A brief analysis of Heathcliff’s Love and revenge
Abstract
This article mainly introduces three aspects Heathcliff’s love and revenge the causes of Heathcliff’s revenge the results of Heathcliff’s revengeLove melts hatred From which we draw conclusion that love can help man to return to human nature and melt the hatred and hostilities Love will promote humanity and overcome the hatred
Key words love hatred revenge recovery of human nature
简析呼啸山庄中希斯克利夫爱复仇
摘 文容包括三方面 首先介绍希斯克利夫爱复仇 次分析造成希斯克利夫复仇原 介绍希斯克利夫复仇结果爱化解仇恨 通希斯克利夫爱复仇系列分析文章出结 爱帮助回性 化解仇恨 爱提高性战胜仇恨
关键词：爱 仇恨 报复 性回
1 Introduction
Every man dreams of romantic love which is always the most classic topic in human’s life and literature Every man dreams to pursue it in his life time For hundreds of years a great number of writers have written numberless romantic moving love stories Wuthering Heights the greatest novel by Emily Bronte is an extremely perfect story which shows us an immortal love It is perhaps the most uniquely strongest and passionate novel in English literature The impressive relentless and vigorous love arouses implacable emotions in depth of the reader’s heart for more than one century with its ultimate passion infatuation and great miseries
Heathcliff the character of Wuthering Heights shows the extreme love and extreme hatred of humanity The extreme love and extreme hatred mixing together make the novel take on the thick dramatic color Emily Bronte wrote her novel in the late 1840s some years after the climax of the English Romantic Movement The protagonist Heathcliff is deserted by the capitalist society and in the course of protesting and fighting against social forces and class difference becomes a hateful vengeance madman an oppressor and a devil Heathcliff’s hate comes from the setback of his love which drives him to do the savage act of one and another crime He becomes cruel and crazy because of the revenge in the story However in the end when Heathcliff feels that the soul of Catherine comes by him he lost the strength of doing evil He gave up revenge In this way the love has become the end of the hate The hate of him appears to be crazy and inhuman and the love of him is so infatuated imprinting on the bones and inscribe on the memory In this paper I will discuss briefly Heathcliff’s love and revenge analyze the causes of Heathcliff’s revenge and finally reveal that the radical changes inside the heart of heathcliff which includes loverevenge—loverecovery of human nature It shows that though humanity was influenced by the society love could help man to return to the human nature and melt the hatred and hostilities even as obstinate as Heathcliff
2 Heathcliff’s love and revenge
21 Heathcliff’s love
When he is still a child Heathcliff is abandoned in the street of Liverpool Though Earnshaw adopts him and treats him very good he receives cold receptions and is repelled by most of the members of the Earnshaws especially Hindley Meanwhile he is not accepted by the whole society besides the Wuthering Heights (Thrushcross Grange represented the whole outside society) Nobody really cares about him except Earnshaw and Catherine (Nelly calculates half) in the world After the death of Earnshaw Heathcliff is driven out of the sitting room by Hindley turning into a slave He is not only forced to be a coolie but also tormented by the spirit In such disgraceful life only Catherine sympathizes with him and looks after him In their childhood the greatest enjoyment is to go to the moor and play a whole day together and laugh to the punishment which is coming They can imagine a very beautiful paradise and wait quietly together for the hell which Joseph talkes about As long as they are together hell is meaningless for them And the greatest punishment is that Hindley forbids them to play together However two small souls linked tightly and developed some kind of love going beyond sexual and death as well It is as fierce as violent storm and can't be destroyed like primitive vitality
Because Heathcliff comes from low class and is penniless Catherine abandoned him and married Linton who was well matched in social and economic status Heathcliff was still in love with her As far as Heathcliff is concerned the love between Catherine and him is the most critical thing in the world This kind of love has occupied the whole life of Heathcliff After Linton’s marrying with Catherine Heathcliff still comes to Thrushcross Grange and dates with her in desperation When he faces to Catherine Heathcliff is cruel and merciless The relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff represents the deepest human nature at spirit Heathcliff understand that such weakness will reduce the quality of their love and make the life and the death of them turn meaningless Catherine is branded on his memory and becomes the torment to him after she got married Heathcliff finds that he couldn’t forget her as his lives
