Catherine through the forced marriage of Young Catherine and Linton. In Heathcliff's desperate search for vengeance he inherently reconstructs the past, using the history of past events to ruin the lives of those around him.
