Wuthering Heights question

Interesting question! I thought of Nelly as a narrator rather than a character. My thought is it is Heathcliff who plays the most important role. Catherine is important also because she kind of sets everything in motion, but all of the action revolves around and is manipulated by Heathcliff.

Nelly, affected everything. She's unreliable and the one to cause trouble in most of scenes. Without her we wouldn't have the vengeful Heathcliff. So, she's really important.
So, in my opinion:
1.Nelly
2.Cathy
3.Heathcliff

Naura wrote: "When I read wuthering heights, it got me thinking that although its all about Heathcliff and the catherines etc..
We are told all of their stories by NElly! So I think shes the extremely important ..."

And it's Nelly who neglected to tell Cathy that Heathcliff was listening in when the two of them were having their intimate chat about which guy Cathy loves. And that Heathcliff left before he could hear how crazy Cathy is about him.

As far as I'm concerned this omission of Nelly's is on par with Briony's act in Atonement (view spoiler)[ Briony telling the police that Robbie was the rapist. (hide spoiler)]. It defines the book and the events that follow all take genesis from this omission.

For me it is Nelly Dean, without her narration, the tale would never be told.

nelly,heathcliff,catherine

I think that Lockwood holds a pretty important role in the story. He is the one being told the story so he kick starts the mystery of Cathy and Heathcliff.

Naura wrote: "When I read wuthering heights, it got me thinking that although its all about Heathcliff and the catherines etc..
We are told all of their stories by NElly! So I think shes the extremely important ..."

Lockwood writes the story, influenced by Nelly's tales, so we receive an impression of the various characters filtered by their two perceptions.

I'm pretty surprised that most people are saying Heathcliff... I think it's Cathy. I felt like the whole book was a domino effect set in motion by her decisions. Half the stuff Heathcliff did was because Cathy was driving him crazy anyway.

Naura wrote: "When I read wuthering heights, it got me thinking that although its all about Heathcliff and the catherines etc..
We are told all of their stories by NElly! So I think shes the extremely important ..."

I think that Catherine is the most important characters in the story. Although she is dead before page 200, most of what Heathcliff does is spurned by her. This path of destruction is because Heathcliff wanted so badly to possess her, but could not.

She affects every single character's life: her importance is obvious from the very beginning of the novel. Lockwood sees her name, then dreams of her. Edgar Linton continues to mourn and cherish her memory, and even names their daughter after her.

If Catherine hadn't done what she'd done, and then gone and died, I don't think Heathcliff would have been such a malicious character.

I need to reread this story. Heathcliff was a strong character from my memory of the story, but Catherine gave Heathcliff a reason. A reason to live? Maybe. But more importantly, I feel that Catherine gave Heathcliff a reason to love.