How Is Heathcliff Successful?

"His violence and cruelty seemed too demonic for many readers..." Does the modern reader share this view of Heathcliff? Author of Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë, was born in Thornton, Yorkshire on 30 July 1818. She was born the fifth of six children and died at the age of thirty from consumption. The Brontë children had a love for creating stories and small books, but it was sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne who embarked on writing their own novels. They published their work under the names of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, not willing to declare themselves as female authors because of the sheer intensity of passion contained in their novels, which would not have been considered at all feminine at the time. It was beyond the Mr Earnshaw brings Heathcliff to the Heights when he is still but a boy of about fourteen. Mr Earnshaw finds him starving and homeless in streets of Liverpool, takes pity and returns home with the boy. Cathy immediately shows affection to the stranger but Hindley draws away from him, and instead tortures and scorns him. When Brontë composed her book, the English economy was severely depressed and the conditions of the factory workers in industrial areas like Liverpool were appalling. Many of the more affluent members of society showed sympathy to these workers, just as Mr Earnshaw may have shown sympathy towards poor Heathcliff. The reader, modern or Victorian, can also therefore immediately sympathise with Heathcliff as a weak, powerless child; defenceless to Hindley's brutality towards him and when Mr Earnshaw's health fails him Hindley spitefully degrades Heathcliff, banishing him to the stables, away from the house. However Cathy and Heathcliff still grow closer. They are both wild and free-spirited, born to run out on the moors together. "They both promised to grow up as rude savages... One of their chief amusements was to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day."

A community alters its lifestyle as a new era arises. Emily Bronte, in her novel Wuthering Heights, compiles how people behaved in the 19th century through the characters: Heathcliff, Catherine Earnshaw, and Catherine Linton. The novel allows readers to observe the living circumstances of those days. Several customs of the Victorian era might seem awkward from a modern point of view. Especially, how the privileged treated women and those of a different race. The minorities in Wuthering Heights suffer from the experience of repressing their identity. They must dress, speak, and act as others expect them to, based on protocols assigned to their race and gender by the bourgeois class of Anglo-Saxon and men. Social minorities in Wuthering Heights

The gothic and often disturbing Wuthering Heights is Emily Bronte’s classic novel that contains undeniably powerful writing that created her timeless love story. Andrea Arnold transformed her masterpiece into a cinematic rendition to recreate the wild and passionate story of the deep and destructive love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff.

Emily Brontë, one of five sisters in the Brontë family of writers, is well-known for her elegant writing style in her poems. Published in 1847, a year before Emily Brontë’s death, Wuthering Heights is Brontë’s only novel. As a tragic novel, Wuthering Heights embodies the true 19th century tragedy with features such as its dramatic plot, catharsis emotions, and ability to fascinate and horrify the reader at the same time. In the romantic novel, social relevance is a prominent theme as Heathcliff, the protagonist, seeks revenge for squandering his chances of being with his soul mate, Catherine Earnshaw. As a novel of such pronounced literary merit, Wuthering Heights has a complex plot built on its strong female characters, social class differences, and recurring cycles. Specifically, the recurring cycles lead the reader to the resolution of the novel without having trouble identifying all of the subplot issues brought out during the novel. Overall, the most important element in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is the motif of recurring cycles.

[7] Conversely, 'Wuthering Heights ' may be interpreted as a socio-economic novel. The novel opens in 1801, a date Q.D. Leavis believes Brontë chose in order “to fix its happenings at a time when the old rough farming culture, based on a naturally patriarchal family life, was to be challenged, tamed and routed by social and cultural changes”. At the time, the Industrial Revolution was under way in England; it was a dominant force in English economy and society. The traditional social class- dynamic was disrupted by an upwardly-inspired middle class. A new standard for defining a gentleman was challenging the conservative ideals of breeding and family. This reality provides the context for socio-economic readings of the novel. [8]

Wuthering Heights is a novel which deviates from the standard of Victorian literature. The novels of the Victorian Era were often works of social criticism. They generally had a moral purpose and promoted ideals of love and brotherhood. Wuthering Heights is more of a Victorian Gothic novel; it contains passion, violence, and supernatural elements (Mitchell 119). The world of Wuthering Heights seems to be a world without morals. In Wuthering Heights, Brontë does not idealize love; she presents it realistically, with all its faults and merits. She shows that love is a powerful force which can be destructive or redemptive. Heathcliff has an all-consuming passion for Catherine. When she chooses to marry Edgar, his spurned love turns into a

