Vengeance in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights

Vengeance in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights

Love, betrayal and revenge play leading roles in both Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights.” Both works feature doomed relationships, a ghostly haunting, and death. The court at Elsinore, despite its luxurious setting, almost mirrors the seclusion of the Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights — making both settings almost prison like. But, it is not setting that makes both works interesting: it is the search for vengeance by the protagonists. Few stories stir the soul more than that of a lover wronged – seeking vengeance on his foes. The lovers, Heathcliff and Hamlet, differ in their nature. One is a passionate brute, the latter a philosopher-prince; yet, despite their differences and being separated by 300 years, they share the same despair and grievances. Even their lives seem to run on almost parallel courses. Each loses a lover, is betrayed by a loved one, and driven almost mad with fury. Indeed, the “central, unifying action of Hamlet” (Abrahms and Brody 44), and of Wuthering Heights, is “revenge” (44). But, where Heathcliff’s sole impetus is revenge, Hamlet is reluctant to enact it. Hamlet’s circumstances, however, do indeed warrant vengeance.

Hamlet is a bitter tragedy of revenge and deceit. Unbeknownst to Hamlet, his father, the king of Denmark, is murdered by his own brother, Claudius — who then marries the queen and assumes the throne. Hamlet is visited by his father’s ghost, who compels him to enact revenge upon his uncle — but spare his mother. Hamlet finally decides to stage a play in which there is a poisoning scene, meant to stir his uncle into panic. Hamlet’s plan is successful, but he, in a fit of rage, accidentally...

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Shapiro, Arnold. “‘Wuthering Heights’ as a Victorian Novel.” Nineteenth Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 16. Eds. Joann Cerrito and Paul Kepos. Detroit: Gale Research, 1992. 108-110.