Essay Comparing Wuthering Heights And Persuasion

In Wuthering Heights one of the themes that is being expressed through the novel is a central theme, and it is often experienced by most of the characters through the book. One of the characters that has experienced acts of cruelty is Heathcliff who is seen as both a bad person and a romantic hero. He also shapes how others in the book becoe victims of cruelty. Being in the House for so long with a family that depicted him as a fierce man that soon became so brutal and unsympathetic after being ruined and victimized at the hand of Hindley who is his step brother. A few ways that hindley tormented Heathcliff , was by treating Heathcliff like a servant.

Mr. Earnshaw, the father figure at the Wuthering Heights estates, upon returning from a trip to Liverpool, has brought a young orphan boy in place of the gifts he promised his children. Despite Mr. Earnshaw’s kind heart, the family refuses to accept the boy. Wuthering Height’s maid, Ellen “Nelly” Dean, narrating the family’s history to Lockwood, tells him the family’s first impressions and their treatment of the boy. She states, “they entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room; and I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might he gone on the morrow” (Brontë 40). Both children are upset at Heathcliff for have crushing the gifts their father has promised to bring back to them. Neither let him room with them, resulting in Heathcliff sleeping on the floor outside of Mr. Earnshaw’s room for the first night of his arrival. Aside from being an orphan, this was Heathcliff’s first experience with rejection at Wuthering Heights. Not only did the children dislike Heathcliff for have ruining their gifts, but the adults did not appreciate his arrival either. Nelly claims she hopes “it might be he gone on the morrow” (Brontë 40). In addition to wishing the boy would disappear, she refers to Heathcliff as not the pronoun “he,” but with the word “it,” degrading him to a “thing” as opposed to a human being. Nelly then descripes Mrs. Earnshaw’s opinion on the boy, “Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for?,” (Brontë 39). She is just as welcoming as the children and maid, Nelly, are. She refers to him as a derogatory, gypsy boy,

Heathcliff is a victim of class hatred but he also manipulates situations to his advantage and becomes an arch - exploiter. For example, after the death of his wife, Hindley went insane. Heathcliff used this opportunity to take revenge and took Wuthering Heights away from Hindley. He then went further and married Edgar’s sister, not for love or monetary gain but to get back at Edgar for marrying Catherine, and treated Edgar’s sister terribly.

Cathy and Hindley alter him into a vicious, lonely master: ‘“The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don’t turn against him, they crush those beneath them”’. This shows that Heathcliff will not take revenge on Cathy directly, but will hurt those who are close to her. This is because Cathy married Edgar Linton and said that it would degrade her if Heathcliff was her husband. In addition, he will take

Through self-centered and narcissistic characters, Emily Bronte’s classic novel, “Wuthering Heights” illustrates a deliberate and poetic understanding of what greed is. Encouraged by love, fear, and revenge, Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and Linton Heathcliff all commit a sin called selfishness.

This cold treatment only progressed and became abusive when Mr. Earnshaw, one of the few people to ever care about Heathcliff, dies and his son who loathes the protagonist becomes the master of Wuthering Heights. “He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm” (Bronte 71).

As a young orphan who is brought to Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is thrown into abuse as Hindley begins to treat Heathcliff as a servant in reaction to Mr. Earnshaw’s death. As a reaction to both this and Catherine discarding Heathcliff for Edgar, Heathcliff’s sense of misery and embarrassment causes him to change and spend the rest of his time seeking for justice. Throughout this time, Heathcliff leans on violence to express the revenge that he so seeks by threatening people and displaying villainous traits. However, Heathcliff’s first symptom of change in personality is when Heathcliff runs into Hareton after Cathy “tormented

Such actions render him bitter and when Catherine dies having never surrendered her full love to him, he falls into profound misery. Anguish and resentment so deep, they spur Heathcliff’s desire to torture anyone even associated with someone who has caused him pain. Heathcliff’s violent brutality is not exclusively directed towards Hareton himself; it is a culmination of his resentment of Catherine, Hindley and accepted, well-off people in general. The reason Hareton falls victim to so much of his pent up anger lies in his semblance to Catherine and relationship to Hindley. Heathcliff says himself that he would “have loved the lad had he been someone else.”

