Essay on Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

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.

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.

In the novel ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Emily Bronte, Heathcliff is presented with qualities of a villain. He is cruel, brutal and vindictive, however is sympathized with from the reader with the understanding of his actions due to the abusive events that he experiences in his life. Heathcliff is treated brutally and therefore becomes the product of that abuse.

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.

The lady of the Linton house, “visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily” (81). Catherine is clearly a changed girl for she returns to Wuthering Heights with manners and grace. The woman at Thrushcross Grange made her think that she was now superior to those in lower classes. While Catherine knew deep down that she still loved Heathcliff, she ignored this and married Edgar Linton in order to make herself seem higher in social standing instead of hurting her social standing by marrying Heathcliff. She states, "I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it.

Growing up in this wild and stormy household, Heathcliff also takes on these attributes. After Hindley gambles the house away and dies, Heathcliff becomes the master, belittling Hareton?a destined gentleman of the area--to a lowly, uneducated, friendless servant, often beating him as Hindley did himself. Besides beating Hindley's son, Heathcliff also strikes young Cathy in a fit of rage: "with this liberated hand, and, pulling her on his knee, administered with the other a shower of terrific slaps on both sides of the head" (258), and when Nelly attempts to stop him, Heathcliff silences her by "a touch on the chest" (258). Like their surroundings, the occupants of Wuthering Heights are strong, rugged, and stormy.

Isabella thought that Heathcliff was a charming man, affectionate, caring, and comforting. Everything that Catherine said he was not going to in essence. Isabella however resisted her sister-in-law’s words and was deluded to believe that Heathcliff would be those nice things. Nelly feels sympathetic for Isabella because of the horrid treatment she is receiving that no woman or man should ever have to endure. Catherine would probably feel the same way but she is not made aware of Isabella’s situation however it is likely she too would feel sympathetic for her. Edgar on the other hand does not feel sympathetic at all and he feels that it was brought upon Isabella herself for her foolish character and disobedience. Edgar thinks it’s best to cut off communications with Heathcliff and Isabella highlighting the separation of the Linton’s and their respect for one another. In essence, one feels sorry for Isabella’s suffering but feels that she was dumb enough to get herself into it

Since Edgar and Isabella were sources of oppression in Heathcliff’s childhood, Heathcliff feels the need to plot for revenge against them. Heathcliff’s reappearance is his first act of revenge, because he immediately makes Edgar jealous.

Before she is aware of how a woman is to act in society, she is able to operate with her freedom outside of these norms, yet as soon as she is pressured to adhere to a feminine role, her defined desires immediately changed. This change is clearly seen in her decision to abandon her love for Heathcliff in favor of stable wealth and class, “I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now.” (Brontë 86). While Catherine loves Heathcliff and understands that they complete each other, after being introduced to societal views of femininity, she feels compelled to conform. Even though she once viewed Heathcliff as a companion, she now looks at him through another lens—society’s.

At the beginning of the novel, Heathcliff had experience cruelty. He was an orphan, who did not have a family until Mr. Earnshaw decided to make him part of his family. One of Mr. Earnshaw childs is cruel to Heathcliff, and makes him feel as he does not belong to the family, and that he should know his place. As well as Edgar, who does not want Heathcliff or his wife Catherine to be friends. Later on Heathcliff seeks revenge on the Earnshaw family.

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)

In this scene, the darkest personality of Heathcliff begins to rule Wuthering Heights and the Grange. As a wicked person Heathcliff intend to ruin his tormentors, to destroy the Earnshaws, the Lintons, and even their

Wuthering Heights displays countless scenes of violence stirred with passion and savagery. Every character in the novel radiates either naivety, monstrosity, corruption, brutality, or fragility through their actions or their words. Towards the end of the novel in chapter 27, Heathcliff, who is notorious for his ferocious temperament, traps his son, Linton, and his future daughter in law, Cathy, and forces them to marry as the last vicious event on his quest for revenge. However, before the scene begins, Linton shows his true colors to Cathy when he admits how weak and cruel he is, and begs her to stay for the sake of his safety. Whenever Heathcliff joins the two outside of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff’s earned but not properly inherited estate, Linton clings to Cathy out of humiliation and helplessness. Cathy then leaps into a fit of anger and demands that Heathcliff

While at Thrushcross Grange, she grows infatuated with Edgar, despite her love for Heathcliff. Edgar came from an upper class family as well and took care of her when she was in a dog accident. This leads to her acceptance of Edgar Linton’s marriage proposal despite her statements regarding her love for Heathcliff. Heathcliff overhears unfortunate passages of Catherine's discourse and disappears for a period during which he mysteriously makes his fortune and changes irrevocably from the person he was. Vengeance consumes him, and Heathcliff attempts to destroy the lives of those who wronged him, (as well as their children). Ultimately, Heathcliff’s bitterly executed vengeance is effaced by a love between Hareton and Cathy that mirrors Heathcliff’s own love for Catherine. Hareton is Catherine’s nephew and Cathy is Catherine’s daughter, which makes the two first cousins.