Essay on Love, Hate and Cruelty in Wuthering Heights

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.

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]

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

Cruelty compels one to inflict cruelty upon others. In her novel, Wuthering Heights, Brontë illustrates the rough life of Heathcliff, conflicted with whether he should focus his life on loving Catherine Earnshaw or inflicting revenge on those who tortured him as a child. Mr. Earnshaw adopts Heathcliff into the Earnshaw family as an orphan gypsy, a social class that most of the Earnshaw did not care for. The eldest child of Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley, abuses Heathcliff horribly, shaping the way Heathcliff perceives the world around him. Catherine Earnshaw, Hindley’s younger sister, motivates Heathcliff to endure this pain through their affectionate relationship. With his heart focused on revenge, Heathcliff devises a cruel plan to retaliate those who hurt him; he returns to Wuthering Heights as a refined, powerful man. He takes some of his anger out on Hareton Earnshaw, Hindley’s son; this parallels Hindley’s abuse towards Heathcliff. Through Hindley’s and Heathcliff’s abusiveness in Wuthering Heights, Brontë asserts that cruelty cycles from its perpetrators to its victims.

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

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.

was to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day."

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

Novels often use the emotion of hate to create tension and distress in the plot. Wuthering Heights uses Heathcliff’s disdain for the other characters to add conflict to the story. Wuthering Heights examines the source of Heathcliff’s hate as well as its effects on the other characters throughout the story. Heathcliff’s relationships with other characters also suggests the universal theme that breeds hatred.

In her statement, Catherine, is describing how strong her love is for Heathcliff. She states that her love will never end. Catherine states that she is one with Heathcliff, for they share the same thoughts and the same mind. This quote shows that the bond of love cannot be broken and will stand the test of time.

The novel of Wuthering Heights involves passion, romance, and turmoil but most significantly carries cruelty as an overarching theme. Cruelty is apparent throughout the work most importantly when dealing with relationships between Heathcliff and Hindley, Heathcliff and Hareton, and even the emotional cruelty between Heathcliff and Catherine.

The Suffering of the Women in Wuthering Heights It appears that Catherine's expectations are unrealistic especially when placed in the historical context. The novel is written during the Victorian era where the role of women in relation to marriage was that they were to be obedient, disciplined and faithful to their husband. Catherine does not fulfil any of these roles in the long term. Firstly, she marries Edgar for social and financial benefits.

In Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is madly in love with Catherine and as she is with him but Catherine

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights accompanies a vast plethora of critical conversation regarding family structures within the novel; however, the claim that parental supervision does not exist in the novel has not been explored to its full potential. Critics such as Laura Berry, who focuses on the incarceration within custody of children in the novel, and Judith Pike, who delves into Isabella’s true character, do not fully encompass the significance the lack of parenting has on the novel. I argue that there is no character in Wuthering Heights who can be considered a parent or guardian figure. The characters that are in parental roles, such as the Earnshaw’s Isabella, Heathcliff, Mr. Linton, and Nelly Dean do not fulfill the requirements for parental supervision.

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