As soon as Hindley’s father dies, Heathcliff is taught the true meaning of hate by Hindley. As Heathcliff ages, his hate for Hindley grows inside of him, along with a need for revenge. Heathcliff’s need for revenge allows him to formulate his diabolical plan for taking over both the Grange and the Heights, upon return from his three year sojourn. Heathcliff’s ability to gamble the Heights away from Hindley foreshadows the unyielding power of Heithcliff’s hate when fueled by revenge. Thus establishing hate as the source of Heathcliff’s revenge.

Heathcliff is horrible to Cathy on multiple occasions. He looks in her closet. He forces her to marry the Lintons even though she does not want to. He does this because it will increase his social status. He is also evil to

The relationship between Heathcliff and Hindley revealed and developed the abusive nature of Heathcliff. Heathcliff was taken in as a young boy into a wealthy family that had two children. Ever since the day he was brought home the eldest son, Hindley, resented how the father favored him more. For example, Heathcliff threatened to tell their father if Hindley did not let him have his horse. This one childish threat had created the foundation of the resentment between the two men. Heathcliff threatened to tell their father that Hindley was making him feel unwelcome and abused emotionally, Hindley decided to not see if Heathcliff was going to follow through with the threat therefore gave him the horse. Later on through life, once the father dies, Hindley decides to take his absence as an excuse to start really physically abusing Heathcliff. He would beat him and punch him without thought of how this would transfer into the rest of his life. Heathcliff was also verbally assaulted by Hindley which is a twist on the traditional sense of cruelty. Hindley is demeaning towards Heathcliff and calls him a slave and make sure that he know that he is not equal with himself or his sister Catherine. This point planted the seed of doubt and not being good enough for the rest of his life. This continual mental assault forged the mindset of little Heathcliff to how he would exact revenge on Hindley for all of his wrongdoings. This cruelty from Hindley was due to the favoritism that Heathcliff received as a child, the death of his father, the death of his wife, and the constant reminder of his wife through his son. The constant cruelty is the motive for Heathcliff's actions once he returns to the Heights. Through baiting Hindley, in his own personal torment from his wife's passing, all the money and possessions are gambled away with Heathcliff as the new owner. Wuthering Heights itself

In the first part of Nelly’s narration, she begins by telling how Heathcliff comes about the house. ‘We crowed round, and, over Miss Cathy’s head, I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child.’ Such language explores that he is no ordinary child. The other children - Hindley and Cathy, couldn’t believe what their father had bought home. ‘Mrs Earnshaw was ready to chuck it out of the doors…asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house.’ Such a phrase would imply that if they were seen with the ‘gipsy’ they would be looked down on. They don’t understand Mr Earnshaw’s reason to bring him home. Cathy and Hindley rejected Heathcliff ‘they entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room..I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the morrow’ Nobody wanted it to be part of the household. This first introduction to Heathcliff already explores the view he is socially beneath the other inhabitants of Wuthering Heights. He is typically described as outside of the family structure. This would make him self conscious about himself and could be a reason for his actions later on in his life.

In this scene, the darkest personality of Heathcliff begins to rule Wuthering Heights and the Grange. As a wicked person Heathcliff intend to ruin his tormentors, to destroy the Earnshaws, the Lintons, and even their

Hindley and Mr. Linton fear Heathcliff’s malevolence and violence, trying to avoid him as much as possible because of it. Mr. Linton forbids his daughter, Cathy, from visiting Wuthering Heights because he does not want Heathcliff to hurt or harm her. Hindley attempted to murder Heathcliff because of his malevolence (167). Heathcliff’s malevolence may be a symptom of his grief after Catherine died. Catherine was his only and true love, and her death may have caused him to become slightly crazy.

Throughout the novel, characters use the term 'devil' for cruel characters. This is not only Heathcliff, but also characters such as Hindley who is called “Devil daddy”.13 Unlike novels like The String of Pearls, Wuthering Heights is more ambiguous about who the main villain is and if that villain is completely evil. It is questioned if Heathcliff is a devil also by characters in the novel such as Isabella.14 Heathcliff mysterious disappearance and sudden wealth is never explained in the novel, with the characters not knowing what he did and whether or not he acted legally. In those few years Heathcliff turns from a victim into an abuser both physically and mentally. Critic N.M. Jacobs argues that Healthcliff's absence made him a man, yet with no womanly emotion15. Heathcliff is according to Jacobs not womenly in the sense of being sympathetic, instead he is angry and power-seeking. These traits that are similar to other villains in Victorian Literature and also associated with