Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)

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Heathcliff is the central male character of the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Owing to the novel's enduring fame and popularity, Heathcliff is often regarded as an archetype of the tortured Romantic Byronic hero whose all-consuming passions are powerful enough to destroy both himself and those around him. Heathcliff can also be interpreted as a man reflection of his psychological past.

[edit] Character

Heathcliff — who is not given a full name in the novel aside from 'Heathcliff' (the name comes from a dead child of his adopted father, Mr. Earnshaw) — is characterised as a passionate, dark, brooding and vindictive man who is largely defined by his all-consuming but thwarted love for Catherine Earnshaw, his equally passionate foster sister, and much of the narrative of the novel concerns both their doomed romance and Heathcliff's vengeful reaction to Catherine's betrayal of him in marrying his rival, Edgar Linton. A dark-skinned foundling discovered on the streets of Liverpool and raised by the Earnshaw family of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff's past and early childhood before his adoption is not expanded upon by Brontë; in keeping with the supernatural themes present within the novel, it is speculated at one point that Heathcliff might in fact be a malevolent changeling, and some experts also speculate that Heathcliff could be the illegitimate child of Mr. Earnshaw as this would explain the unusual amount of kindness that he shows to Heathcliff. A sullen and ungracious child, he is initially resented by both Catherine Earnshaw and her elder brother, Hindley; whilst Catherine later warms to Heathcliff and falls in love with him, Hindley continues to resent Heathcliff, seeing him as an interloper who has stolen his father's affection. Upon their father's death and his inheritance of the estate, Hindley proceeds to spitefully treat Heathcliff as little more than a servant boy, thus deepening Heathcliff's resentment towards him, but Catherine remains close to him.

Upon growing up, however, Catherine becomes close to Edgar Linton, a mild-mannered young man from the neighbouring estate of Thrushcross Grange, and accepts his proposal of marriage; she insists that her true and only love, however, is Heathcliff. Unaware of this, Heathcliff bitterly leaves Wuthering Heights upon hearing of Catherine's engagement and, through means unknown, makes his fortune. Upon returning, he is ruthlessly determined to destroy those who had prevented him from being with Catherine; as well as swindling Wuthering Heights away from the now drunken and self-destructive Hindley, he seduces Linton's sister Isabella and marries her, treating her in a cruel and contemptuous fashion, which will also result in him inheriting Thrushcross Grange upon Linton's death. After Catherine's death in childbirth, Heathcliff's vindictive cruelty only intensifies, aimed at destroying not only his enemies but their heirs; Hareton, son of Hindley and his late wife (whose similar death in childbirth destroyed Hindley and reduced him to alcoholism) and Catherine, daughter of Edgar Linton and Catherine the elder. However, Hareton and Catherine, who in some ways mirror the relationship between Heathcliff and the elder Catherine, eventually fall in love, and this manages to break the cycle of hatred, with Heathcliff no longer caring to continue his vendetta. The novel ends with the death of Heathcliff, who has become a broken, tormented man haunted by the ghost of the elder Catherine, next to whom he is buried.