In chapter sixteen when maidservant Nelly tells the bad news of Catherine’s death to Heathcliff who had already been waiting outside for whole night he cries with frightful vehemence stamping his foot and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion…And I pray one prayerI repeat it till my tongue stiffensCatherine Earnshaw may you not rest as long as I am living You said I kill youhaunt me then The murder does haunt their murderers I believeI know that ghosts have wandered on earth Be with me alwaystake any formdrive me mad Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you Oh god I cannot live without my soul’He dashed his head against the knotted trunk and lifting up his eyes however not like a man but like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears Several outbursts like this clearly display Heathcliff’s love which goes beyond human emotion （**思文1999 2）These romantic tactics of overstating are very touching because the author is not to make readers anxious but spread out enormous grief passion and passionate soul Heathcliff seldom says the word of love to express his emotion to Catherine but his deep love to Catherine never changed from the beginning to the end no matter Catherine is alive or dead
In chapter three of the novel the visiting guest Lockwood lies on the bed of Catherine when he has already died dozing off he saw one child face appear on the window and heard a miserable sound is sobbing Let me in let me in It is twenty years twenty years I have been a wait for twenty years (Emily Bronte 1981 32) The scream of Lockwood has attracted Heathcliff When Lockwood tells the thing in the dream to Heathcliff Heathcliff mounts the bed open the lattice window hard His emotion can't be suppressed at this moment while pushing the window open He bursts out hot tears Come in Come in He sobbed Cathy do come Oh do once more Oh My heart’s darling Hear me this time Catherine at last (Emily Bronte 1981 40) The true feelings of Heathcliff are undoubtedly exposed violent and tenderly His language is simple but full of tenderness The call of him appears only once in novel but we obviously feel that he has called it ten million times In this section the author makes Heathcliff’s love thoroughly by superb artistic means The author tells us this is a dream but we would rather believe this is true Lockwood dozed off but not fell asleep Here now and past dream and reality are combined organically together This window is the line of demarcation of life and death brightness and darkness
There is once Heathcliff talks to Nelly What is not connected with her to me And what does not recall her I cannot look down to this floor but her features are shaped on the flags In every cloud in every treefilling the air at night and caught by glimpses in every object by day I am surrounded with her image The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist and that I have lost her (Emily Bronte 1981 82)
The passionate love of Heathcliff and Catherine is the kind embodiment of his human nature It shakes readers' soul and assaults the author's soul too Just because of this in the last chapter of the novel the author arrange for shepherd boy and Joseph see the ghost of Catherine and Heathcliff go around Wuthering Heights in pairs The lovers who can't legally combine together when they are alive will be together forever after dying Therefore the author is not only sympathizing with Heathcliff’s kindheartedness but also appreciating his love
22 Heathcliff’s revenge
Heathcliff’s revenge not only brings the calamity but also the misfortune to the two families in the novel Because of the inhuman treatment Hindley taking to him and Linton’s seizing his lover Heathcliff’s revenge mainly aims at them Hindley and Linton
Hindley the rightful heir of Wuthering Heights is the first revenge target he bears great responsibilities among the courses twisted the human nature of Heathcliff After the death of Hindley’s wife Heathcliff lures Hindley with the money and makes him develop the bad habit of gambling and then go bankrupt The former host's creditor Heathcliff has achieved the goal of annexing Wuthering Heights Heathcliff realizes his teenager oath at lastrevenge to Hindley
The second revenge target is the owner of the Thrushcross Grange—Linton Heathcliff retaliates against Hindley directly hysterically however he doesn’t treat Linton in the same way As he is anxious about the feeling of Catherine he retaliates against Linton with the premeditated marriage He ignores the opposition of Catherine proposing to the younger sister of LintonIsabella He does not love her at all but for revenge He elopes with Isabella Just going out of Thrushcross Grange he hungs the puppy of Isabella because the puppy bit Catherine when they went to Thrushcross Grange for the first time This shows Heathcliff’s hate is very strong he is sure to retaliate against the person who has ever injures him Even a puppy he even won’t let it off
Besides Isabella Linton and little Catherine are also suffered from the cruel revenge Heathcliff makes bait with his own son little Linton He deceives little Catherine to Wuthering Heights and arrests her under house Heathcliff knows Linton loves his daughter therefore he wants to give another deadly blow to Linton with such a mean He does not allow the request of leaving by little Catherine The person who takes pleasure in other's misfortune says I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable I shall not sleep for satisfaction From this point we can see the inhuman revenge Heathcliff takes towards Linton Even the son and the daughter of his lover become the tool of vengeance
