When a person is wronged by another, one’s first instinct is to seek revenge with the intention to inflict harm upon those who have wronged them, but instead end up harming themselves in the process. Heathcliff’s main aim throughout the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte was to seek revenge on those who have wronged him during his childhood. It presents the idea of the cycle of revenge through the literally elements of character, irony, and theme. In the novel Heathcliff passionately tries to seek revenge through anger and violence for the abuse which he experiences throughout his childhood.
This concise paper is an analogical study. It consists of three parts; the first one defines the word revenge and explains where the theme of revenge comes from and how it has expended to other types of literary works until these days. The second part of the study, is supported by exemplifies Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet. The last part of the paper, provides Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights as a good example; because one of the main themes in it is revenge.
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.
The novel Wuthering Heights and the poem “Remembrance”, both written by Emily Brontë, feature protagonists who must cope with the death of their lovers, and in many ways, the two characters are similarly affected by this. The actions and feelings of Heathcliff in the last chapter in Wuthering Heights, however, stand in sharp contrast to the last stanza of “Remembrance”. This contrast demonstrates the personal differences of the characters and how they were affected differently by their losses. Heathcliff, the protagonist of Wuthering Heights, and the speaker of “Remembrance” have different views on love (both before and after death). Consequently, while Heathcliff embraces death in the final chapter to be with his love, the speaker of “Remembrances” learns to stop dwelling in the past.
Wuthering Heights is a novel of love, jealousy, addiction, loathe, and revenge, characteristic of any kinds of redemption and how they are accomplished. As humankind awaits it’s timeless rest, they may find it ironic to learn that in every case, true redemption was never obtained without a kind of suffering. Redemption is the condition of being rescued or saved from evil and some of the characters in Wuthering Heights went through redemption. The stories of Hareton and Heathcliff, show that their salvation are no exception. The two characters experience emotionally damaging experiences to eventually finding their tranquility, whatever that serenity might be. While each of the two characters, differ from each other in what they ache through and how they conquer it, the course to redemption is built very straightforward: hurt through something marvellous and get a recompense in the end. Possibly the most
Sins manipulate, eat and digest one's moral self and humanity. William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights demonstrate the fatality of the sin of revenge. Hamlet and Heathcliff experience moral suffering and loss in their humanity through the sin of revenge. However, Hamlet merges as a hero whereas Heathcliff shines as genius a villain. The final outcome of their revenge depend on their process of reason, choice and desire throughout their lives. Many people fall and die in vain of revenge while others rise, defeat and rest free morally from the vice of revenge.
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.
The theme that will take the limelight in this paper will the concepts of injustice and justice, concentrating around the character of Heathcliff. This interesting individual is quite unique, coming into this tale, or reintroduced by Nelly as a young dark skinned lad from the streets. As soon as he comes to his new stay at Wuthering Heights, he is faced with a certain type of injustice from the blood son of Heathcliff’s adoptive father, Hindley. Taking a dislike to Heathcliff and treats him so. This is the first form of injustice, bringing him into a hard shell of sorts that makes him blunt against his adoptive sibling’s lashes at him. Here we see him slowly gather the emotions that will cause him to seek out justice against his abuser in a large mastermind plot against him and many others as time goes by, The term justice here is unique to Heathcliff,
Heathcliff is a ruthless character. No obstacle ever gets in his way when it comes to exacting revenge on several other characters in the novel, be it Hindley or Edgar Linton. He will kill or torture young and old to pay back those who have hurt him and deprived him of his love for Catherine. However, among all these atrocities, we still feel great sympathy for him. This is mainly due to the many techniques employed by Brontë and the effect of these in creating understanding and pity for Heathcliff.
Revenge is a major part in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. It began with Hindley and ruined much of Heathcliff’s young life. His lust for revenge ruined the lives of the people who loved him. Finally, in the end it caused him to commit suicide. All of these show how revenge destroys people’s lives.
In some ways the three settings in which the novel is set show the disruption of normal behaviour in the world of Wuthering Heights. This is illustrated through Heathcliff’s home which is ‘descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed to in stormy weather’, emphasising in some ways pathetic fallacy, because it suggests that Heathcliff is mentally disturbed like the stormy weather of his home. This would advocate the idea that domestication which is usually associated with a more civilised behaviour, and due to the fact that this is degraded, it means that extreme behaviour is the only normal one now. To some extent a psychoanalytical reading of Heathcliff’s emotional disarray would suggest it is based on the Freudian concept of life and death instincts. It is an important concept because life instincts are those that deal with basic survival, pleasure, and reproduction. While death instincts are based around a person’s self-conscious ability to want to die. Therefore, self-destructive behaviour is an expression of the energy created by the death instincts. When this energy is directed outward onto others, it is expressed as aggression and violence. Furthermore, it could
The novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë contains many theme and one of them is violence. As an example of that, I will use two excerpts of Wuthering Heights, the first one from Chapter 4, “’See here wife! […] though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble” (Brontë, P. 25 – 27), the second one from Chapter 20, “‘Hallo, Nelly!’ cried Mr Hethcliff, when he saw me. […] und what wer gooid enough fur him’s gooid enough fur yah, Aw’s rather think!’“ (Brontë, P. 150 – 152). Both times, the protagonist Heathcliff plays an important role in the presented violence. However, it is a contrasting role in each of the passages. Additional to that, the theme of violence in the two extracts is executed primarily in the form of verbal
Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, set in the countryside of England’s 1700’s, features a character named Heathcliff, who is brought into the Earnshaw family as a young boy and quickly falls into a passionate, blinding romance with the Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine. However, Heathcliff is soon crushed by this affection when his beloved chooses the company of another man rather than his own. For the remainder of the novel he exudes a harsh, aversive attitude that remains perduring until his demise that is induced by the loss of his soulmate, and in turn the bereavement of the person to whom the entirety of his being and his very own self were bound.
Through a sinister plotline and a tempestuous poetic style, Emily Bronte’s character of Heathcliff displays a violent and bitter personality against those who have harmed, degraded, and humiliated him in her literary masterpiece “Wuthering Heights”. Creatively, this art piece portrays a great deal of the tale’s theme of revenge. Through the siren like rose, the tortured hand, and the vengeful spirit of a snake, this piece exhibits the nature of Catherine’s love, Heathcliff’s past, and his vengeful character; all of which directly relate to the theme of a sin called revenge.
Every person has a background story that makes them who they are today. In Emily Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights, she demonstrates how anger, hatred, and revenge all create enemies and eventually the character’s downfall. Being an outsider to the Earnshaw family from the very beginning, Heathcliff’s heritage and peculiar disappearance within the book shape his relationships throughout the novel why he might despise the residents of both estates.
In Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, realism and gothic symbolism combine to form a romance novel that's full of social relevance. Follow the self-destructive journey of Heathcliff as he seeks revenge for