Is Heathcliff Succumbing To Human Nature

The complex and furious creation of Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights is a powerful novel that fiercely combines many of the greatest themes in literature, such as love and its intricacies, revenge and the its terrible effects, and the contrasts between nature and society. One of the most prevalent themes in this celebrated work is that of crime and punishment, or sin and retribution. One character in particular, Heathcliff, stands apart as a conduit for both of these, es-pecially his sins. His past crimes, both worldly and metaphysical, coincide with his punishments.

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.

Though Bronte’s star-cross lovers have seemly bend gender roles, with Catherine exhibiting more masculine traits and Heathcliff with feminine, their relationship still epitomize Beauvoir’s views on the gender dual standard in relationships. The mysterious and untamed disposition of Heathcliff drew Catherine to him, they were very much a like and had a strong connection from childhood. As this love grew it became a part very much of them. However, despite their similar personalities, they were not equals. She modifies herself for love. Catherine went against her independent character and rejected herself to be one with Heathcliff. While, he remains the same. Heathcliff never truly sees Catherine as his equal, he persists on being the superior. Though he has called her his existence on numerous occasions, Heathcliff never refers to himself as Catherine. His love stems from his obsession to possess her and her adoration. Like, the slave owner, he is the master who needs his slave to perpetuate his superiority, she is a conquest to be collected. Ergo, as Heathcliff was losing Catherine to the clutches of death, he exclaims that would never forget her because she is his existence (Bronte 124). A master

When Heathcliff returns three years later, his love for Catherine motivates him to enact revenge upon all those who separated him from her. Since he last saw Catherine, he has “fought through a bitter life”; he “struggled only for [her]” (Brontë 71). Nelly observes a “half-civilized ferocity” in Heathcliff’s brows (Brontë 70); she views him as “an evil beast…waiting his time to spring and destroy” (Brontë 79). Heathcliff’s obsessive love for Catherine becomes a menacing threat. Heathcliff reproaches Catherine because she “treated [him]

As a consequence of Heathcliff's visit to the Grange, Edgar's sister Isabella falls in love with him, and her feelings seem to be sincere. In this one-sided love affair Heathcliff takes advantage of the innocent girl's infatuation to foster his obsession for revenge. (Isabella is her brother's heir). Catherine's reaction is very hard to interpret. It is natural that she is jealous, if she still feels the same for him as before, and that may be the reason why she dissuades Isabella from marrying Heathcliff. But the words she uses, telling her what an abominable creature Heathcliff is, are not the sort you expect to hear from someone talking of a sweetheart. Later on when her husband and Heathcliff are having a quarrel, she stops Edgar from hurting her friend . There is an excess of emotion, and her explanation to this behaviour is that she wants them both, Edgar and Heathcliff: "Well, if I cannot keep Heathcliff for my friend - if Edgar will be mean and jealous, I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own" (109).Her love for Heathcliff has not cooled down, instead it seems to be a stronger obsession than ever considering the torments she goes through, when she becomes seriously ill.The last time Catherine and Heathcliff see each other is a very heart-rending meeting. Their love for each other is as strong as ever, and Heathcliff

Heathcliff is abused; his only source of love is his dearest Catherine, yet even that love cannot thrive in Heathcliff’s environment. The problem is not that his love is unrequited, but rather that Catherine believes she would fall to ruin if she were to be with Heathcliff “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him---because he's more

The only consolation for him is the friendship and love of Catherine for him. However, when Heathcliff hears Catherine saying that ‘’it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff, he feels distracted, broken inside, because the only one who he thought loved him, betrays him. These words he heard from Catherine, turns him into a wild beast, filled with anger and resentment and he runs away and disappears for about three years after hearing that. He comes back at Wuthering Heights, now rich and well educated, only to take revenge on those who treated him ill and degraded him. His actions, starting those towards Hindley, seem to go beyond capability of a normal person. Resentment, hate and his ill-consciousness have occupied his mind and spirit. He is now transformed into an evil, whose deeds not only destroy his own soul, but also other people’s life. However, the readers, get to know through carefully analyzing the behaviors of characters, that Heathcliff does not seem to be ‘’the worst’’ among the other characters of this

Emily Bronte uses effects of the characters’ actions to show that individuals who exhibit narcissistic personality disorder cannot participate in a functional, fulfilling relationship. Her ideas gain clarity when looking at each relationship involving a narcissist individually. Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw’s ties, central to the novel’s plot, encounter numerous and nasty obstacles as a result of their unending love - for themselves. Despite claiming to love each other unconditionally, to the point where Cathy claims “I am Heathcliff” (Bronte ), they consistently act on their own urges with no concern for the other. Hence, their feelings never actually come to fruition before Catherine dies. Nevertheless, the mutual burning passion between the two not only results in love, but a fair amount of hatred. When Catherine’s illness leads her to her deathbed, instead of comforting her, Heathcliff berates her for causing him pain, going so far as to say she’s “possessed with a devil” (Bronte ) for the way she acts toward him. Before her death, many other issues were at hand. Another one of the faults in their “love” is their need to make each other jealous. Cathy marries Edgar for the wealth and honor (Bronte ch. 9) and Heathcliff marries Isabella to make Edgar angry (Bronte ch. 11) according to each of the star-crossed lovers. However, their ulterior motives are clear: to make the other want themselves more through jealousy.

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 finally meets Catherine for the last time as he tells her that, Heathcliff is angered with her even at her deathbed and is vengeful even when she is taking her last breaths. He is in the belief that when his revenge on Catherine is complete, he will regain his tattered identity. He fulfills his vengeance by telling Catherine that she, “deserves this” and that she has, “killed herself”. However, after Catherine’s death and his revenge fulfilled, Heathcliff feels as lost as ever, he comes to understand that the only way he can recover his true identity is to be with his true love, Catherine. With Heathcliff having, All of the calculating, rage, and cruelty have finally tired Heathcliff.

Heathcliff, however, defies being understood, and it is difficult for readers to resist seeing what they want or expect to see in him. The novel teases the reader with the possibility that Heathcliff is something other than what he seems—that his cruelty is merely an expression of his frustrated love for Catherine, or that his sinister behaviors serve to conceal the heart of a romantic hero. We expect Heathcliff’s character to contain such a hidden virtue because he resembles a hero in a romance

Like Heathcliff, she was also a wild spirit, intrinsically inclined toward Wuthering Heights, yet capable of adapting to high-society living. However, she could not continue to ignore her inherent affinity for both Heathcliff and the natural world. Only as she approached death did she finally admit that she “[didn’t] want…Edgar” or Thrushcross Grange to be her home (Brontë 127). Catherine’s frantic love for Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights manifested as the “brain fever” that led to her death, symbolizing the conflict between her effort to fit into society and her longing for a life free of constraints with Heathcliff (Brontë 132). Despite his newfound suffering, Heathcliff continues to love Catherine, even after her

“but where did he come from, the little dark thing, harbored by a good man to his bane” (Bronte c34) Heathcliff is a very troubled and dark man, but he did not become this way overnight. In this essay, I will be explaining how Heathcliff became who he was and how he morphed from an abandoned street urchin into a diabolical wealthy Miser. Many things or people influence Heathcliff’s life such as how he has been treated, the violence displayed to him and from him, and Catherine and the way she acts when she is with him and when she is with others. All of these factors have made Heathcliff the way he was portrayed at the end of the novel.

Catherine loves Edgar because of many things he was, but if he wasn’t that, Catherine might not love him. In Catherine heart, Heathcliff, there is almost only Heathcliff. “My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the tree. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visible delight, but necessary” (Bronte, 60).

Many romantic characters are expected to have a hidden, caring nature underneath their sinister front, or an unbridled love deriving from their cruelty. However, in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff exhibits none of these qualities, and instead provides the reader with a character who is fundamentally evil. Bronte’s concept of good and evil is largely based on the character’s appearance; in turn, a character’s appearance directly corresponds to their ability to feel empathy. Therefore, Heathcliff is described as a satanic character, which determines his evil behaviors; he is not justified in his crimes because he intentionally and maliciously harms innocent people who have never done him wrong.