From the above we see Heathcliff adopts the spiritual torment mainly He adopts the son of HindleyHareton makes him sink into the status lower than himself Heathcliff has not damaged the human body of Hareton but poisons his soul and strangles his ability and intelligence when he was a child This makes Hareton become an ignorant rough and impolite person Heathcliff says We’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another with the same wind to twist it (Emily Bronte 1981 183) (Another tree obviously refers to him) He twists a little tree cruelly like this The worse one is the injured person knows no
thing of the whole regarding Heathcliff as the only good friend in the world
To his own son little Linton Heathcliff does not have the feelings of flesh and blood at all He transfers all the hatred from Linton to his own son When Linton is seriously ill Heathcliff threatens and forces him to marry the daughter of Lintonlittle Catherine After the achievement of Heathcliff’s purpose he lets his son die young through not treating once The vengeance plan of Heathcliff does not miss the 16yearold innocent and artless little girl—Catherine the daughter of his lover He uses means of lures cheats threatening and kidnapping etc forcing her to marry his son in critically ill The result of taking these kinds of revenge towards last generation in this way is not only accelerate the death of Linton but also realize his occupation of Thrushcross Grange
3 The causes of Heathcliff’s revenge
31 the capitalist society
When Emily Bronte was writing the novel in 1847 it is the time of turmoil in England Capitalism was developing rapidly and gradually exposing its inner defects Social conflicts become fierce and social reality was complicated and cruel Although Emily Bronte didn’t get involved in any movement the confused sentiments and rebellious spirit of that time had great influence on her In her imaginative terms of art Emily Bronte expresses the abuse of overbearing individualism in the capitalist society in 19th century She created a realistic scene that is unbelievably absolutely distorted and full of anxiety and desperations Emily Bronte believes that a person’s desire for happiness is natural and reasonable But the society has wrongly and unnaturally confines them that it leads to abnormal development of desires The ultimate results change to be ill negative ones and cause certain destruction to the society Heathcliff’s soul has been apparently distorted by such a capitalist society
Environment has a profound effect on one’s character and character is formed during the course of changing environments Undoubtedly money talks is one striking characteristic of the capitalist society Heathcliff lives exactly in such a society where poverty is disgraceful No matter how hard one tries he or she would be abused once they have no money After being continuously insulted and distorted after being understood the cruelty of life and ruthless of society the originally kindhearted Heathcliff changes into a devil So it is not exaggerated to say that environment fosters character Heathcliff’s distortion of human nature is absolutely caused by the environment he lives in
32 Heathcliff’s love to Catherine
Love is the most important thing in cultivating glorious human nature Heathcliff an outcast orphan is poor The Earnshaws adopts him and changes his poor condition Mr Earnshaw and his daughter Catherine’s kind acceptance and concern make him grateful Heathcliff repays them in the best wayopens his heart and accepts others and gradually falls in love with Catherine But not long after life plays a joke on him again After Mr Earnshaw dies Heathcliff is degraded to be a servant he is poor again The difference is that he has Catherine whom he devotes all his love Except that he has nothing even dignity For a person living in such circumstances Catherine is almost all his hope of life However their love does not last long Catherine is restrained by that social conventions and seducement of money and finally decides to marry the master of the GrangeEdgar Although she says My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath a source of little visible delight but necessary(Bronte 2004 p6465) It is difficult to imagine what kind of deep sorrow he must been in When Heathcliff hears Catherine’s saying It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now (Bronte 2004 p63) While overhearing this speech he becomes outraged and runs away from Wuthering Heights While away Heathcliff transforms himself into a gentleman in hopes of getting back Catherine Upon returning to Wuthering heights he discovers that Catherine has married Edgar With Catherine’s betrayal of their love Heathcliff turns all the love in his breast into extreme hatred He has intended to sacrifice his life to the love being ready to live in the shade of Catherine forever (Bronte 2004 p 52) He would even never mind the enslaving and satire of her brother Catherine’s betrayal takes away Heathcliff’s last little love His extreme love reverses into extreme hatred that forms his stronger personalityrough indomitable and ruthless and the plan of revenge grows from that idea of his loss of Catherine
