The Development of Heathcliff’s Character in Wuthering Heights
Heathcliff is a character who is ever present in “Wuthering Heights”
and throughout the novel his character changes. At first he is a poor,
homeless child, then he becomes a loved and neglected victim, then he
is a degraded lover, and finally he transforms into a vicious, lonely
master.
Heathcliff is introduced into the novel as a homeless child. He is a
‘“dirty, ragged, black-haired child”’ who Mr. Earnshaw brings to
Wuthering Heights from Liverpool. He is constantly referred to as ‘it’
and a ‘gypsy’. His wife, Mrs. Earnshaw, is furious that Heathcliff has
been brought into the house and the Earnshaws’ son, Hindley, is
jealous of the apparent love his father is giving Heathcliff. Hindley
therefore beats up and bullies Heathcliff throughout his childhood,
especially when he becomes master of the Heights when Mr. Earnshaw
dies: ‘…reminded him to order Heathcliff a flogging’.
This shows that Heathcliff has been transformed from a poor, homeless
child into a neglected victim. However, Mr. Earnshaw treats Heathcliff
with more love than his other children:
‘…and petting him up far above Cathy’
This shows that Heathcliff is loved by Mr. Earnshaw but also neglected
by Hindley and Mrs. Earnshaw. It is because of Mr. Earnshaw’s love for
Heathcliff that Hindley gets jealous and abuses him. However,
Heathcliff doesn’t really react to Hindley’s abuse, because he doesn’t
cry or complain and just gets up and carries on. However, he
manipulates Hindley into giving him Hindley’s horse:
‘“…if you wont I shall tell your father of the three thrashings you’ve
given me this week.
This shows that Heathcliff can be manipulative. After fighting with
...
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... a servant by Heathcliff. He
usually obeys him, but when small Cathy asks him to pick some flowers,
he does it. Heathcliff is angry by this: ‘“And who ordered you to obey
her?”’
This shows that Heathcliff is losing control. However, he also feels
he has won everything and has nothing left worth fighting for. He dies
soon after, drenching himself in the rain. However, he leaves an
exulting face:
‘…life-like gaze of exultation’.
This shows that Heathcliff has left thinking he has won. He has left
to be with Catherine, and the ghosts of them are spotted together,
finally:
“They’s Heathcliff and a woman, yonder”.
Heathcliff is a character in “Wuthering Heights” whose character has
altered tremendously and in turn altered so many others. This is due
both to the other characters either showing him love or showing him
hate and his own personality.
In "Wuthering Heights," we see tragedies follow one by one, most of which are focused around Heathcliff, the antihero of the novel. After the troubled childhood Heathcliff goes through, he becomes embittered towards the world and loses interest in everything but Catherine Earnshaw –his childhood sweetheart whom he had instantly fallen in love with.—and revenge upon anyone who had tried to keep them apart.
Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, set in the countryside of England’s 1700’s, features a character named Heathcliff, who is brought into the Earnshaw family as a young boy and quickly falls into a passionate, blinding romance with the Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine. However, Heathcliff is soon crushed by this affection when his beloved chooses the company of another man rather than his own. For the remainder of the novel he exudes a harsh, aversive attitude that remains perduring until his demise that is induced by the loss of his soulmate, and in turn the bereavement of the person to whom the entirety of his being and his very own self were bound.
Due to the conflict between his untouched nature and the social norms prevalent in the new society, he starts to challenge them when he experiences the suppression and exclusion. Therefore, his revenge could not have taken place if he were not considered an outsider. And as a result of his revenge, Heathcliff is able to cause drastic changes in the society he enters as an outsider. When Hindley becomes owner of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is suddenly degraded as a servant because Hindley still considers him the despicable creature. As Heathcliff is informed of his degradation, he says to Nelly: “I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do,” (Chapter 7). The compulsion to revenge and challenge the social standards is deeply rooted in his mind due to the humiliation he experiences. Heathcliff’s coming back to Wuthering Heights as a wealthy gentleman challenges the standards that were once set for him. With power and money, he destroys Hindley and ultimately becomes the possessor of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. This clearly shows that Heathcliff’s essence drives him to challenge the social standards and radically affects the society he lives
In the novel Wuthering Heights, author Emily Brontë portrays the morally ambiguous character of Heathcliff through his neglected upbringing, cruel motives, and vengeful actions.
Heathcliff is a character who was abused in his childhood by Catherine’s brother, Hindley, because of his heritage as a “gypsy”, and Hindley was jealous of the love that Heathcliff got from Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley’s father. This is also selfishness upon Hindley’s part since he only wanted his father’s love for his sister and himself. So to reprimand Heathcl...
