Is Heathcliff A True Villain Essay

Readers often pity literary characters who play the role of a victim. In Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Heathcliff: an outsider brought into the wealthy Earnshaw family, Hindley: the eldest Earnshaw child with a strong dislike for Heathcliff, and Hareton: the orphaned child Heathcliff takes in to raise, are victims, yet they evolve to perpetuate the abuse they suffered. Being able to be or become a victim or victimizer show the complexity of these characters. Emily Bronte manipulates readers to pity Heathcliff, Hindley, and Hareton, in spite of the hideous pain they inflict on others. John Hagan states, “Wuthering Heights is such a remarkable work partly because it persuades us to forcibly pity victims and

A morally ambiguous character is a character who is conflicted and uncertain in which course of action to ethically take during specific situations. In Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, the character Heathcliff is the most morally ambiguous character in the novel. Raised in in an environment where he was psychologically and physically deteriorated, his motives and actions appear justifiable. His environment, motives, and actions showcase Heathcliff’s moral ambiguity.

Bronte, The author of the Wuthering Heights, expresses many themes and morals in her book. The one most important in the Wuthering Heights is the theme of love and cruelty. The main characters, Catherine and Heathcliff, show these actions time and time again. They occur because of the other, much like the yin and the yang. Love leads to cruelty and cruelty leads to love. In Wuthering Heights, there are two different types of love shown: platonic and passionate. Both of these types of love lead to cruelty to other characters. As Heathcliff states boldly within the first few chapters of the novel, love’s cruelty survives even beyond death. “Cathy, do come. Oh do – once more! Oh! My heart’s darling; hear me this time, Catherine, at last!”

In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Heathcliff’s strong love for Catherine guides his transformation as a character. While Heathcliff enters the story as an innocent child, the abuse he receives at a young age and his heartbreak at Catherine’s choice to marry Edgar Linton bring about a change within him. Heathcliff’s adulthood is consequently marked by jealousy and greed due to his separation from Catherine, along with manipulation and a deep desire to seek revenge on Edgar. Although Heathcliff uses deceit and manipulation to his advantage throughout the novel, he is never entirely content in his current situation. As Heathcliff attempts to revenge Edgar Linton, he does not gain true fulfillment. Throughout Wuthering Heights, Brontë uses Heathcliff’s vengeful actions to convey the message that manipulative and revenge-seeking behaviors will not bring a person satisfaction.

First of all, Hareton is one of the two last characters that remain alive until the end of the story and also one of the “winners” of the novel. Hareton’s kindness and goodness extricate all the wickedness of his family starting from Hindley and Heathcliff to Young Linton. Almost until the end of the story, nobody considers him because Heathcliff’s maleficence has never given him the possibility to express himself. At the end of the novel, the real Hareton appears; he starts to court Young Cathy and to rebel against Heathcliff’s bullying and arrogance. He is romantic and loving boy towards Cathy and he gets an education by learning how to read with her. “The task was done, not free from further blunders; but the pupil claimed a reward, and received at least five kisses, which however he generously returned” (Bronte 308). Hareton is the one in the story to reflect the most Mr. Earnshaw personality; he brings positivity to the novel. With Young Cathy almost the same situation occurs. She is raised in an opposite circumstance to where her mother was born, and so her purity and goodness “hide” all of her mother’s sins and errors. Not being aware of what her

Through the actions Heathcliff pursues throughout the entirety of the novel, it is furtively easy to only see him as a malicious brute. In retrospect, the further along one continues throughout the novel, the more it feels as if Bronte is encouraging readers to hate the protagonist; this, however, is not the case. This is evident from the commencement of the novel, through the author’s vivid depictions of the ways in which Heathcliff was brought upon society, starting from his introduction to the Earnshaws. “They entirely refused to have it (Heathcliff) 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------This was Heathcliff's first introduction to the family” (Bronte 59).

Emily Bronte’s portrayal of Heathcliff presents him to readers “as dark almost as if it came from the devil’ and a ‘dirty, ragged, black-haired child.” (Emily Bronte) Although her suggestive description indicates Heathcliff is black, the author’s lack of a definitive depiction evokes ambiguity. Bronte purposefully intrigues readers with her absence of certainty by selecting specific language and creating a semantic field of the colour black. Bronte resurfaces the reader’s assumptions

Heathcliff is introduced in Nelly's narration as a seven-year-old Liverpool foundling (probably an Irish famine immigrant) brought back to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw. His presence in Wuthering Heights overthrows the prevailing habits of the Earnshaw family, members of the family soon become involved in turmoil and fighting and family relationships become spiteful and hateful. Even on his first night, he is the reason Mr. Earnshaw breaks the toys he had bought for his children. "From the very beginning he bred bad feelings in the house". Heathcliff usurps the affections of Mr. Earnshaw to the exclusion of young Hindley-: "The young master had learnt to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a

When one starts reading Wuthering heights I’m sure they think to themselves that the book will be just another romantic novel. They wait for Heathcliff to come around the whole story, and for him and Catherine to end up together, but it doesn’t happen. This causes Heathcliff to get progressively, more and more alienated by the people around him. He only wants what he can’t have and this is why he is referred to as a Byronic Hero. It is my intention to prove Heathcliff as a Byronic Hero by classifying him under the six attributes of the archetype.

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

Love is a strong attachment between two lovers and revenge is a strong conflict between two rivals. In the novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte uses setting to establish contrast, to intensify conflict, and to develop character. The people and events of Wuthering Heights share a dramatic conflict. Thus, Bronte focuses on the evil eye of Heathcliff's obsessive and perpetual love with Catherine, and his enduring revenge to those who forced him and Catherine apart. The author expresses the conflict of Wuthering Heights with great intensity. Hence, she portrays a combination of crucial issues of romance and money, hate and power, and lastly

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.

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

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).