33 Heathcliff’s special character
Napoleon ever remarked that if anyone laughed at his being short he would chop that man’s head down so that others would be as tall as him It is apparent that Heathcliff has similar idea instead of being oppressed he will try his best to fight against the enemies Now that the weather is so miserable the stronger can’t be any happier It is exactly such idea that causes Heathcliff’s extreme hatred erupts like volcano and he becomes a slave of his crazy revenge Though Heathcliff’s is painful he is then distorted His hate is longlasting The loss of his dignity and love because of poverty is so much that it outrages him From the cruel reality which distorts his nature and from the unfair and despising poverty brought about by the abnormal society Heathcliff finally acquires his stubborn tyrannous ruthless and cruel character which eventually makes him to carry out such crazy revenge As the Indian saying goes sow a character and you reap a destiny Now that Heathcliff sows his hatred his cruel character he will reap his tragic fate In fact Heathcliff’s revenge is so fierce that it burns not only others but also he himself
4 The results of Heathcliff’s revengeLove melts hatred
When Heathcliff comes back with power and money he is longing for meeting Catherine However at this time he begins to do an elaborate plan for revenge which comes from the pain of his love He becomes a demon toward every person around him He ruins Hindley [Catherine’s brother] by tricking him and therefore takes possession of
Wuthering Heights He also ends Hareton’s [Hindley’s son] education after Hindley died and then elopes with Isabella [Lintion’s sister] Likewise Heathcliff uses Isabella to revenge Edgar Without Catherine he lost his sense of life Revenge replaces love and becomes the driving force behind his actions However when Heathcliff fulfills his revenge he finds that the primary pleasure is no longer within him Through the continuity of life and the aspirations express in the love of Cathy and Hareton Heathcliff recognizes some of the features of his love for Catherine and the insignificance of revenge and property He begins to give up his revenge wanting only to be with Catherine The humanity of his love arises again love for Catherine eroding his lust for revenge In Heathcliff’s life he sees Catherine’s shadow everywhere He is bound to Catherine They shared one soul longing to become one unit Heathcliff becomes more and more obsessed with the memories of Catherine and begins to talking with her ghost Remembering his climactic night on the moors he feels so happy and anticipates a reunion with her ghost In the end Heathcliff commits suicide His death is a kind of sacrifice to his love which indicates his immutable love for Catherine and a pursuit for the kind of love that if they were unable to live together they would die in the same grave Love finally melts hatred And his giving up the revenge on the next generation before death demonstrates that his innate nature which has but been distorted due to the cruel reality is good Such a discovery of human nature is really a spiritual enhancement which is probably a gleaming of the author’s humanistic ideals
5 Conclusion
Love and revenge are the two main themes of the novel In Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte shows us the tense conflict of love and revenge She indicates the change and integration of the love and revenge In the novel the tragedy of Heathcliff is both the tragedy of love and the tragedy of revenge When Heathcliff was a child in his mind the emotion of love overwhelmed hatred At that time he is a person who is oppressed He loves persistently selflessly Revenge makes Heathcliff cruel and crazy To revenge he wants to adopt any means and is careless about the cost However the love which first makes Heathcliff bears all the ill treatment enables him to give up his revenge in the end From these we can see that the radical changes inside the heart of heathcliff which includes loverevenge—loverecovery of human nature Thus it reveals that love has its tremendous influence on a person’s personality Love can help man to return to the human nature and melt the hatred and hostilities Love will promote humanity and will overcome the hatred
References
[1] Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights [M] Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press 1994
[2] Huang Zhiqiang Studies Characters in Wuthering Heights [J]Journal of Languages and Literature 2007(11)
[3] Hao Mingxing A Lonely Rebell of Brutality and Humanity A Preliminary Discussion on Heathecliff in Wuthering Heights [J]the border economy and culture 2006 (30)
