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The Development of Heathcliff's Character in Wuthering Heights
Character of heathcliff in wuthering heights
Assess the character of Heathcliff in the novel Wuthering Heights
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Character Analysis Despicable and pitiable come to mind when one thinks of the terrible yet confusing, Heathcliff. Heathcliff is the main character in Emily Bronte’s classic novel Wuthering Heights, and the whole novel revolves around this intriguing man from the time he arrives to Wuthering Heights as a cruel and dark person. He is a man who shuns humanity because he has been hated. Heathcliff does not laugh, he grins. He does not speak, he snarls. Heathcliff forms a special bond with Catherine, and they spend more than enough time together. Catherine ended up spraying her ankle and was invited to stay until it healed, but Heathcliff was not invited and had to go back to Wuthering Heights alone. The huge turning point for Heathcliff is when
Primarily, Heathcliff's hunger for revenge blindsides the character’s, Hindley, Catherine, Hareton, and young Catherine. Revenge is what Heathcliff wishes to
To begin with, when young Heathcliff was brought back from Liverpool to live with Mr. Earnshaw at Wuthering Heights, the family members despise and show hostility toward the inferior child presumably because Heathcliff is lower class. Certainly, the landscape Heathcliff enters into is “exposed in stormy weather…power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun” (4). The detailed description of the dismal landscape demonstrates that the society is twisting and destroying humanity through a violent ravage. After Mr. Earnshaw’s death Hindley “[drives] Heathcliff from
In her novel, Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë uses psychological disorders in order to amplify the characters relationships. While Hindley, Linton, Edgar, and other minor characters suffer from multiple psychological disorders, it is Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff whose disorders shape the layout of the novel through their deep relationship. Their disorders range from histrionic personality disorder to monomania to Munchausen syndrome. Cathy and Heathcliff’s obsession for attention and each other drive them to develop psychological disorders that worsen throughout the novel due to lack of medical knowledge and diagnosis.
From the beginning of the novel and most likely from the beginning of Heathcliff's life, he has suffered pain and rejection. When Mr. Earnshaw brings him to Wuthering Heights, he is viewed as a thing rather than a child. Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out the doors, while Nelly put it on the landing of the stairs hoping that it would be gone the next day. Without having done anything to deserve rejection, Heathcliff is made to feel like an outsider. Following the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff suffers cruel mistreatment at the hands of Hindley. In these tender years, he is deprived of love, friendship, and education, while the treatment from jealous Hindley is barbaric and disrupts his mental balance. He is separated from the family, reduced to the status of a servant, undergoes regular beatings and forcibly separated from his soul mate, Catherine. The personality that Heathcliff develops in his adulthood has been formed in response to these hardships of his childhood.
As a child and adolescent, both Heathcliff’s sullen manner and unpleasant appearance fail to comply with the so called heroic characteristics that are often encompassed by the genuine romance hero. He does however pursue many similar traits to that of the Byronic hero including his arrogant and selfish morality. “Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married”. Bronte commonly uses other characters prejudice outlooks to emphasise Heathcliff’s unruly behaviour and appearance. One character ...
Wuthering Heights, a novel by Emily Brontë, is a passionate love story, but is also a story fueled by revenge and hatred. This is especially true for one of the main characters, Heathcliff, who lives a life full of bitterness and contempt. The last straw that turns Heathcliff into a vengeful man is when his childhood friend marries someone else. He ends up making a decision that impacts the life of his childhood friend's daughter, Cathy, all out of revenge against her father. These terrible events that plagued Heathcliff are what drive him to take revenge on those who wronged him, and make this a story of good and evil, and of hate and love.
Heathcliff is a character who was abused in his childhood by Catherine’s brother, Hindley, because of his heritage as a “gypsy”, and Hindley was jealous of the love that Heathcliff got from Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley’s father. This is also selfishness upon Hindley’s part since he only wanted his father’s love for his sister and himself. So to reprimand Heathcl...
