Wuthering Heights

In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff disturbs Catherine’s grave because he is obsessed with being united with her even after death. After Edgar Linton dies, Heathcliff tells Nelly that he bribed the sexton to dig up Catherine’s grave, opened her coffin, looked at her face again, and loosened one side of the coffin. He then arranged for the side of Catherine’s coffin facing away from Edgar’s grave to be removed, and planned for the corresponding side of his own coffin to be removed when he was buried beside her.

Heathcliff hopes that, in death, his remains and Catherine’s will be so close that they become indistinguishable. He even says that by the time Edgar’s remains reach them, “he’ll not know which is which!” The act is one of the novel’s most disturbing moments, showing how Heathcliff’s love for Catherine has become inseparable from death itself. His tampering with the grave expresses both his longing to be reunited with her and his lingering resentment toward Edgar. 

This scene reflects a larger pattern in Wuthering Heights: Heathcliff cannot accept any boundary between himself and Catherine, including death. Throughout the novel he seeks her ghost, believes she haunts him, and ultimately wants their final resting places to erase the separation that existed during their lives.