[4] Janet C James Cliffs Notes on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights [M] Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press 1996
[5] Yang Qishen Selection Reading in English Literature[M] **译文出版社 1981
[6] 陈芬 希思克历夫扭曲性格分析 [J] 科教文汇 1992 1（中旬刊）
[7] 孙中明 呼啸山庄中希思克历夫凯瑟琳爱 [J]**师范学院学报 20067（4）
[8] **思文 呼啸山庄旋律：性扭曲回 [J] 外国文学研究 1999 2（4）
[9] 袁娟 希斯克厉夫认识 [J] **学学报 1995（2）
1 [10] 中国社会科学院外国文学研究员 勃郎特特姐妹研究[M] 中国社会科学出版社 1983
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Abstract
This article mainly introduces three aspects Heathcliff’s love and revenge the causes of Heathcliff’s revenge the results of Heathcliff’s revengeLove melts hatred From which we draw conclusion that love can help man to return to human nature and melt the hatred and hostilities Love will promote humanity and overcome the hatred
Key words love hatred revenge recovery of human nature
简析呼啸山庄中希斯克利夫爱复仇
摘 文容包括三方面 首先介绍希斯克利夫爱复仇 次分析造成希斯克利夫复仇原 介绍希斯克利夫复仇结果爱化解仇恨 通希斯克利夫爱复仇系列分析文章出结 爱帮助回性 化解仇恨 爱提高性战胜仇恨
关键词：爱 仇恨 报复 性回
1 Introduction
Every man dreams of romantic love which is always the most classic topic in human’s life and literature Every man dreams to pursue it in his life time For hundreds of years a great number of writers have written numberless romantic moving love stories Wuthering Heights the greatest novel by Emily Bronte is an extremely perfect story which shows us an immortal love It is perhaps the most uniquely strongest and passionate novel in English literature The impressive relentless and vigorous love arouses implacable emotions in depth of the reader’s heart for more than one century with its ultimate passion infatuation and great miseries
Heathcliff the character of Wuthering Heights shows the extreme love and extreme hatred of humanity The extreme love and extreme hatred mixing together make the novel take on the thick dramatic color Emily Bronte wrote her novel in the late 1840s some years after the climax of the English Romantic Movement The protagonist Heathcliff is deserted by the capitalist society and in the course of protesting and fighting against social forces and class difference becomes a hateful vengeance madman an oppressor and a devil Heathcliff’s hate comes from the setback of his love which drives him to do the savage act of one and another crime He becomes cruel and crazy because of the revenge in the story However in the end when Heathcliff feels that the soul of Catherine comes by him he lost the strength of doing evil He gave up revenge In this way the love has become the end of the hate The hate of him appears to be crazy and inhuman and the love of him is so infatuated imprinting on the bones and inscribe on the memory In this paper I will discuss briefly Heathcliff’s love and revenge analyze the causes of Heathcliff’s revenge and finally reveal that the radical changes inside the heart of heathcliff which includes loverevenge—loverecovery of human nature It shows that though humanity was influenced by the society love could help man to return to the human nature and melt the hatred and hostilities even as obstinate as Heathcliff
2 Heathcliff’s love and revenge
21 Heathcliff’s love
When he is still a child Heathcliff is abandoned in the street of Liverpool Though Earnshaw adopts him and treats him very good he receives cold receptions and is repelled by most of the members of the Earnshaws especially Hindley Meanwhile he is not accepted by the whole society besides the Wuthering Heights (Thrushcross Grange represented the whole outside society) Nobody really cares about him except Earnshaw and Catherine (Nelly calculates half) in the world After the death of Earnshaw Heathcliff is driven out of the sitting room by Hindley turning into a slave He is not only forced to be a coolie but also tormented by the spirit In such disgraceful life only Catherine sympathizes with him and looks after him In their childhood the greatest enjoyment is to go to the moor and play a whole day together and laugh to the punishment which is coming They can imagine a very beautiful paradise and wait quietly together for the hell which Joseph talkes about As long as they are together hell is meaningless for them And the greatest punishment is that Hindley forbids them to play together However two small souls linked tightly and developed some kind of love going beyond sexual and death as well It is as fierce as violent storm and can't be destroyed like primitive vitality
Because Heathcliff comes from low class and is penniless Catherine abandoned him and married Linton who was well matched in social and economic status Heathcliff was still in love with her As far as Heathcliff is concerned the love between Catherine and him is the most critical thing in the world This kind of love has occupied the whole life of Heathcliff After Linton’s marrying with Catherine Heathcliff still comes to Thrushcross Grange and dates with her in desperation When he faces to Catherine Heathcliff is cruel and merciless The relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff represents the deepest human nature at spirit Heathcliff understand that such weakness will reduce the quality of their love and make the life and the death of them turn meaningless Catherine is branded on his memory and becomes the torment to him after she got married Heathcliff finds that he couldn’t forget her as his lives
