What happened to Cathy at the ending of Wuthering Heights? Here’s the scientific explanation

So, Cathy dies at the ending of the Wuthering Heights film. I’m sorry if that’s news to you, but the book has been out since 1847. Because the new film is so stylised and melodramatic, the finale gets a bit confusing. So, here’s an actual, scientific explanation for what happened to Cathy in the ending of the Wuthering Heights movie.

Her death in the movie is very different to the books

Okay, so in the actual Wuthering Heights book, Catherine Earnshaw aka Catherine Linton aka Cathy dies in a different way. Edgar becomes very angry with Heathcliff for moping about after Cathy, and for flirting with Isabella. He announces Cathy must choose between him and Heathcliff. Cathy storms off, locks herself in her room, and doesn’t eat for at least two days. Edgar and Nelly assume Cathy is just being melodramatic, then discover she has actually become ill and feverish. Over the next two months, Cathy becomes physically weaker. She also begins hallucinating more and more.

Nelly arranges for Heathcliff to visit her. They have a very intense argument. Edgar finds Heathcliff in her room, which leads to more arguing. This is all very distressing for Cathy, and her health gets even worse. At midnight, she gives birth to her daughter, who is two months premature, and is unhelpfully also called Catherine. Cathy I dies two hours later from postpartum complications.

Here’s the scientific explanation that Nelly needed

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Heathcliff and his horse at the ending

There is an actual scientific explanation for Cathy’s jarring ending in the new Wuthering Heights film. Cathy also shuts herself in her room and becomes ill. However, she miscarries. Because the fetus doesn’t pass through her, she develops an infection, and then sepsis. This condition happens when the immune system can’t cope with an infection. Different parts of the body get inflamed, and blood can’t move around the body properly.

In the film, we see Cathy’s skin is blotchy, her legs swell, she seems confused, and her speech is slurred. These are all real signs of sepsis. She seems to have got septic shock. People can die of septic shock in less than a day. This explains why Heathcliff didn’t get to her before she died, even though he lives next-door.

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Featured images via Warner Bros.