The window imagery in “Wuthering Heights” is a multifaceted symbol, representing themes of confinement, isolation, desire for connection, and the interplay between the internal and external worlds. They often represent barriers and confinement. Catherine and Heathcliff frequently look out of windows, reminding lack of belonging or desire for escape. Also, the physical barriers of the windowpanes symbolize the isolation and emotional distance prevalent in the novel. While Catherine is sick, she wants Nelly to open the windows, so that the wall between Heathcliff's and her own worlds can be opened and their souls can blend. For the same reason, Heathcliff opens the windows before he dies, with his eyes open. When Nelly finds him dead, she compares his eyes to the "windows of hell" and tries to close them like a window.
The window becomes a metaphorical boundary between the civilized and the primal, tamed and wild. When Catherine and Heathcliff are children, they spy on the Lintons through the window, and they see how luxurious and "splendid" the Thrushcross Grange in contrast to Wuthering Heights. Moreover, windows blur the boundary between inside and outside, just as Heathcliff, an ambiguous and in-between character. Another window metaphor can be seen in Lockwood's relationship with the story. Lockwood listens to the whole story from Nelly as if he were looking through a window, literally peeping Heathcliff and Catherine's past.