In the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Heathcliff is an orphan boy brought to Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, who has two children of his own already - Catherine and Hindley. Heathcliff changes over the course of his life by the following; Heathcliff begins by getting along well with Catherine Earnshaw, however, Catherine Earnshaw is introduced to Edgar Linton and Heathcliff becomes jealous of their forming relationship, and once Catherine has passed away after delivering Edgar’s child, Heathcliff becomes haunted by her ghost, and wishes to only be united with her in death.
On the face of it, it would seem that the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff is self-destructive to an extreme. Due to the lovers’ precarious circumstances, passionate personalities and class divisions, it seems that fate transpires to keep them apart and therefore the hopelessness of their situation drives them to self destruction. However, although the relationship is undeniably self-destructive, there are elements within it that suggest the pain Heathcliff and Catherine put each other through is atoned for to an extent when they share their brief moments of harmony.
Heathcliff is a character defined by his sympathetic past. Growing up as an orphan from a tender age, deprived of a structured family and family support system, exposed to the negative influences life offered, it is almost a certainty that his behaviour will not be that of an ideal gentleman.
In Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, the Earnshaws, a middle class family, live at the estate, Wuthering Heights. When Mr. Earnshaw takes a trip to Liverpool, he returns with an orphan whom he christens “Heathcliff”. During their formative years, Catherine, Mr. Earnshaw’s daughter, plays with Heathcliff on the moors and becomes close with him. As a result, they form a special bond and Heathcliff and Catherine fall in love, unlike Hindley, Mr. Earnshaw’s son, who does not get along with Heathcliff. While Heathcliff benefits from his relationships, his connections are disadvantaged in terms of status, reputation, financial stability, and happiness.
Heathcliff's character parallels with the qualities possessed by The Heights; he is depicted as a member of lower class and does not have the qualities necessary to live at Thrushcross Grange. Cold, dark, and...
Heathcliff is characterized “as dark almost as if it [Heathcliff] came from the devil.” (45) Throughout Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff is treated poorly and is mainly a product of a troubled childhood. This man then manifests into a person that is hardly capable of holding back his impetuous actions, and, therefore, exemplifies the capacity of the most powerful emotions. Although he may not be the ideal protagonist, it is ultimately not his fault and in the end is defined by the events in the story. Due to the extreme emotional and physical pain endured throughout his life, Heathcliff exhibits the strongest love and hate towards others through passion and revenge.
In the novel Wuthering Heights, the dark and mysterious Heathcliff once began his life with an open heart, but after mistreatment from Edgar and Hindley he turns to revenge. Heathcliff's actions are reasonable; he has been hurt from the unfair reason of discrimination. Heathcliff slowly becomes sickly obsessed with planning an elaborate revenge after eavesdropping a conversation between his beloved Catherine to Nelly. He hears his young beautiful and idolized Catherine say, “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff” (77). Heathcliff, heartbroken and hopeless, abruptly leaves Wuthering Height for two years. Catherine is left wondering where he is. Heathcliff leaves in search of revenge.
A multitude of feelings and sentiments can move a man to action, but in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, love and revenge are the only two passions powerful enough to compel the primary actors. There is consensus, in the academic community,1 that the primary antagonist in the novel, Heathcliff is largely motivated by a wanton lust for vengeance, and it is obvious from even a cursory reading that Edgar Linton, one of the protagonists, is mostly compelled by a his seemingly endless love for his wife, and it even seems as if this is reflected in the very nature of the characters themselves. For example, Heathcliff is described as “Black-eye[d]” [Brontë,1], “Dark skinned” [Brontë, 3] and a “dirty boy” [Brontë, 32]; obviously, black has sinister connotations, and darkness or uncleanliness in relation to the soul is a common metaphor for evil. On the converse, Edgar Linton is described as blue eyed with a perfect forehead [Brontë, 34] and “soft featured… [with] a figure almost too graceful” [Brontë, 40], which has almost angelic connotations. When these features and the actions of their possessors are taken into account, it becomes clear that Edgar and Heathcliff are not merely motivated by love and revenge as most academics suggest, but rather these two men were intended by Brontë to be love and hate incarnate.