In chapter sixteen when maidservant Nelly tells the bad news of Catherine’s death to Heathcliff who had already been waiting outside for whole night he cries with frightful vehemence stamping his foot and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion…And I pray one prayerI repeat it till my tongue stiffensCatherine Earnshaw may you not rest as long as I am living You said I kill youhaunt me then The murder does haunt their murderers I believeI know that ghosts have wandered on earth Be with me alwaystake any formdrive me mad Only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you Oh god I cannot live without my soul’He dashed his head against the knotted trunk and lifting up his eyes however not like a man but like a savage beast getting goaded to death with knives and spears Several outbursts like this clearly display Heathcliff’s love which goes beyond human emotion （**思文1999 2）These romantic tactics of overstating are very touching because the author is not to make readers anxious but spread out enormous grief passion and passionate soul Heathcliff seldom says the word of love to express his emotion to Catherine but his deep love to Catherine never changed from the beginning to the end no matter Catherine is alive or dead
In chapter three of the novel the visiting guest Lockwood lies on the bed of Catherine when he has already died dozing off he saw one child face appear on the window and heard a miserable sound is sobbing Let me in let me in It is twenty years twenty years I have been a wait for twenty years (Emily Bronte 1981 32) The scream of Lockwood has attracted Heathcliff When Lockwood tells the thing in the dream to Heathcliff Heathcliff mounts the bed open the lattice window hard His emotion can't be suppressed at this moment while pushing the window open He bursts out hot tears Come in Come in He sobbed Cathy do come Oh do once more Oh My heart’s darling Hear me this time Catherine at last (Emily Bronte 1981 40) The true feelings of Heathcliff are undoubtedly exposed violent and tenderly His language is simple but full of tenderness The call of him appears only once in novel but we obviously feel that he has called it ten million times In this section the author makes Heathcliff’s love thoroughly by superb artistic means The author tells us this is a dream but we would rather believe this is true Lockwood dozed off but not fell asleep Here now and past dream and reality are combined organically together This window is the line of demarcation of life and death brightness and darkness
There is once Heathcliff talks to Nelly What is not connected with her to me And what does not recall her I cannot look down to this floor but her features are shaped on the flags In every cloud in every treefilling the air at night and caught by glimpses in every object by day I am surrounded with her image The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist and that I have lost her (Emily Bronte 1981 82)
The passionate love of Heathcliff and Catherine is the kind embodiment of his human nature It shakes readers' soul and assaults the author's soul too Just because of this in the last chapter of the novel the author arrange for shepherd boy and Joseph see the ghost of Catherine and Heathcliff go around Wuthering Heights in pairs The lovers who can't legally combine together when they are alive will be together forever after dying Therefore the author is not only sympathizing with Heathcliff’s kindheartedness but also appreciating his love
22 Heathcliff’s revenge
Heathcliff’s revenge not only brings the calamity but also the misfortune to the two families in the novel Because of the inhuman treatment Hindley taking to him and Linton’s seizing his lover Heathcliff’s revenge mainly aims at them Hindley and Linton
Hindley the rightful heir of Wuthering Heights is the first revenge target he bears great responsibilities among the courses twisted the human nature of Heathcliff After the death of Hindley’s wife Heathcliff lures Hindley with the money and makes him develop the bad habit of gambling and then go bankrupt The former host's creditor Heathcliff has achieved the goal of annexing Wuthering Heights Heathcliff realizes his teenager oath at lastrevenge to Hindley
The second revenge target is the owner of the Thrushcross Grange—Linton Heathcliff retaliates against Hindley directly hysterically however he doesn’t treat Linton in the same way As he is anxious about the feeling of Catherine he retaliates against Linton with the premeditated marriage He ignores the opposition of Catherine proposing to the younger sister of LintonIsabella He does not love her at all but for revenge He elopes with Isabella Just going out of Thrushcross Grange he hungs the puppy of Isabella because the puppy bit Catherine when they went to Thrushcross Grange for the first time This shows Heathcliff’s hate is very strong he is sure to retaliate against the person who has ever injures him Even a puppy he even won’t let it off
Besides Isabella Linton and little Catherine are also suffered from the cruel revenge Heathcliff makes bait with his own son little Linton He deceives little Catherine to Wuthering Heights and arrests her under house Heathcliff knows Linton loves his daughter therefore he wants to give another deadly blow to Linton with such a mean He does not allow the request of leaving by little Catherine The person who takes pleasure in other's misfortune says I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable I shall not sleep for satisfaction From this point we can see the inhuman revenge Heathcliff takes towards Linton Even the son and the daughter of his lover become the tool of vengeance
From the above we see Heathcliff adopts the spiritual torment mainly He adopts the son of HindleyHareton makes him sink into the status lower than himself Heathcliff has not damaged the human body of Hareton but poisons his soul and strangles his ability and intelligence when he was a child This makes Hareton become an ignorant rough and impolite person Heathcliff says We’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another with the same wind to twist it (Emily Bronte 1981 183) (Another tree obviously refers to him) He twists a little tree cruelly like this The worse one is the injured person knows no
thing of the whole regarding Heathcliff as the only good friend in the world
To his own son little Linton Heathcliff does not have the feelings of flesh and blood at all He transfers all the hatred from Linton to his own son When Linton is seriously ill Heathcliff threatens and forces him to marry the daughter of Lintonlittle Catherine After the achievement of Heathcliff’s purpose he lets his son die young through not treating once The vengeance plan of Heathcliff does not miss the 16yearold innocent and artless little girl—Catherine the daughter of his lover He uses means of lures cheats threatening and kidnapping etc forcing her to marry his son in critically ill The result of taking these kinds of revenge towards last generation in this way is not only accelerate the death of Linton but also realize his occupation of Thrushcross Grange
3 The causes of Heathcliff’s revenge
31 the capitalist society
When Emily Bronte was writing the novel in 1847 it is the time of turmoil in England Capitalism was developing rapidly and gradually exposing its inner defects Social conflicts become fierce and social reality was complicated and cruel Although Emily Bronte didn’t get involved in any movement the confused sentiments and rebellious spirit of that time had great influence on her In her imaginative terms of art Emily Bronte expresses the abuse of overbearing individualism in the capitalist society in 19th century She created a realistic scene that is unbelievably absolutely distorted and full of anxiety and desperations Emily Bronte believes that a person’s desire for happiness is natural and reasonable But the society has wrongly and unnaturally confines them that it leads to abnormal development of desires The ultimate results change to be ill negative ones and cause certain destruction to the society Heathcliff’s soul has been apparently distorted by such a capitalist society
Environment has a profound effect on one’s character and character is formed during the course of changing environments Undoubtedly money talks is one striking characteristic of the capitalist society Heathcliff lives exactly in such a society where poverty is disgraceful No matter how hard one tries he or she would be abused once they have no money After being continuously insulted and distorted after being understood the cruelty of life and ruthless of society the originally kindhearted Heathcliff changes into a devil So it is not exaggerated to say that environment fosters character Heathcliff’s distortion of human nature is absolutely caused by the environment he lives in
32 Heathcliff’s love to Catherine
Love is the most important thing in cultivating glorious human nature Heathcliff an outcast orphan is poor The Earnshaws adopts him and changes his poor condition Mr Earnshaw and his daughter Catherine’s kind acceptance and concern make him grateful Heathcliff repays them in the best wayopens his heart and accepts others and gradually falls in love with Catherine But not long after life plays a joke on him again After Mr Earnshaw dies Heathcliff is degraded to be a servant he is poor again The difference is that he has Catherine whom he devotes all his love Except that he has nothing even dignity For a person living in such circumstances Catherine is almost all his hope of life However their love does not last long Catherine is restrained by that social conventions and seducement of money and finally decides to marry the master of the GrangeEdgar Although she says My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath a source of little visible delight but necessary(Bronte 2004 p6465) It is difficult to imagine what kind of deep sorrow he must been in When Heathcliff hears Catherine’s saying It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now (Bronte 2004 p63) While