The famous saying that from a true love to a great hatred is only a
Wuthering Heights Essay - Is Heathcliff truly evil? I think with the modern understanding of the way childhood affects one's whole perception of life and the world, we would be arrogant to call Heathcliff evil. Without a doubt Heathcliff is an anomaly. Lockwood initially describes him as "a dark skinned gypsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman". The first view we have of heathcliff is as dark, handsome, gentlemanly and morose.
In her novel, Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë uses psychological disorders in order to amplify the characters relationships. While Hindley, Linton, Edgar, and other minor characters suffer from multiple psychological disorders, it is Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff whose disorders shape the layout of the novel through their deep relationship. Their disorders range from histrionic personality disorder to monomania to Munchausen syndrome. Cathy and Heathcliff’s obsession for attention and each other drive them to develop psychological disorders that worsen throughout the novel due to lack of medical knowledge and diagnosis.
On the face of it, it would seem that the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff is self-destructive to an extreme. Due to the lovers’ precarious circumstances, passionate personalities and class divisions, it seems that fate transpires to keep them apart and therefore the hopelessness of their situation drives them to self destruction. However, although the relationship is undeniably self-destructive, there are elements within it that suggest the pain Heathcliff and Catherine put each other through is atoned for to an extent when they share their brief moments of harmony.
Through the duration of Heathcliff's life, he encounters many tumultuous events that affects him as a person and transforms his rage deeper into his soul, for which he is unable to escape his nature.
The presentation of childhood is a theme that runs through two generations with the novel beginning to reveal the childhood of Catherine and Hindley Earnshaw, and with the arrival of the young Liverpudlian orphan, Heathcliff. In chapter four, Brontë presents Heathcliff’s bulling and abuse at the hands of Hindley as he grows increasingly jealous of Heathcliff for Mr. Earnshaw, his father, has favoured Heathcliff over his own son, “my arm, which is black to the shoulder” the pejorative modifier ‘black’ portrays dark and gothic associations but also shows the extent of the abuse that Heathcliff as a child suffered from his adopted brother. It is this abuse in childhood that shapes Heathcliff’s attitudes towards Hindley and his sadistic nature, as seen in chapter 17, “in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity” there is hyperbole and melodrama as the cruelty that stemmed from his abuse in childhood has been passed onto Isabella in adulthood.
In the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Heathcliff is an orphan boy brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, who has two children of his own already - Catherine and Hindley. Heathcliff changes over the course of his life by the following; Heathcliff begins by getting along well with Catherine Earnshaw, however, Catherine Earnshaw is introduced to Edgar Linton and Heathcliff becomes jealous of their forming relationship, and once Catherine has passed away after delivering Edgar’s child, Heathcliff becomes haunted by her ghost, and wishes to only be united with her in death.
In Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the Earnshaws, a middle class family, live at the estate, Wuthering Heights. When Mr. Earnshaw takes a trip to Liverpool, he returns with an orphan whom he christens “Heathcliff”. During their formative years, Catherine, Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter, plays with Heathcliff on the moors and becomes close with him. As a result, they form a special bond and Heathcliff and Catherine fall in love, unlike Hindley, Mr. Earnshaw’s son, who does not get along with Heathcliff. While Heathcliff benefits from his relationships, his connections are disadvantaged in terms of status, reputation, financial stability, and happiness.
The basic conflict of the novel that drives Heathcliff and Catherine apart is social. Written after the Industrial Revolution, Wuthering Heights is influenced by the rise of new fortunes and the middle class in England. Money becomes a new criterion to challenge the traditional criterias of class and family in judging a gentleman’s background. Just as Walpole who portrays the tyrannies of the father figure Manfred and the struggles of the Matilda who wants to marry the peasant Theodore, as depicted in the quote “(…) improbability that either father would consent to bestow his heiress on so poor a man, though nobly born”(p. 89), Brontë depicts a brutal bully Hindley who torments Heathcliff and separates Catherine from him. Heathcliff, a gypsy outcast picked u...
In the novel Wuthering Heights, the dark and mysterious Heathcliff once began his life with an open heart, but after mistreatment from Edgar and Hindley he turns to revenge. Heathcliff's actions are reasonable; he has been hurt from the unfair reason of discrimination. Heathcliff slowly becomes sickly obsessed with planning an elaborate revenge after eavesdropping a conversation between his beloved Catherine to Nelly. He hears his young beautiful and idolized Catherine say, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff” (77). Heathcliff, heartbroken and hopeless, abruptly leaves Wuthering Height for two years. Catherine is left wondering where he is. Heathcliff leaves in search of revenge.