Wuthering Heights: Character Traits of Heathcliff Someone having their true lover marry another person whom they do not truly love would be a difficult and undesirable situation. How a person in a similar situation reacts to it, especially in the long term, can reveal a lot about their character. Such is the case with Heathcliff, the main character of Wuthering Heights, a novel written by Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights takes place from the late eighteenth century through the early 1800s (decade) within the two houses of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange and on the land surrounding them (1, 58). The two houses are located in England and are near the village of Gimmerton (1, 102).

Heathcliff’s Peculiar Ending Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte was published in 1847 and received many contradictory judgements. One main judgement that criticized the novel was how multiple characters can have a change in characterization depending on the reader. Many of the novel's characters, such as Heathcliff, possess positive values, but readers tend to focus on their negative qualities which allows these characters to change. Growing up poor and homeless, Heathcliff’s character changes many times throughout the novel as he grows older and possess negative qualities towards other characters. Later residing as an old, lonely master, Heathcliff’s change in character at the end of Wuthering Heights signifies that he has gone mad and leads to intentions that Heathcliff has not committed suicide, but lost all will after all he has been through.

The social classes in Wuthering Heights are an insight to the society that  Emily Bronte experienced. The British society of 1770 wasn’t accepting of a person with darker features which is reflected in how Heathcliff is treated in the novel. Orphans were also never meant to rise from their station below the servants. This is an insight into why Hindley Earnshaw hated Heathcliff and referred to him as a usurper of his father’s affections. When Hidley became master of Wuthering Heights he returned Heathcliff to his “rightful” place.

Setting Analysis and Symbolism of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses the setting of the English Moors, a setting she is familiar with, to place two manors, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The first symbolizes man's dark side while the latter symbolizes an artificial utopia. This 19th century setting allows the reader to see the destructive nature of love when one loves the wrong person.

Class is likewise an issue. There was a class chain of command in Bronte's England, and this can be found in the novel too. The family of Wuthering Heights appear to be less fortunate than the Lintons at Thrushcross Grange. Despite the fact that she adores him, Catherine won't wed Heathcliff after he has been corrupted, and rather weds into the rich Linton family, bringing on the majority of the real clash in the novel. The Lintons are of a higher class both in light of the fact that they have more cash and don't appear to need to work, and on the grounds that they are better taught.

Many authors use the setting of a novel to illuminate certain values and principles in their writing. In Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte utilizes this technique to enhance the theme of the work. The novel is set in a harsh environment in Northern England, highlighting two specific estates, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, as the main places of action. The dreary landscape and houses not only serve as the primary setting, but also as major symbols that aide in establishing the tone and enhancing the novel's theme of good versus evil.

The novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847) by Emily Brontë and the film adaptation ‘Wuthering Heights’ (2011) by Andrea Arnold each convey respective values and perspectives reflective of the contrasting contexts and forms of each text. The novel, set in the Romantic period, is centred around two families living on the isolated, Yorkshire moors, and the explosive interactions between them. The concept of confinement contrasts against the freedom of nature throughout the novel. Nature is another key theme and a fundamental aspect of the Romantic period, used to present ideas such as rebellion and freedom. Finally, passion within human relationships is thoroughly explored through Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship within the novel. However, as the film adaptation is a product of a contemporary post-feminist, post-colonial time period, these themes can now be explored through lenses such as racial discrimination, feminism, and human connection.

Human beings can be truly deranged creatures. Often times they are seen as elevating and putting themselves on a pedestal. They will treat people who are not the same as them as they are garbage and worthless. Although it is not their fault to simply put it, it is human nature. More specifically the ugliness of human nature. The complex characters in Wuthering Heights are guilty of this. Their circumstances drive them to do unthinkable things which unfortunately have drastic outcomes. Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights is a beautifully written novel that shows the ugliness of human nature as seen through the depiction of toxic relationships, displaying revenge and vengeance in the differentiation of social class.

Heathcliff was the primary character that drove the plot of Wuthering Heights. The novel began and ended with him and his vindictive actions are most important to the progression of the story. He was unique from the other characters in the way that he looked, with “black eyes [withdrawn] so