I meant to get to this earlier, but I’ve been sick with a bad cold. So, here is another post on the characters of Wuthering Heights.
Heathcliff: He’s the second most aggravating character in the book for me. He doesn’t bother me as much as Catherine Earnshaw, because I can understand why he turned out the way he did. He was an orphan, probably a beggar, who was taken in by old Mr. Earnshaw–who liked him as much or more than his children. Hindley, Mr. Earnshaw’s son, treated him terribly. But Heathcliff wasn’t sympathetic to me, like other Gothic orphans (viz. Jane Eyre). And he had such a capacity for revenge, really devious revenge. I think he might be one of the first to try to torture people psychologically. And he absolutely warped Hareton Earnshaw (Hindley’s son).
And then there’s his love for Catherine-I understand why he left. But I don’t understand why he loved her. To me, she’s an idiot who had no empathy or concern for the feelings and happiness of others. But when he returned, and found out that Cathy really loved him, why didn’t they just leave? Why did he insist on playing his games with Hindley, Edgar Linton, and their children? Perhaps my lack of understanding and sympathy for these characters comes from Emily Brontë’s choice of narrator. Brontë’ gave the story to the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, for the most part. If she had let us get into Cathy or Heathcliff’s head, maybe I would have enjoyed the story more. Because I just don’t get the love affair between the two leads, the story just doesn’t work for me.
I don’t understand the appeal of Heathcliff, either. He’s called one of the great figures of Romantic literature. But he reminds me of an old joke: if lithium had been used as a medication, there wouldn’t have been a Romantic movement.