Poor Heathcliff, who had no family and was taken away from the ‘streets of Liverpool’ already ‘half dead with fatigue,’ was rejected from the very start. The small companionship, which he seeks in his life by others, was almost pitiful. Also how he shows strength and steadfastness when he had the measels and when Hindley treated him cruelly.
He was Mr. Earnshaw’s favourite child over his own blood which is why Hindley hated him most especially when he saw how not long after his arrival he became his sister’s favourite too. The extreme passion Hindley must have had at being seconded by a stranger in his father’s favor and did not receive the ‘fiddle’ he was expecting on his father’s arrival. Heathcliff gave a step back to civilization to Hindley with his first appearance. He lost a father and a sister to the outsider and was really angry and just tempted for revenge. Therefore he uses the advantage of his father’s death to take control of the household and make Heathcliff pay.
Heathcliff’s dark nature surfaces on how everyone has treated him throughout the novel. It is a well-known fact that people who display a complete disregard for the natural order of human life are people who are often deemed iconic and are thoroughly scrutinized.
He is a miserable character and a ‘wolfish’ individual as Catherine examined.
His early experiences are what molded him into a bitter, angry, vengeful man.
In the beginning no one apart from Catherine and Mr. Earnshaw were so close to him and gave him love, which he could then return.
Mr. Earnshaw got very sick and died leaving him alone with the rest whom didn’t have so much concern on him.
In the beginning Catherine seemed to gain a friend to whom she felt had an affinity physically, spiritually and mentally, which became increasingly evident as the novel progresses. Both of them were the stormiest characters from the heights. She loved him a lot but then abandoned him and broke his heart by marrying Edgar who represents more of the imposed order of society, the conventional and cultivated. He is the kind of person to whom she can depend and rely upon any situation that may arise. That mistaken life path that Catherine chose to take is what I think hurt Heathcliff most. Especially as they had a promise of growing up together us ‘rude as savages,’ and then returns from Thrushcross Grange as a ‘very dignified person.’ The only person whom he loved abandoned him and her true nature completely for someone with wealth, position and ‘fine clothes and flattery.’ It was that tragedy which was when all passion burst forth and all was lost. Having such an obsession towards Catherine, her hasty decision lead to insecurity, rage, jealousy and meanness of character. This division within themselves helps them recognize their need for each other. This endurance of physical, mental and spiritual division whilst alive, allows them only tragically to experience when in death, complete entity within themselves. It was not until the arrival of her death that she willingly admits on how her ‘greatest punishment’ that could be bestowed upon her is the separation from Heathcliff. It is here when she also surrender the truth of her love.
His passion for Catherine involved more than love it was obsession, which solidified more as he reached maturity. As long as they were together, they were happy and nothing else was important to them. The wild energies they had as they run throughout the moors when young were innocent. They were emotionally trapped in their natural habitat- absorbing the savage beauty of the countryside while escaping adult mind games and romantic rules and procedures. They never leave the self-absorption and recklessness of childhood because they are thwarted in their passion just before they become adolescents. They look at each other as a child-like mirror image instead of changing to adult-like confidantes.
He became into a sadistic, violent man who never saw any need to repent. He wanted revenge.
His viciousness encompassed all around him.
I don’t think that passion, which is the result of intense feelings, created his brutality. It his brutality that made his passion an inescapable effect on his emotional life.
To live under the emotional pressure of excess passion burns you out, makes you irrational, steals your life, makes all other you enemy because narcissism is disguised as passion.
Heathcliff’s absence has a profound effect upon the steady decline of Catherine’s physical and mental state of health.
Catherine and Heathcliff need one another to survive as a whole.
Heathcliff hasn’t had a real family, which could love him and take care of him. He was brought to this place poor and as a gypsy. He was not sent to college to get a good education like Hindley and wasn’t able to become part of that higher social class. He has been left out of the real life as the only person who supported and took care of him died. Therefore Heathcliff hasn’t been able to become a civilized person like the Lintons. When he was with Cathy having money and wearing fancy clothes wasn’t necessary therefore when Hindley took control and turned him into a servant he wasn’t as bothered. Everything that was evolving around him was ignored until the Linton’s dogs ‘holds’ Cathy and she returns home a month later sitting above everyone else ‘upon a handsome black pony’ and refrains from touching the dogs just incase they ‘lest they should fawn upon her splendid garments.’
Their misfortunes, willpower and destructive passion are unable to penetrate the eternal love they share.
Heathcliff has never been able to fit into the social conventions of that time and tries the best to do so. When he asks Nelly Dean to make him clean and smart he is laughed at by the Earnshaws and Lintons who were very cruel to him. No one treated him nicely and didn’t seem to care about him. They thought that someone so dark skinned as him and as a gypsy would never be able to be like them. Heathcliff then reached the point where he has had it and eventually disappears for three years to change his own life and win Catherine over with his successes. Doing this he also proves everyone wrong as the dark skinned gypsy could be a gentleman in dress and having manners. From the day he arrived he chose to fight a battle that no one would attempt to begin all because how he was maltreated by everyone.
Heathcliff has been lead to treat people with contempt and behaves antisocially.
He is merciless in destroying their lives as no one ever loved him and besides, they destroyed his. So now he is diabolical in exacting punishment on those who have harmed him.
It must be assumed that his obsession with Catherine, yearning to be with her, and his longing for death was what ultimately killed him. It is amazing to see how love and the social conventions that seemed to be so important in those times lead Heathcliff to become such a madman having wild moods and unpredictable actions.