overhearing this speech he becomes outraged and runs away from Wuthering Heights While away Heathcliff transforms himself into a gentleman in hopes of getting back Catherine Upon returning to Wuthering heights he discovers that Catherine has married Edgar With Catherine’s betrayal of their love Heathcliff turns all the love in his breast into extreme hatred He has intended to sacrifice his life to the love being ready to live in the shade of Catherine forever (Bronte 2004 p 52) He would even never mind the enslaving and satire of her brother Catherine’s betrayal takes away Heathcliff’s last little love His extreme love reverses into extreme hatred that forms his stronger personalityrough indomitable and ruthless and the plan of revenge grows from that idea of his loss of Catherine
33 Heathcliff’s special character
Napoleon ever remarked that if anyone laughed at his being short he would chop that man’s head down so that others would be as tall as him It is apparent that Heathcliff has similar idea instead of being oppressed he will try his best to fight against the enemies Now that the weather is so miserable the stronger can’t be any happier It is exactly such idea that causes Heathcliff’s extreme hatred erupts like volcano and he becomes a slave of his crazy revenge Though Heathcliff’s is painful he is then distorted His hate is longlasting The loss of his dignity and love because of poverty is so much that it outrages him From the cruel reality which distorts his nature and from the unfair and despising poverty brought about by the abnormal society Heathcliff finally acquires his stubborn tyrannous ruthless and cruel character which eventually makes him to carry out such crazy revenge As the Indian saying goes sow a character and you reap a destiny Now that Heathcliff sows his hatred his cruel character he will reap his tragic fate In fact Heathcliff’s revenge is so fierce that it burns not only others but also he himself
4 The results of Heathcliff’s revengeLove melts hatred
When Heathcliff comes back with power and money he is longing for meeting Catherine However at this time he begins to do an elaborate plan for revenge which comes from the pain of his love He becomes a demon toward every person around him He ruins Hindley [Catherine’s brother] by tricking him and therefore takes possession of
Wuthering Heights He also ends Hareton’s [Hindley’s son] education after Hindley died and then elopes with Isabella [Lintion’s sister] Likewise Heathcliff uses Isabella to revenge Edgar Without Catherine he lost his sense of life Revenge replaces love and becomes the driving force behind his actions However when Heathcliff fulfills his revenge he finds that the primary pleasure is no longer within him Through the continuity of life and the aspirations express in the love of Cathy and Hareton Heathcliff recognizes some of the features of his love for Catherine and the insignificance of revenge and property He begins to give up his revenge wanting only to be with Catherine The humanity of his love arises again love for Catherine eroding his lust for revenge In Heathcliff’s life he sees Catherine’s shadow everywhere He is bound to Catherine They shared one soul longing to become one unit Heathcliff becomes more and more obsessed with the memories of Catherine and begins to talking with her ghost Remembering his climactic night on the moors he feels so happy and anticipates a reunion with her ghost In the end Heathcliff commits suicide His death is a kind of sacrifice to his love which indicates his immutable love for Catherine and a pursuit for the kind of love that if they were unable to live together they would die in the same grave Love finally melts hatred And his giving up the revenge on the next generation before death demonstrates that his innate nature which has but been distorted due to the cruel reality is good Such a discovery of human nature is really a spiritual enhancement which is probably a gleaming of the author’s humanistic ideals
5 Conclusion
Love and revenge are the two main themes of the novel In Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte shows us the tense conflict of love and revenge She indicates the change and integration of the love and revenge In the novel the tragedy of Heathcliff is both the tragedy of love and the tragedy of revenge When Heathcliff was a child in his mind the emotion of love overwhelmed hatred At that time he is a person who is oppressed He loves persistently selflessly Revenge makes Heathcliff cruel and crazy To revenge he wants to adopt any means and is careless about the cost However the love which first makes Heathcliff bears all the ill treatment enables him to give up his revenge in the end From these we can see that the radical changes inside the heart of heathcliff which includes loverevenge—loverecovery of human nature Thus it reveals that love has its tremendous influence on a person’s personality Love can help man to return to the human nature and melt the hatred and hostilities Love will promote humanity and will overcome the hatred
References
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