Wuthering Heights Essay

Mr. Earnshaw, the father figure at the Wuthering Heights estates, upon returning from a trip to Liverpool, has brought a young orphan boy in place of the gifts he promised his children. Despite Mr. Earnshaw’s kind heart, the family refuses to accept the boy. Wuthering Height’s maid, Ellen “Nelly” Dean, narrating the family’s history to Lockwood, tells him the family’s first impressions and their treatment of the boy. She states, “they entirely refused to have it 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” (Brontë 40). Both children are upset at Heathcliff for have crushing the gifts their father has promised to bring back to them. Neither let him room with them, resulting in Heathcliff sleeping on the floor outside of Mr. Earnshaw’s room for the first night of his arrival. Aside from being an orphan, this was Heathcliff’s first experience with rejection at Wuthering Heights. Not only did the children dislike Heathcliff for have ruining their gifts, but the adults did not appreciate his arrival either. Nelly claims she hopes “it might be he gone on the morrow” (Brontë 40). In addition to wishing the boy would disappear, she refers to Heathcliff as not the pronoun “he,” but with the word “it,” degrading him to a “thing” as opposed to a human being. Nelly then descripes Mrs. Earnshaw’s opinion on the boy, “Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for?,” (Brontë 39). She is just as welcoming as the children and maid, Nelly, are. She refers to him as a derogatory, gypsy boy,

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.

However Catherine lured Heathcliff into a relationship, brain washed him into thinking that she truely loved him and was going to marry him one fine day. Instead she discarded their relationship and decided to marry Edgar Linton, a wealthy man. Catherine discarded her relationship with Heathcliff, for one main reason and that was because he was not a wealthy man. It was obvious that Catherine married Edgar so she could be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood and if she married Heathcliff it would degrade her and they would both end up as beggars . This a good example of how Heathcliff was a victim of class hatred.

The Development of Heathcliff’s Character in Wuthering Heights Heathcliff is a character who is ever present in “Wuthering Heights” and throughout the novel his character changes. At first he is a poor, homeless child, then he becomes a loved and neglected victim, then he is a degraded lover, and finally he transforms into a vicious, lonely master. Heathcliff is introduced into the novel as a homeless child. He is a ‘“dirty, ragged, black-haired child”’ who Mr. Earnshaw brings to Wuthering Heights from Liverpool. He is constantly referred to as ‘it’ and a ‘gypsy’.

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

The ugliness of human nature is undoubtedly shown through toxic relationships in Wuthering Heights. They toxicity can be shown through almost every character relationship. The bain of toxic relationships can be shown right in the beginning of the novel with Hindley and Heathcliff. They immediately get off on the wrong foot all because one of them chooses to let their ugliness take over. Hindley is extremely jealous of Heathcliff, “...and is subject to Hindley's jealousy almost right away” (Galt). His jealousy sparks from the fact that his father seems to favour Heathcliff over him. This does Heathcliff no favours as it causes Hindley to be cruel and brutal towards him. Infact, on several occasions Hindley can be found almost abusing Heathcliff, "Take my colt, Gipsy, then!" said young Earnshaw. "And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and he damned, you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has.” (Bronte 4) and “‘ Off dog!’ cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay.” (Bronte 45). The abuse and hatred that Heathcliff receives from such a young age cause him to give the same treatment in the other relationships in his life. In Heathcliff’s relationship with Isabella he can be seen showing the same abuse towards her, Heathcliff seized, and thrust Isabella from the room; and returned muttering—"I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and grind

Heathcliff was the primary character that drove the plot of Wuthering Heights. The novel began and ended with him and his vindictive actions are most important to the progression of the story. He was unique from the other characters in the way that he looked, with “black eyes [withdrawn] so suspiciously under their brows...[and] dirty, ragged, black hair” (Bronte 3, 37). Mr. Earnshaw had generously brought this gipsy boy when he returned from a trip, picking him up from the miserable factory towns occupied by the lower classes in 1840. Earnshaw’s family did not receive this boy well, so Heathcliff was often characterized as a demon, epitomizing the equivocal attitude of the upper class, who at times felt charitable to and at times afraid of the lower 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

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

The social classes in Wuthering Heights are an insight to the society that  Emily Bronte experienced. The British society of 1770 wasn’t accepting of a person with darker features which is reflected in how Heathcliff is treated in the novel. Orphans were also never meant to rise from their station below the servants. This is an insight into why Hindley Earnshaw hated Heathcliff and referred to him as a usurper of his father’s affections. When Hidley became master of Wuthering Heights he returned Heathcliff to his “rightful” place.

In the first part of Nelly’s narration, she begins by telling how Heathcliff comes about the house. ‘We crowed round, and, over Miss Cathy’s head, I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child.’ Such language explores that he is no ordinary child. The other children - Hindley and Cathy, couldn’t believe what their father had bought home. ‘Mrs Earnshaw was ready to chuck it out of the doors…asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house.’ Such a phrase would imply that if they were seen with the ‘gipsy’ they would be looked down on. They don’t understand Mr Earnshaw’s reason to bring him home. Cathy and Hindley rejected Heathcliff ‘they entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room..I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might be gone on the morrow’ Nobody wanted it to be part of the household. This first introduction to Heathcliff already explores the view he is socially beneath the other inhabitants of Wuthering Heights. He is typically described as outside of the family structure. This would make him self conscious about himself and could be a reason for his actions later on in his life.

wait, if I can do it at last I hope he does not die before I do!"

The Wuthering Heights estate is first introduced to a fit of mental illness with the bringing of Heathcliff onto the property as a young boy. From an early age Heathcliff is shaped into the later psychopath he becomes, evident in his childhood treatment of the Wuthering Heights household: