The Double Characters in Wuthering Heights Essay example

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.

Heathcliff is a victim of class hatred but he also manipulates situations to his advantage and becomes an arch - exploiter. For example, after the death of his wife, Hindley went insane. Heathcliff used this opportunity to take revenge and took Wuthering Heights away from Hindley. He then went further and married Edgar’s sister, not for love or monetary gain but to get back at Edgar for marrying Catherine, and treated Edgar’s sister terribly.

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.

Heathcliff has an obsession with Catherine, and undergoes emotional stress after her death (Bloomfield 291). His unsympathetic personality is also a trait of his mental disorder (Bloomfield 297). Heathcliff’s obsession can be classified as Monomania, he is fixed on one idea to the extent of physical and mental destruction (Bloomfield 295). Heathcliff lets hid ID take over instead of suppressing his instinctual feelings. Heathcliff becomes reckless and self-destructive and develops psychotic depression, he then retreats to Catherine’s room to die (Bloomfield 291). Throughout the novel it seems as though Heathcliff completely ignores his Ego and Super-Ego, and lives only by his ID. Emily Bronte uses mental illness in her characters and their death to alter the plot of Wuthering Heights. All of the characters fit into periodically correct illnesses, but the focus

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

Heathcliff cried vehemently, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" Emily Brontë distorts many common elements in Wuthering Heights   to enhance the quality of her book. One of the distortions is Heathcliff's undying love for Catherine Earnshaw. Also, Brontë perverts the vindictive hatred that fills and runs Heathcliff's life after he loses Catherine. Finally, she prolongs death, making it even more distressing and insufferable.

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights display of cultural and physical features of an environment affecting one’s character and moral traits is showcased through the first Catherine’s development throughout the novel. Catherine is forced to “adopt a double character”, as she lives as a rebellious, passionate woman on the turbulent Wuthering Heights, while behaving politely and courtly on the elegant Thrushcross Grange(Bronte, 48). Each of these environments also contains a love interest of Catherine’s, each man parallel with the characteristics of their environments: Heathcliff, the passionate and destructive, residing in Wuthering Heights, while the civilized and gentle Edgar inhabits Thrushcross Grange. Catherine’s development in character due to her setting significantly contributes to the theme that pursuing passionate love is dangerous, such as the love shared by Heathcliff and Catherine.

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

In this passage, Bronte uses recurring patterns in the book to show how mistreatment can last through generations. When Heathcliff first came to Wuthering Heights, he was treated like a prince; respected, loved, and favored by all but Hindley, who was jealous of the affection given to Heathcliff. When Mr. Earnshaw passes and Hindley is left in charge, Heathcliff is forced to quit his studies and is constantly degraded to a servant position. The reader can infer that his upbringing halted his emotional maturity in a major way. He was damaged by Hindley bringing him down and when Catherine admitted to Nelly she would never marry Heathcliff because of his social position. He of course left to remedy his ruggedness, but it didn’t heal the emotional

In her novel Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë uses a formal style of writing to portray the language of those used during the early 1800s. Throughout the majority of the novel, Nelly Dean is telling the story of how Wuthering Heights came to be the place that it currently is. Throughout Dean’s narration, characters are voiced differently due to their role in society. An example of this is shown when Brontë would use fragments of words to represent the speech of Hareton, one of the servants of Wuthering Heights. In contrast, Catherine, being well educated, would use sophisticated grammar and an extensive vocabulary whenever she spoke. Heathcliff was revealed as a two-sided character in this reading. On one hand, the author would use negative

This leads to him running away from the heights entirely, leaving Catherine to marry Edgar. “He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him.” (81). Upon his return (two years later), Heathcliff marries Isabella to get back at Catherine, and her speech about how marrying him would degrade her. Isabella is also taken against her and her family’s will. Heathcliff kidnaps her and locks her away at the heights. In a letter written to Nelly, Isabella confirms that it was truly against her will for her leaving, and that she cannot return in the time of crisis in her brother’s life. “… an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding offended him: asserting that she could not help it then, and being done, no power to repeal it.” (140). In the act of kidnapping Isabella, Heathcliff’s intent is to hurt Catherine. Catherine would develop almost a jealous-like temper towards the whole situation, as Heathcliff knew it would. Even on Catherine’s deathbed, there is a constant push and pull (in almost a literal sense) of the cruelty that goes on between the two of them. Between the crying, the vexing, and the constant apologies, comes the brutal cruelty of the words Catherine speaks to Heathcliff. “I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me – and thriven on it, I think.” (164)

“The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish,” said Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island. Any person can write a book, but to be able to write what you mean and affect your readers is very difficult. A writer simply can’t just drop dialogue into a character’s mouth without having any context of the dialogue. If an author has his or her character saying “I’m broke,” what does this really mean without any context? To Oprah Winfrey, being broke may mean she can’t buy a Silk Jet, a winery, or a country. To a middle- class American, being broke may mean they can’t buy a new pair of shoes that week, buy a new car, or get their hair

Threw out the story you will see that Heathcliff has a very unhealthy passion; this is the next attribute of a Byronic Hero. This unhealthy passion is driven by revenge. As you read the book it seems that Revenge is the only thing that keeps Heathcliff going. Heathcliff returns to Wuthering Heights filthy rich after running away for 3 years when Catherine married Edgar. He uses some of his money to loan to Hindley’s gambling problem so that Hindley will become even more engulfed into debt. Heathcliff also wanted to seek revenge against Edgar for obvious reasons. So he

This essay will analyse how gender roles are represented in Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Height’s by looking at the characters of Cathy and Heathcliff. By analysing these two characters it will be clear that the protagonists challenge social conformity during the Victorian period in England. To fully realise this it is important to first understand what the prescribed roles were that they were challenging. This will be achieved through close readings of the text and references made to secondary sources to provide evidence that this opinion has been fully investigated. It will be clear by the end to see that the characters challenge the roles expected of their sex during this time and together they challenge social norms. This essay will answer ‘yes’